NEW MUSIC | DAMU THE FUDGEMUNK AND BLU ‘GROUND AND WATER’

By Rishma Dhaliwal • On What is New ,

 

The theme for Ground & Water was con­ceived by Blu’s own vis­ion con­cep­tu­ally, and these ideas were then enhanced music­ally by the cre­at­ive mind of pro­du­cer Damu The Fudgemunk.

A feast of pro­duc­tion styles with ele­ments of styles from Prog Rock, Jazz, Coun­try & West­ern, to Korean, Haitian, Elec­tro, Clas­sic­al, Brazili­an, Israeli, Lat­in, Indi­an, and all through vinyl sampling without an extra synth in sight!

The res­ult is one of the most cre­at­ively enhan­cing pro­jects this year with­in the world of hiphop.

Both artists had debut albums in 2007 that became cult clas­sics. Blu had “Below the Heav­ens” with pro­du­cer Exile, and Damu had “Travel at Your Own Pace” with MC Insight. Col­lab­or­at­ing at this stage in their careers felt like a full circle, hav­ing been pre­vi­ous label mates in the begin­ning try­ing to make a name for them­selves.

The pro­ject con­tains a very in depth jour­ney lyr­ic­ally by Blu, prov­ing once again why he is one of the most innov­at­ive rap­pers out there today. This pairs with so many detailed intric­a­cies, and subtle homages to the cul­ture by Damu. He tried to sprinkle those things through­out the record, and it includes samples from Ice T, Kendrick Lamar, People Under the Stairs, Snoop Dogg, NWA, Dilated Peoples, and Jur­as­sic 5 (just to name a few!)

With Blu being from Los Angeles, and Damu from Wash­ing­ton DC, he’s always been a big fan of the colossal amount of artists from LA, he wanted to put the album togeth­er in this way.

Along­side the main singles “Share The Love” and “Ground & Water”, oth­er tracks such as “Feet on the Ground”, “Rhymes & Gem­stones”, and “Grey Heav­en” res­on­ated with Damu on a per­son­al level. Blu also got very per­son­al and intro­spect­ive with the con­cepts.

Spir­itu­al­ity, self motiv­a­tion, faith, guilt, growth, life les­sons, mis­takes, hum­bling exper­i­ences and sur­viv­al in a major US city are con­ver­sa­tions that they both engage in on a daily basis intern­ally and extern­ally. Those sub­jects nev­er expire no mat­ter the artist, medi­um, plat­form, lan­guage or loc­a­tion.

Blu has been very con­sist­ent incor­por­at­ing those con­ver­sa­tions and themes in all of his cata­log. With Ground & Water he elab­or­ated deep­er on these sub­jects and since they nev­er expire, Damu also embraced them as a listen­er and also a storyteller.

Like all of his releases most of which are instru­ment­al, Damu wanted the music to tell a story. With Blu being the voice, he set the tone for them to both bring in all to life. I guess you could com­pare it to the pro­duc­tion of a com­ic where there’s a story writ­ing depart­ment, an outline/sketch team, and then a col­our­ing and shad­ing side.

Between Blu and Damu, they unknow­ingly took on those mod­u­lar parts to make some­thing cohes­ive, and for every guest con­trib­ut­or fit right into the story, with stor­ies of their own.

Damu The Fudgemunk said:

“So wheth­er you’re a music nerd, a beat head or a cas­u­al listen­er, I hope your biggest takeaway from my con­tri­bu­tion is that I was pas­sion­ate about the con­struc­tion these records and enjoyed doing so. If I did that then, my per­son­al goal is accom­plished. Blu’s lyr­ics will go far enough alone.”

 

Ground & Water is out now– https://smarturl.it/ground­and­wa­ter

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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About Rishma Dhaliwal

Rishma Dhaliwal
Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless. Currently working in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media knowledge to I am Hip Hop and other projects by No Bounds.