JD: “I’ve always just played a mess of whatever I like. When did you first realise that music was your thing? NME: For two young musicians, you’ve both been honing your instruments for some time. With ‘Smile’ closing in on 600,000 Spotify streams, the duo talk to NME about their musical history, eclectic interests and working with Silk Sonic. There’s a lot that’s been registering for us recently: we finally have an actual song out, we’ve finished an album.” “It’s like when your parents give you advice as a kid and it just doesn’t register, but you get older and you’re like, ‘Holy shit’. “But all the stories he tells have purpose,” adds JD. “Herbie is so funny he’ll tell you stories for like six hours, and we are never going to be mad at that,” says DOMi. As an imprint of Blue Note Records, the most esteemed jazz label of all time, DOMi and JD have also benefited from the tutelage of genre icon Herbie Hancock, setting the tone for their experimental debut single ‘Smile’. Talent like DOMi and JD’s doesn’t stay out of the limelight for long: in April, they became the first signing to Apeshit INC, a new label directed by Anderson. But I guess we’ve just never seen that as an issue.” We both like to play fast stuff with a lot of energy, and that definitely isn’t what is mainstream for jazz right now.
Your aura doesn’t have to reflect your work like that.” DOMi continues: “It’s just the way we are – we make jokes as we rehearse and bring them on-stage. “My least favourite thing is when people are all straight-faced, like, ‘I’m making serious music right now’. “We’re not media trained, so whatever comes out just comes out,” says JD, reflecting on their “goofy” aesthetic. With original works like ‘Sniff’ and ‘My Favourite Ballsack’ (their take on John Coltrane’s 1961 standard ‘My Favourite Things’), their carefree Gen-Z humour brings a touch of much-needed levity to the kind of slow-paced Insta-aesthetic ‘ lo-fi study vibes’ that have dominated mainstream jazz representations of late. Having first met at a music trade show in 2018 (from where they immediately headed off to play together at Erykah Badu’s birthday party), 19-year-old Beck and 22-year-old DOMi have been drumming – and keyboarding – up internet hype ever since, performing in Thundercat/Ariana Grande sessions and embellishing J Dilla beats with the kind of frenetic improv solos that have you wondering where they’re hiding all their extra hands. The duo’s truth is perhaps even better than fiction. None of it makes much sense, but it is bold, bizarre and intriguing – just as every great new band ought to be. A spinning image of a sax-playing rat sets the scene, before their bio describes DOMi as “the only living theoretical physicist” and Beck as a “6-year-old sheep investigator”. When you visit DOMi & JD Beck’s website, you’re immediately confronted with chaos.
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