ONCE MESMERIZED BY THE TURNTABLE, DJ AND PRODUCER WEEZMATIC NOW USES HIS BEATS TO SHARE THE POWER OF CREATIVITY WITH HIS DAUGHTERS.

The concept of permanence is important to Aaron Aquino. When the bubbly solo beatmaker and miner of controlled chaos for the DJ-production collective the Bangerz creates nowadays, he hopes his grandkids, yet to be born, will someday hear his music with a sense of pride.

In person, he’s all laughs, light-hearted and transparent in a way that shares the fruits of a long journey of self-reflection and acceptance. He admits to being walled off in his early years, unable to carry much emotion in the aftermath of losing his father at age six. His heart started to soften in 2014, when he found out he was going to become a father.

“I [thought] ‘Dang, I’ve got to be this dad that I didn’t get to experience,’ ” he recalls. “I’ve got to train them up to be a warrior in this crazy world. How am I going to do that? I’ve got to work on myself,” he continues.

Through that process, he developed his own appreciation for the healing power that music and creativity played in his life. As it stands, the father of two isn’t just making beats for fun anymore. He’s now offering a roadmap through his example.

His creative touch pairs hip-hop sensibility with the relentless push for innovation he picked up in the turntablism scene. But he’s also got a few surprising dashes of influence. He enjoys the in-yourface aggression of heavy metal that his older cousin introduced him to through the sounds of mainstays like Metallica and Slayer as they drove around in his cousin’s Jeep Cherokee. In later years, he was attracted to the electronic experimentalism of producers like Squarepusher and Aphex Twin.

These influences mingle seamlessly in his sonic palette: raw drums, metallic cymbal strokes, punchy bass kicks, jagged audio cuts. A fan of surprise twists, he makes his beats feature abrupt, half-time tempo shifts and mid-song musical re-imaginings, his drum patterns and melodies suddenly flipping into new musical contexts.

At age nine, he remembers being mesmerized by a four-track cassette mix his older brother brought home. The collage of layered

“I made 86 Mongoose because I found riding a bike was my meditative state. Riding that cool bike was my equivalent to [Dr.] Dre’s ’64 Impala, or Ice Cube in the It Was a Good Day video.” sounds blew his mind. He had no idea how it was assembled. At a house party later that year, when his brother’s friends hauled speakers and turntables into his garage, he learned that records could manipulate sound just like he heard on that cassette. Video games fell out of favor; now all he wanted to do was scratch .

In October 1998, Aquino and five other aspiring DJs formed the Fingerbangerz (now the Bangerz) at fellow member Cutso’s 17th birthday party. They gained acclaim in the world of turntablism, being crowned DMC Regional Champions in 2001 and ITF Western Hemisphere Team Champions in 2000. In more recent years, the group has earned international recognition as the musical bedrock for the hip-hop dance crew the Jabbawockeez. They’ve soundtracked every show the group has performed on the Las Vegas Strip. Though the Bangerz are no longer actively performing, Aquino has become one of the group’s standout solo forces, dropping a remix EP and digital singles. In early 2022, he released 86 Mongoose through Needle to the Groove Records. “I made 86 Mongoose because I found riding a bike was my meditative state,” he says of the album, a collection of spacious tracks that evoke slow momentum. “Riding that cool bike was my equivalent to [Dr.] Dre’s ’64 Impala , or Ice Cube in the It Was a Good Day video,” he shares. Kanye West’s Yeezus was in rotation at the time, adding to the post-apocalyptic feel of a COVID-shuttered world as he traced skid marks in the Great Mall parking lot. He’d go home and work on beats after these sessions of quiet re - flection and began sharing ideas with longtime friend Rey Res, a rapper and fellow producer who became a sound- ing board. The two met every Friday to talk through beat selection, track changes, and art direction, thoughtfully whittling drafts into the 17-minute final product.

He laughs, “I don’t [express myself] by calling my homie and saying ‘Hey, I’m feeling like this.’ ” He contin- ues, “I’m glad I have music to put that down somewhere, because if they don’t know where to put it, it consumes some people.”

Since rediscovering the critical space music occupies in his life, he’s been careful to keep it as a regular outlet. As a father of two, his time to create is more limited. That’s also made those sessions feel that much more significant.

“We try to show them both [ways], where there’s the traditional route of doing things, but if you work really hard and you’re passionate about something, and you totally believe in it and believe in yourself, it could flower into something great, no matter how weird,” he says. He continues, saying that he is “making projects with a purpose of legacy” to show his kids “that Dad never stopped doing art and that it’s an okay thing to do.” C