Watch — Flow State: Chicago

Reuniting five hip-hop producers for a creative retreat

One year after five hip-hop producers came together in New Orleans to make music without deadlines or expectations, Flow State returns in Chicago to discover what happens when those same artists reconnect, reflect, and create together again.

Flow State: Chicago — the latest documentary from Focusrite and 22rivrs — reunites Raney, Benji., Ashilee Ashilee, Spiff Sinatra, and Leale for a five-day creative retreat built around music production, collaboration, community, and well-being.

This time, the producers arrived with more than a blank canvas. They brought the relationships and experiences from the last retreat to this year’s opportunity to develop those ideas further while exploring how their creative processes have changed over the past year.

Finding flow through collaboration

At the centre of Flow State: Chicago is a simple idea —what happens when artists are given the space and time to create without the usual pressures surrounding their work?

Throughout the documentary, cameras capture the producers' writing, playing, producing, and responding to one another in real time. Ideas emerge spontaneously. Creative roles shift naturally. At times, one producer takes the lead while everyone else finds their place within the music.

Between sessions, the producers reflect on what being in a flow state means to them, how their relationships have developed since New Orleans, and the value of stepping away from distractions to focus on making music.

Exploring creativity, environment, and well-being

Joining the group in Chicago is Dr. Pyar Seth, whose research explores Black creative practice and the ways multi-sensory environments can support learning, knowledge creation, and creative expression.

Across the retreat, reflection, shared meals, conversation, music-making, and time away from the studio become part of the creative process itself.

Pyar helps provide another perspective on what the producers are experiencing, exploring how environment, rhythm, technology, community, and personal well-being can influence creativity and our ability to enter a flow state.

Extending Flow State into Chicago

Chicago is more than a backdrop. The Flow State producers also visited Studio Shapes, where they connected with young adults from the John Walt Foundation, sharing their experiences as professional music producers and discussing creativity, careers, and the realities of pursuing music.

The experience extends one of the central ideas behind this year's retreat: creative community becomes more meaningful when what is learned and built within it can be shared with others.

For Chicago natives within the Flow State group, the week also offered an opportunity to reflect on their relationship with the city and the role it has played in shaping their creative identities.

What remains when the retreat ends?

Ultimately, Flow State: Chicago isn't simply about what five producers can create in five days. It's about what happens between those sessions. It's the relationships that continue after everyone goes home. The ideas that begin in one city and resurface a year later in another. The moments when a room full of individual artists suddenly begin operating as one creative unit. And, of course, it's about the music that comes from it.

If you enjoyed Flow State: Chicago, be sure to check out last year’s edition from New Orleans on the Focusrite YouTube channel.