Wilsonville High School is home to many upcoming artists, including music producer Barbod Nohpari, known as BARBAD on media platforms. With a compelling personal background, he has created his unique sound, starting with his first EP, Grocery Shopping, to his latest project, PART 1.
Barbod Nohpari was born and raised in Tehran, Iran, and spent a few years living in Kish Island. In Iran, access to most American music was banned, which sparked his interest in American music. Nohpari reminisces, “You couldn’t buy vinyl and CDs from proper stores, and radio didn’t play 50 Cent or Justin Timberlake.”
The main way Nohpari listened to music was through his PlayStation, using GTA San Andreas as a big source. He states, “I grabbed a car, and I just spent hours and hours listening to the radio on GTA.” He was exposed to old rock, classic 90s funk, and RNB music through doing this.
While he enjoyed many miscellaneous genres, what caught his attention were G Funk and Dr. Dre due to their spacy beats and sine wave synths, whose samples both originate from the ’70s and ’80s. He connected with these beats because of his love for psychedelic rock.
After growing up hearing these hip hop artists that use these complex sampling techniques, Nohpari became interested in MF DOOM and Madlib, specifically Madvilliany and Quasimoto, which are side projects of these corresponding artists.
These artists’ heavy use of samples from older rock songs and cartoons sparked his interest in finding interesting samples. Barbod collected samples for many years, and this gave him a good baseline for beat-making.
In 2020 during the Covid-19 Pandemic, Nohpari initially messed around with GarageBand. During this time, he saved up money and invested in airline stocks because they were down in America.
After these restrictions were lifted, he used this money to buy more advanced equipment to make better-quality music. Using the samples he collected over the years, he made around four songs per day for five months straight.
In March 2021, Barbod released his first EP, Grocery Shopping, and has since released three more EPs and three albums, SAFFRONEYEZED, BLESS*, 16! EP., The Pool is Too Big / Beware of Sharks, and PART 1. Check out Barbod’s music here – https://barbad.bandcamp.com/