The Mix 020: Floorplan

If you’re climbing a mountain, or if you’re going through an experience that is centred around adversity, then often you will grow and change. I wondered if you might be able to reflect on the process of making the album and identify how you’ve grown?

R: Personally myself, and I think I can speak for my wife and for Lyric as well, it’s trusting God. God never ceases to amaze us. At the moment, we’re well connected to God, He sticks closer than a friend. But there are times where we don’t necessarily feel God’s presence. Those tests will cause us to say, “Where are you, God?” In the middle of all of this – in our health, in travelling, in our state of mind, our peace, our wellbeing, mental wellbeing. Sometimes it seemed like this might be our last endeavour, but God reassured us that “I am always here”. So that took us to another level of trust in our faith, I believe and we needed that.

L: It has inspired us to keep going and to keep moving and keep working – and to want to improve ourselves and our music as well. And believe that God is working in our favour.

R: Last year, I remember that we had ‘Keep On Movin’’ by Soul II Soul stuck in our head and that became our mantra. Eternal classic. I love Jazzie B and that whole collective man. It was an amazing time. I remember that being such a progressive song, as a Detroiter.

There are a lot of people out there that don’t have a connection to God, maybe they’re atheist, or simply don’t care. But the general themes of like hope, optimism, love connection, even exorcising your demons, releasing emotions, are universal themes. So if you’re someone that has an aversion to religion, which some people out there do, I don’t think it really matters, because it’s the impact of the music, the vibration of the music and the messages. These are all things that are relevant to the human experience.

L: Every time we finish our DJ sets, and we’re ready to leave, and there’s always somebody that comes up to us and says, “This set has changed me” or “the set has given me life”. We know that not everybody is in church, or has the same religion that we represent and we understand that. Our goal is to get the message through anyway, in any way we can.

R: What you said about the sound and the vibration… We experience all types of emotions, and that’s the soul. The soul houses the mind, the will and the emotions and the things that we feel anger, for sure – and love, joy, happiness.. You can’t see those things, you can’t touch them. The same with spiritual things, you can’t touch those either, but they’re real. You can’t touch a melody, but you can feel it, you can hear it, you can’t lay hands on it, but you feel the vibration, like you said. That’s what the gospel sound is – vibration. Rock music is vibration, reggae is vibration. Some music is derogative, some is delightful. Some of it is angry. There’s a myriad of emotions that resonate from sound. But the gospel sound is good for your heart, it’s good for your soul. They say that, pleasant music, like opera, classical music, and just happy music, you could play that to a cell and it will respond either in an adverse way to it or in a good way, depending on the vibration. So that’s what we try to send out – God vibrations. The world needs it, especially in these times, war with Ukraine and Russia, and what’s happening in Gaza with Israel and all of that. People need this.

You must have a heart of stone if you can’t experience gospel and feel some positivity because it’s just absolutely abundant with positive vibrations.

R: The Gospel sound is the most powerful in the universe. It’s just a pleasure for us. It’s such a privilege for us to have this opportunity to spread this message of God’s love and that’s what it’s all about. It’s not just for me, but it’s for all mankind.

Read this next: Supernatural creature: Robert Hood is the techno pioneer who refuses to slow down

On the subject of ‘Keep On Moving’ as a mantra, what is coming up next?

L: We’re getting ready to go on tour and still in the studio daily working on random things. I’m working on some solo projects and things, releasing some new music, and my dad has as well. There are some Floorplan tracks that have got us thinking, “What if we did part two?”, because they still fit the theme.

R: We’re still praying, trying to figure out what the next step is and we just don’t know. We’ll just keep on moving. We’re still in the studio. From that momentum, it’s just hard to slow down.

What does it mean to you to be able to work together as a family unit, the three of you? It was already such a beautiful to see you working as father and daughter, and now having Mrs. Hood involved too…

R: It is a high that I cannot explain. The three of us are very creative and we’re constantly talking about ideas, whether it be in music or art. And my wife has a theatrical, dramatic, artistic background. She is a creative force. When Lyric was a baby, it crossed our minds, “What if”, and so, when it started to happen and take shape, it was just like, “Wow”. We started to really see the possibilities, and the vision that, collectively, we had for Lyric joining me with Floorplan. It’s still amazing to all of us that this is actually happening.

L: I was going to add that, when we were working on the intro for the album, all three of us came together to discuss what kind of intro we were going to have for the album. Once we came up with that idea of a radio style type of introduction… My mom has a perfect voice for that. So she wrote out her lines for it and it was absolutely perfect. It sounded exactly the way we wanted.

R: I know I’m constantly quoting scriptures, but the scripture says that, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I also in the midst of them.” You ever see a crowd at a football game, where they do a wave in unison… When we’re on one chord, that’s what will happen with the Holy Spirit.

Can you tell us about your instalment of The Mix?

L: We are honoured and grateful to be able to deliver a message through this album and this mix, the message is that God has a plan for all of us. This album is a gift from us to the world.

‘The Master’s Plan’ is out now via Classic Music Company, get it here

Marcus Barnes is a freelance writer and regular contributor to Mixmag, follow him on Instagram