Valentino Khan Drops Blog House EP ‘French Fried’

Today, critically-acclaimed DJ and producer Valentino Khan released his French Fried EP. The four-track body of work draws inspiration from the blog house era of dance music while still showcasing Khan’s signature style. 

The lead track “Blackmail” combines heavy bass house with melodic overtones, while “Deathproof” utilizes hard-hitting drums. Ethereal synths build up to a heavy bass backdrop on “Division,” while “Everybodysgonnawannadancewithme” showcases a catchy lyric that leads into a bass house drop made for the dance floor. Khan notes that French Fried takes inspiration from his formative years listening to French electro.

“I wanted to touch on my early influences because I was getting kind of bored, especially right now when everyone is just locked up at home,” Khan says. “I think for a lot of people it might be difficult for them to gain inspiration, but I always fashion myself as a producer first, so I just started listening to stuff that I personally loved and was my first love when I got into dance music. From there on out, I wanted to make things that touched a bit of those influences, but I didn’t want to just do it for pure nostalgia sake. I still wanted it to sound like me and like my sound. I feel like I’m a pretty versatile producer where I can hop around from sound to sound, and thankfully my fans understand that and roll with it.” 

The Los Angeles-based artist says he was introduced to dance music in 2007 when he walked by his brother’s room and heard him playing “Waters of Nazareth” by Justice. He recalls asking his brother what he was listening to, and he explained it was music by French electro producers. Khan asked his brother to give him the song, and from there he started listening to and diving into dance music. “That always holds a special place in my heart because that was the beginnings of things for me,” he says. 

The “Deep Down Low” producer adds that his brother even helped him in his early days of producing by providing feedback on his work. “I would actually show him attempts at making dance music at the time. And he’d be like ‘eh, that’s kind of it, but it’s not really. You don’t really understand the structure yet.’ And I just didn’t understand,” Khan says. “Once I finally wrapped my head around that, I started to make headway.”

Since then, Khan has continued to hone his craft and fine-tune his sound, leading him to become a renowned name within the dance music world. He boasts an illustrious career to date, having produced records for Grammy-winning artists and performed at acclaimed festivals, such as Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas and Ultra Music Festival. His versatility as a producer has granted him production credits for Lil Pump, French Montana, 2 Chainz, T.I and Dizzee Rascal, while also garnering the attention of his dance music peers, landing him collaborations with artists including Major Lazer, Skrillex and Diplo.

When it comes to the heavyweight producer’s creative process, Khan says his inspiration can stem from anything from a vocal to a synth line. “From there, I think the most important thing is to be able to see the general vision of how you want that song to end up sounding like,” he says. “I think some of my best stuff, personally, has come when I’m just in the flow and I already know how to get from A to Z. I just have to go out there and execute it, basically.” 

Looking back to when he first started making music, Khan says if he were to give himself one piece of advice it would be to be patient, set realistic goals and be persistent. 

“I would probably tell myself that persistence and patience is sometimes 95% of the battle,” he says. “It comes to even production when sometimes there’s a sound I want to achieve in my head but I don’t know how to get there perfectly. But you got to put in your hours. You got to put in the work. It’s no different than any other job—it’s just a very unique, weird job that doesn’t have many rules or restrictions.” 

Learn more about Valentino Khan here.