What does it mean to chase your dreams? To put work into your passions?

Farhan Sreejan’23 and Daniel Loyola are two teenagers – two friends – hundreds of miles apart. Yet they come together every week to indulge in their passions. They are the co-producers of a music podcast called ‘Run the Record.’ 

When I got on a call with them, I instantly felt their camaraderie through the screen. As I continued to ask questions, the interview quickly turned into a conversation. We spent several days talking about their love for music, diverging occasionally to talk about the podcast. 

In a conversation much like other ones, Sreejan and Loyola argue in a playful manner. 

“Daniel, no, no, he does not get to interrupt until I’m finished,” Sreejan said. 

“Didn’t you just tell me to start interrupting you?” Loyola bursts out laughing at a previously made joke. 

“Daniel got on a Discord server for a rap collective. I was one of the admins, the one who was running the whole shebang. The [server] eventually fizzled out.”

“Because they were trash,” Loyola says, rolling his eyes. 

“I asked if anyone wanted to start a podcast. And Daniel reached out and I wondered, hmm, how do I know this guy is legit? So, I asked him the most obscure questions ever,” Sreejan continued. 

Loyola interrupts him. “So the thing was, one day I was scrolling down my TikTok timeline thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, it would be so nice if I had other music things to work with, instead of just being alone all the time in Canada, doing nothing with my life.” 

We laugh and Sreejan shakes his head. For context, Loyola plays many instruments and samples beats in his free time. He is a young producer, looking for new collaborations while working on his own music. 

He continues, “And I came across this ad for the discord server, and I said to myself ‘why not?’ I join it and start giving them my beats. Some of the guys were horrible. They wanted me to change my work, and I was adamant that ‘I’m not changing my music for you.’ Then, Farhan reached out, and said ‘I want people with diverse music tastes to come do a podcast with me’, so I applied. I hit him up and he reviewed my Spotify and he said, ‘Wow your taste is so much better than mine.’”

“YOU said that. It was the EXACT opposite!” Sreejan bellows and bursts out laughing. 

Loyola shakes his head, “No, no. He said, ‘Oh my gosh! I love your style, I love your taste…” 

Sreejan interrupts, “DID YOU EVEN…” 

“Anyways,” Loyola cuts him off and rolls his eyes amusingly. “He said, ‘Let’s do the podcast.’ And that’s how it started.”

One conversation with these two friends is a perfect look into what a regular episode of ‘Run the Record’ looks like. It’s a back and forth banter, as they review music and new albums. 

Music is deeply integrated into each and every one of our lives. We grow up with it in our cultures, our traditions, and our television shows; you hear it while walking down the street. 

Music, a sect of art, is a form of self-expression for both the listener and the producer. 

Listening to Sreejan and Loyola talk about music so often and in obscure analytical terms, I wonder out loud. 

“What does music mean to you?” 

Loyola stops strumming his guitar. “I don’t know, I feel like to me music is culture. Many ideas can be carried through it, you know?”

Sreejan agrees and offers another viewpoint. “I think music resonates with me in a way that I can talk about comfortably that I can’t do with anything else. Music to me is another language, my own language.”

To the world, ‘Run the Record’ is a podcast analyzing new viral albums. But to Sreejan and Loyola, it’s much more than that. These two teenagers are trying to build a community for anyone to come together and analyze beats and appreciate music. It’s an outlet for these two students to indulge their passions and educate their friends on the intricacies of music. 

Sreejan and Loyola cover new music with every episode. The hour-long episodes usually cover music writing, the music industry, and what they have been listening to overall. 

As of spring 2022, Farhan Sreejan is a junior at The Bronx High School of Science in New York City in the United States. And Daniel Loyola is a senior at J.H. Picard School in Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada. 

So why create a podcast? With busy schoolwork, SAT prep, and college applications, why did Sreejan and Loyola decide to start this project?

Loyola said, “I think especially for me in my city, we don’t have the privilege of having even a radio station that talks about hip hop, which is a genre we cover a lot on the podcast, so being that voice and providing reviews for that type of music in my city, where most people listen to classic rock and country, is a breath of fresh air.” 

Sreejan has a different take. “To have this sort of safe space I can share with someone while also being able to put it out for so many people to hear is humbling. 100 isn’t nearly as big of a number when compared to the top podcasts, but it goes such a long way to know that at least 100 individuals have sought to hear your ideas, whether it is for a minute or for an hour.”

In this day and age, music is prevalent and present almost our entire day. When you walk down the street, you can see every other person with earbuds plugged into their ears. 

Over the course of the past eight months, ‘Run the Record’ has amassed around 120 unique listeners globally. 

What had initially been a way to have meaningful discussions about music, was now slowly gaining viewership, but it has not been without obstacles.

“The issue of our schedules is a really tough problem, but also the fact that we live in different time zones and need to translate that each time we talk about recording,” Loyola said. 

“We’ve sort of been on a break. I’m at a junior peak, and I’ve had some other things to take care of, and Daniel is a busy senior trying to figure out his future plans. However, we’ve been planning whilst taking a break, and we’re ready to come back soon.” Sreejan said.

“So why do you continue doing it?” I interject.

“I think because it’s something both of us really want to maintain and do,” Loyola said. 

“As the podcast grew, we’ve realized we want to forward this passion in new ways and undergo a ‘reboot’ of some sort. Ideas have been in talks and when we come back from hiatus…let’s just say we’re coming back better than ever,” Sreejan said with a smile. 

We end the interview with Loyola playing his guitar and Sreejan singing random nonsense. The two pretend to be heartbroken but all three of us burst out laughing instead. 

Run the Record can be found on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Google Podcasts, Youtube, and Anchor. 

Their official page is on Instagram under the name @runthe_record.