Crystal Lake South part of Grammy-nomination spoken poetry album by Malik Yusef

Growing up in Crystal Lake, Cole Gaffney would listen to hip-hop and rap artists while waiting for the bus to Lundahl Middle School and later Crystal Lake South High School. Less than 10 years after graduating, Gaffney now works with those same artists as a music producer and engineer in Los Angeles.

Now, Gaffney is part of a Grammy-nominated piece for his work engineering engineering some of the tracks on Malik Yusef’s “Good M.U.S.I.C. Universe Sonic Sinema Episode 1: In The Beginning Was The Word.” The album is nominated for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album by the Recording Academy. Since then, Gaffney has worked on two other albums for Yusef.

“Malik is a very fast, very different thinker,” Gaffney said. “He’s so inspirational, and being around him is a different experience every time.”

The album, created by the Chicago native rapper and poet Yusef, features five songs with jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold that Gaffney sound-engineered and tracked. Dozens of instrumental artists came in to record music as the backdrop to Yusef’s spoken poems when Yusef unexpectedly assigned Gaffney to record Harrold’s horns.

“In my head, I’m like, ‘This is amazing.’ I’m just sitting there soaking it all up,” Gaffney said.

Gaffney graduated from Crystal Lake South in 2015 and went to the University of Iowa for film and graphic design. Self-taught in musical programming and software, Gaffney said music was always a passion that he carried with him, and he started making his own songs and beats in high school.

“I’m literally doing what I dreamed of doing,” he said.

Gaffney was born with a “musical gene,” he said, as his grandfather was a conductor in Minnesota and his dad played the trombone in the Army. Gaffney grew up taking piano lessons but admits that he didn’t put effort into it, nor did he learn how to read music. He remembers his piano teacher saying he can “hear music” without reading it.

“That’s the one thing I regret: not taking that seriously,” Gaffney said. “But everything happens for a reason.”

Gaffney goes by the name “Pillowhead” in the music industry. He came up with the name while on a roadtrip with friends. It may be a silly name, but it’s memorable, he said.

“I had a pillow on my lap and I went, ‘I’ll be Pillowhead.' If I ever get scared on the stage or scared of a crowd, I’ll just put a pillow on my head,” he said.

Gaffney has plenty of goals for the future, including making more of his own music and creating his own record company. He describes his music as “low-fi, coffeeshop beat tapes” and hopes to get his albums printed as records within the next five years.

“Don’t sleep on Pillowhead,” he said.

The 2025 Grammy Awards will air at 7 p.m. Feb. 2 on CBS.