What’s your stage name and where are you from?

Calhan Pthalo. I am from Warsaw, Indiana.

What’s the story behind your stage name?

It is a combination of my middle name “Calhan” and the color Pthalo, which is a blue green turquoise kind of color. I used to go by the stage name “Cosmick” in my beginning years but felt I needed to have a name that better reflected the direction I developed my music into, with the name change being back in 2022. The name is also a slight nod to Slauson Malone and Navy Blue, two of my inspirations.

Describe your musical journey in three sentences.

I began writing when I was 14 in high school after a couple of my buddies who rapped told me they could see my twin brother and I doing the same thing. I then spent many years developing my writing and production style and creating as much as inspiration would hit me. I became a founding member of the groups Collective Conscious and Misfit’s Garden, both originating in my home town of Warsaw.

Share an interesting experience you had while creating your latest track.

For the outro on my latest album Hands [Leaps] Inbound called “Familiar”, I was up late crate digging when I came across the sample. I flipped it and immediately wrote the first verse and recorded it in one take, with me adding the second verse and my girlfriend adding on the hook she wrote afterwards. The whole thing happened in a very stream of conscious kind of way where it all was created very effortlessly. Sometimes an idea is floating out there and if you happen to be the one to grasp it in the right moment then you can really create something special, and this track felt like one of those moments. It puts a huge smile on my face every time I hear that beat play at the start of the track.

What message do you want to convey through your music?

Music has always been a huge part of my life and the artists that I’ve come to love over the years have made music that has been there with me through my best and worst times, with uncountable memories in between. I want to be able to further create those kind of associations and memories for others, and to give back to the art form and community that has inspired me so greatly and I have so much love for. Music has the power to uplift and is a powerful shared experience, and at the end of the day that’s what it’s all about.

Tell us about a challenge you faced during production and how you overcame it.

Early on in with my music my brother and I always would freestyle and write to whatever type beats we liked on YouTube, and while that was great in the beginning, we felt that we were always one degree of separation away from the sounds we wanted to cultivate since we had to find them instead of creating them. That led to us both learning to make beats and we have been producing our own music ever since.

If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be and why?

It’s hard to nail down to just one so I would say either MIKE, Earl Sweatshirt, or MAVI. Their music has been a huge inspiration for me and it would be an honor to work with them, I feel like our styles and sounds would compliment each other well.

Where do you see your music taking you in the next year?

My brother (he goes by the stage name “murphy.”) and I are looking to drop our first album featuring both of us this year, called “Twinners”, which I hope will find the right ears and help us connect with many more people than we have been with the music. The Misfit’s Garden collective has also been cultivating an album, with the music there being a genre blend of rap and alternative that has really developed my music in ways that I didn’t anticipate. We are looking forward to sharing that this year as well. Beyond that we are planning some big shows around Indiana and potentially one in California so I am looking forward to performing as much as possible and connecting with more people through the live medium.

What’s the next big step for you as an artist?

Connecting with an audience on a mass scale and continue to share the art on a larger platform through more music, shows, and even tours.

Where can we hear/watch your most recent work?

My music is on all streaming platforms under Calhan Pthalo. My most recent album is “Hands [Leaps] Inbound”. There is also a visualizer for the album on the Misfit’s Garden YouTube channel.