Rub your eyes and clean your glasses, but folks, this is one case of double vision that may never go away.
Freshman twins Stephen and Stanley Spottswood, along with long-time friend and Penn State student Mike Wallace, are the key components of Primary Element.
The unique music and lyrics that Columbus-based Primary Element produces are helping this go-go band turned hip-hop group take the scene by storm.
“We started out on some go-go stuff,” Stanley said. “Like…some legit D.C. go-go shit. But it wasn’t as much of our niche as we thought.”
Prior to their work as funky-beat makers, the Spottswood twins both studied classical music instruments.
Stanley tickled the old ivories, learning piano at the age of four and Stephen learned both viola and violin.
After transferring musical genres, the then-teen trio’s road to success started at a high school talent show in Maryland. They’ve continued on that journey ever since.
“School would get out and I would immediately head to my area and start sequencing beats. It didn’t matter what else as going on,” Stanley said.
Stanley was quick to credit a band mate for helping get their name out on the scene.
“It started off with five or 10 blogs that we would contact… pretty soon Mike came up with something on an excel sheet that was pushing like… 120 blogs that help promote us.”
Stanley credits artists such as Lupe Fiasco, Pharrell, TLC and anything 80’s or bootyshaking-centered as being inspirations to not only his music, but art as a whole.
“It’s truly whatever you’re feeling,” Stanley said. “Whatever mood you’re in, I can capture it on my piano, or a keyboard.”
“I heard Dom Kennedy [fellow musical artist] say one time: ‘It takes you five years to get good at something.’ I really took heart to that,” Stanley continued. “Five 
years of just sitting back and shutting up and learning everything that you can.”
Darren Scarberry, a senior at Capital, knows a little something about sitting back because that’s his job; he’s the man behind the camera.
Scarberry, who recently collaborated with the Primary Element gang on their “Kid Things” music video, has a voice unlikely to be heard on a track, but his words and ideas still help shape the group’s product.
“My favorite part of working with Primary Element was how well we all clicked,” Scarberry said. “We’ve only been working together a few months, but I already feel like they’re close friends.”
Scarberry would go on to say that upon meeting Stanley, the two hit things off quickly.
“We met and immediately took a liking to each other,” Scarberry said. “Our artistic styles and views mesh so well together. It’s really cool.”
The fast-lipped, heavy beats of Primary Element, along with Scarberry of Scarberry Productions, plan to wow Columbus.
“Expect big things from us. We’ll have a tour,” the Spottswood twins said. “And maybe even a ‘Spottswood Hotel,’” Stanley joked.
Contact the artists:
Primary Element
SomethingPrimary.com
http://primaryelement.bandcamp. com/
http://www.youtube.com/Pr1maryElement
Scarberry Productions
scarberryproductions.wordpress.com
scarberry23@gmail.com
www.vimeo.com/scarberryproductions
