The DJ Takeover sponsored by Level Up is a program for listeners to discover their favorite artist's favorite artists, working to foster connection to the music and makers inside and outside our city. For the entire hour, we go down the rabbit hole of stories from their past, experiences of the present and goals for the future.
Fred Steinmetz was raised in Kenosha and moved to Madison before starting to call Milwaukee home two years ago. His artistry has flourished since then — playing headlining shows, growing a group of other musical collaborators and bringing forward a new full-length album under the name FTBK (Fred the Black Kid).
When we sat down together in the studio, I asked how this medium of self-expression became organized under FTBK. “I’m adopted,” Steinmetz explained. “So having two white parents growing up, it was like an identity crisis going on inside myself … living in a white world and having that identity of, ‘You’re not Black because you have two white parents.’”
By the time Steinmetz shared his music with the world — including new record This Is Not a Mask — he was ready to redefine those claims. “I was like, ‘You know what? I am Black. I am who I am, and I might not be the mold for what your whiteness thinks it is, but this is who I am.”
In other words, Steinmetz reclaims his identity as FTBK, as himself.
As crises go, the identity variety is particularly difficult. When the outside perspective is both the crux and the antidote to this problem, how does one really pin down who they are to the world? To themselves? Steinmetz’s answer: surrounding oneself with the right perspectives. But how did he move through this challenge?
“My friends. They’re everything to me,” he said. “And [it helped] being around other Black people later in life. The world isn’t what it seems until you get outside of your own box. I just had to do that. Once I met people who accepted me for me, there was no problem in being different from what everyone wants you to be.”
It doesn’t hurt that Steinmetz’s friends are more musically inclined than the average 20-something individual. He lives with fellow Milwaukee producers The Hagen Brothers, which he calls his “pending family.” Similarly, fellow city artist Duwayne and FTBK enable each other to be better musicians by finding the courage to share increasingly authentic work.
More generally, Steinmetz appreciates when others share their world with him. He and his friends find themselves taking pieces from each other's process to build a bigger and better universe of what’s possible in their creative projects. FTBK has proved that through his craft, the support of friends and the nature of Milwaukee artists raising each other up.
With all of that guiding him, he’s found his way back to himself.
DJ Takeover: FTBK playlist
- *aya & FTBK, “Luv 2 Hate”
- Jean Dawson, “Pirate Radio”
- 070 Shake, “Web”
- Geese, “I See Myself”
- Dijon, “Many Times”
- Aminè, “Images (ft. 454 & Toro y Moi)”
- Kendrick Lamar, “Luther (ft. SZA)”
- Matt Champion, “Aphid”
- Jean Dawson, “Houston”
Your next chance to see FTBK live is at The Burlington in Chicago on Dec. 5.
