High School is a strange time for everybody. It’s our first true test of our identity and our first set of challenges where we start to figure out what it is we wish for our life and our journey we have to take to get there. We go through our first loves, first heartbreaks, grow out of our childhood friendships, make new discoveries, and make memories that we will tell to our kids and grandkids for the next few decades.
High School gives us structure and routine which we learn to work in our daily lives. Homework and classwork shows us the importance of work ethic. While it doesn’t tell our whole story, it is a very notable chapter in our book of life.
Quentin Strait, who goes by his stage name, 88STRAIT, has been making a lot of waves recently here in the local Reno scene. The name 88STRAIT came from the significance of 88 being an angel number that supports joy, happiness, wealth and blessings.
He is a senior at Reno High School and has faced many challenges throughout his seventeen years on this Earth. He currently works long hours at Cane’s while maintaining a 2.9 GPA, and trying to find anytime he can to focus on music. Wednesdays are his only true day off.
“I’m really just a kid making music,” he said during a recent interview. “I’ve been doing this for five years now. I’m a singer, songwriter, producer, and audio engineer. I kind of produce all my own stuff. I really enjoy making music.”
“Most of the time when I’m recording songs, I’ll do it just because I’m feeling really sad,” 88 said. “That was originally why I started making music because I was sad. I needed an outlet and it just turned into something crazy. A lot of my songs are sad so I just kind of record my thoughts into that.” Photo by Ashton Hlade with permission to use.
After stretches of intense sadness that led to musical creation but also started to seem abnormal, 88 felt something wasn’t right.
“Yeah, I go through a lot of mental health issues,” 88 said. “I’ve been going to therapy for like nine months now. Nine months ago is when I really started to open up to people about it, I’ve been suffering for at least four to five years. I’ve disregarded it or just didn’t see it fully and how bad it was affecting me until last spring when I was overworking myself. I was working like 45 hours a week with school. And just throwing a girlfriend in the mix... I pretty much had a week-long mental breakdown. Deep personalization and deep realization, it was just that constantly. Constant panic attacks and like crying at random times. It was getting so bad and I was having breakdowns at school constantly.”
One day he had a breakdown in class and rushed to the bathroom. When he got back to the classroom the teacher asked if he was ok, but 88 started breaking down crying to him. The teacher suggested that he should talk to a counselor. 88 said recent therapy sessions have helped, but his mental health is still pretty bad. He sees slight improvement which he is grateful for.
“I’m starting to see improvements even if it’s only at certain times,” 88 said. “Certain times are worse than others. Music has been definitely helping me a lot. Without it, I don’t even think I’d be right now honestly.”
88 just dropped off a new EP and one of the songs on it is called, “I Know You’re Bad For Me”. He says he has been sitting on the song for a while and was waiting for the right time to release it. On Feb. 25th, 88 released a five song EP titled, “Text Me When You Hear This”. Photo of EP cover by Ashton Hlade with permission to use.
88STRAIT performed for the first time in December at the Holland Project. He had been trying to get booked there for a while, and was ecstatic when he finally got a booking there. A lot of nerves and stress started to arise as the show date was coming up. It was his first performance so of course the butterflies in his stomach felt like they were going to rip through his stomach tissue. However, once he got a couple songs in, he started to feel really comfortable on stage and his nerves disappeared. He loved the way people who had never heard his music were really vibing with it. After the show, he said the adrenaline rush was crazy. He loved interacting with the crowd after the show with people who hadn’t heard his music before and listening to how they thought of the show.
88 creates very complex sonic structures that you don’t hear emulated very often. The production on his songs are very experimental and almost hypnotic. You would think the process would be very challenging for him, but it actually comes very authentically
“Honestly it just comes very naturally to me,” 88 said. “I definitely put a lot of thought into my music, and the vibe and energy of it. For the most part, I don’t want to say I don’t think about it too much, but it just comes very naturally to me. When I’m creating something I try to envision it with other genres. I really incorporate a lot of different genres into my music.”
He includes genres such as edm, hyperpop, emo-rap, trap, dubstep, drum and bass, etc. Whatever comes to his mind. He shared with me that he recently made a emo-rap, hyperpop and drill song. He showed it to one of his friends and they said it was unlike anything they had ever heard before.
“This EP is completely inspired by my sadness and what I have to go through on a daily basis and you know my past realtionships,” 88 said of his published work released last month. “It’s completely self-produced and I was in some pretty dark places when I wrote all these songs. The fifth track specifically it’s called ‘Lifes a GIft’ and I wrote that in November and I was at a point in my life where it felt like nothing good could happen and everything that could happen, happened in the worst way possible and I was getting so tired of it. I didn’t really know how to cope with it other than just making a song about it… The title of it, ‘Life’s a Gift’ is pretty ironic because at this time it didn’t feel like life was a gift it felt like life was just a burden and just a hell, just a prison. It’s some of my best work, definitely check it out because those songs are going to make you feel things you probably haven’t felt before.”
88 currently has over 11k monthly listeners on Spotify and doesn’t have any plans on stopping soon. His main goal is to make a living off music and then it’s only up from there for him. He can’t wait to perform again. His current goal once he graduates is to take a full gap year and focus all his attention on really blowing up in musical terms.