Music has always been an important part of junior Sterling Gourdine’s life. Known to his listeners as Regional Overlord Sterling Silver, he creates alternative hip-hop music inspired by lofi beats.
For Gourdine, his music-making journey started when he began listening to music people created on YouTube.
“Music has always been a passion of mine, mostly listening to it,” Gourdine said. “One day, I was listening to beats people made on YouTube and I was like, okay I can do this.”
From there, he got a hold of his own music software, and has been producing music ever since.
Not only is his stage name an acronym of Gourdine’s middle name, Ross, it also pays homage to one of his favorite rappers.
“When I made the name, I had been producing for about a year and I wanted to work with some of my friends. When we would run track for cross country together, we would start freestyling,” Gourdine said. “At the time, I was listening to a lot of MF DOOM, and I liked his supervillain motif. I thought it was interesting, but I didn’t want to steal the name. So, I created my own name that sounds memorable but also relates to me.”
Gourdine describes his music as “very loud and playful” and emphasizes harmonic sounds. Although his music was originally inspired by beats heard on “StudyTube” channels (YouTube channels focused on study music such as Lofi Girl), once he began creating his own music, he drew inspiration from many underground rappers as well.
“When I started uploading my own music on Soundcloud and Bandcamp, I discovered a lot of underground artists and producers, and I take a lot of inspiration from them,” Gourdine said.
Regional Overlord Sterling Silver’s latest song, “Sign I,” was released March 19. This song is part of a project Gourdine has been working on which should be out in the upcoming weeks.
“All the projects I work on deal with growth in some capacity,” Gourdine said. “This project started around the idea of being older than I was and dealing with all of the life changes that come with everything that’s happened to me. ‘Sign I’ is about looking out for yourself and getting rid of things you don’t need to waste time and energy on.”
Looking forward to the future, when he’s not studying for the LSAT, he plans on making more music and collaborating with some of his friends.
“Usually with music, I make stuff and then if I feel capable of making a project, I get started on it,” Gourdine said. “The music just comes to me when it comes.”
You can find Regional Overlord Sterling Silver on Spotify and Instagram to stay up to date with his latest releases and listen to his music.
