If you haven’t already wrapped your ears around THE DM SZN’s debut EP, stop what you’re doing and go listen to it now. The EP is a seven-track collection of dynamic, socially-conscious hip-hop brilliance.
So, hot off the EP’s release we caught up with the group for a complete run-down of each track.
Ever since the DM SZN dropped their epic debut EP, we haven’t stopped listening. Here’s a complete run-down of each track.
Each track represents a different element within the realm of direct messages on social media, all part of the same journey or ride. Track 2, From A Distance, sees singers, RENNY SYMF and annelise. communicating to the audience through respective rap verses.
The beginning of the song symbolises the journey’s starting point, with soundscapes of a car being started and driving off. It’s a story about loving someone cautiously from afar.
THE DM SZN’s first release and third song, Foreign, is the epitome of the group. The track is intended to be ‘foreign’ on a handful of levels. Firstly, there are four people of different ethnic backgrounds. Secondly, four artists with all different styles of delivering lyrics and verses.
Two singers who sound very different from each other and two rappers who are also quite distinguishable by sound and style. There is a massive blending of genres embedded within the song, such as the use of the Japanese shamisen, clavinets, world percussion, heavy metal guitars, hip hop drums, pop harmonies choirs fused together to form the song.
In Y U GOTTA, rappers Ay-J and Ruu. deliver a catchy hook, with singers, annelise. and RENNY SYMF laying down melodic verses over an upbeat, new age hip-hop instrumental. The subject matter is actually quite childish and whiny, intended to echo the mindset and behaviour of this current generation of people and the type of fights they have.
Track 5, Gossip, is much like Foreign in the sense that it is a standalone experience. It holds a distinctive and heavy gospel undertone, leaning on organs and a church choir to deliver support throughout the song. The track puts lies and deceit in the spotlight, and how infectious joining in on the maleficence can be for many people.
It concentrates on how gossip can gain so much power to the point where it’s like gospel. The world, specifically in the domain of social media, runs on the fabrication of false information by gaining a large following to the point where it can almost be seen as a religion. THE DM SZN focused on making the production as large and as intricate as possible to reflect on how ‘large’ and ‘intricate’ the issue is.
Don’t Assume gives the audience some breathing space from the heavy hip hop and R&B sounds, imitating the feel of an interlude within an album or break in the journey where the moment can be briefly slowed down. As an outlier in the EP, it works with the other tracks to symbolise the vast range of issues that can be experienced in everyday life.
By opening his rap verse, ‘remember the times’, similar to what was rapped by RENNY SYMF and annelise. in Track 2, Ruu.’s verse also reiterates the motif of this EP being a journey, as the verse portrays imagery of a car ride between the artist and his love interest.
The EP closes with Tension, which reiterates that arguments and concerns still need to be addressed and that things have not been resolved. It returns with the similar energy heard in the other tracks.
