In a world of constant repetition and formulaic goals, there
stands one young man's quest to exist however he wants, in any manner he deems
fit. The mundanities of life hold back the true potential of this creative
genius until he reinvents himself as a boundless force to be reckoned with:
Blaque Dynamite. He is a guy who makes things come to life. He is a verified
badass: "You gotta look badass. If you don't look badass, it's going to be
hard for you." He is that guy.
With his debut album Killing Bugs, the drummer/vocalist/producer
cleans out his closet and defeats the "insects" that plagued him in
order to present to the world a worthy adversary keen on fighting off the
transgressions of his own life: past, present, and future. But like many of the
crusaders that preceded him, the tale begins with self-reflection, before
Blaque Dynamite (a.k.a. Mike Mitchell) was fully realized and evolved into a
more mature state of being. "I was a dick. No one else but me."
It is that admission of self-awareness which sets him apart
from the rest of the crop: those who are unable to recognize their destructive
qualities and grow from such realizations. With the advent of this
reinvigorated spirit, Blaque Dynamite creates the same way he lives, by opening
his heart and his ears to allow the unorthodox to happen. The man and the music
are inseparable, with no clear beginning or end to the way he lives or crafts
an album.
"For me personally, when I listen to recordings with
two or three things in a row that sound similar, I get bored. To keep my
attention, it needs to be changed," he explains. "The way I record is
not for me to make an album for people, I'm making an album to explain to
people where I come from musically. There are billions of people on earth, so
there should be billions of different ways to express music."
The drummer cast the album as if it were a visual movie,
with each song serving as its own scene. He's joined by special guests
including vocalist/keyboardist Jon Bap, flautist Elena Pinderhughes, emcee Lord
Byron, and guitarist/keyboardist Ben Hixon alongside longtime collaborators
including vocalist Marissa Caggiano, keyboardist King Jojo, saxophonist
Jonathan Money, guitarist Rami Ackerman, bassists Gax Merl and Matt Ramsey, and
percussionist Ethan Worland. Now, envision a road trip were no one actually
leaves the city limits, with many different personalities within the same
vehicle battling for control but not one prevails.
The music presented on Killing Bugs has its own inner
conflict to deal with. Instead of many personalities battling for control of
the same vehicle, a vast array of musical genres -- spanning rock, hip-hop,
jazz, and more -- compete for their own recognition in an unexpected harmonious
statement. The songs themselves are the individual heads of the Hydra, and the
album is its inscrutable body.
The complexity of the songs and the differences of emotions
they bring from track to track demand undivided attention, much like the focus
needed to defeat the many headed beast of mythos. "From song to song,
everything goes from style to style," Blaque Dynamite explains. "If
you continue to listen, you get more comfortable with it. Things happen in
waves."
Blaque Dynamite is the pseudonym for award-winning drummer
Mike Mitchell, born November 12, 1994. He began playing drums at just
two-years-old, and by age 11 he already had a number of endorsements from
various drum companies; and then he went on to attend Booker T. Washington High
School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, TX, a school that also
fostered the talents of Norah Jones, Erykah Badu, and Roy Hargrove. Mitchell
began touring the world with legendary bassist Stanley Clarke (a role which he
retains) before he graduated high school, and has now toured the seven
continents of the world with the likes of Erykah Badu, Derrick Hodge, Christian
McBride, Christian Scott, and others, and even performed on a global stage at
the 2012 International Jazz Day performance with Herbie Hancock.
Blaque Dynamite · Killing Bugs
Ropeadope Records ·
Release Date: November 10, 2017
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