CREATIVE COUNTS VOLUME 8
Across the worlds of art, entertainment, fashion, business and technology we’ve seen first hand the power of creative thinking to define the future.
Throughout our work with industry leading minds we’ve noticed three key themes have formed the basis of our approach to every partnership — culture, curation & collaboration.
This series explores these themes with the people we admire most through a set of playful exercises.
For our eighth volume of Creative Counts, we spoke to Nick Lee. Nick is a Chinese- and Japanese-American record producer, songwriter, composer and trombonist. Nick’s musical background spans from classical piano to classical and jazz trombone, the latter of which he studied at The Juilliard School in New York.
Nick has garnered two GRAMMY nominations and multi-platinum certifications for his work on 2021’s breakout hit “INDUSTRY BABY” by Lil Nas X featuring Jack Harlow, which he co-produced alongside Take A Daytrip and Kanye West. Nick has broken ground as an Asian-American producer on a global scale, lending his sound to both American and international stars like Megan Thee Stallion, JJ Lin, Dillon Francis, and more. Recently he’s segued into scoring for TV and film for networks such as NBC and FOX.
THE WRAP
After sending us the Creative Counts worksheets, we had a few follow up questions for Nick:
You had listed “Taste” as one of the creative qualities you admire most. Where do you think taste comes from?
This is a hard question to answer. I think taste mostly comes innately, but I also believe that taste is acquired and can be learned. I think it heavily depends on what type of environments we’re exposed to.
Could you unpack your illustration of what collaboration means to you?
My illustration of collaboration basically describes the evolution of an idea throughout a collaborative creative process. An idea can start one way, then someone else can morph it into something completely different. I love hearing how each person I work with has a different creative and musical interpretation of an idea.
What question or part of the exercise did you enjoy the most?
My favorite part was the collaboration illustration.
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