DJ Dahi

DJ Dahi does his thing on another level, crafting beats for such giants as Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West and Dr. Dre. So it’s appropriate that Dahi’s second appearance on Rhythm Roulette be anything but ordinary. This time around we made two important innovations to our standard operating procedure. First of all, instead of a regular old record store, the Grammy-nominated Los Angeles-based producer came out to NYC and went digging through cardboard boxes in the back of a van stuffed full of treats by rare groove vendor Gene Brown. In case you were unaware, Brown is a North Carolina-based MC/producer who specializes in serving up sample fodder to production gods like Pete Rock and the aforementioned Mr. West. Digging in his crates is like looking for gold at Fort Knox. In this case Dahi slipped on a blindfold and came up with a gospel record by the Midwestern District Choir, Greg Perry’s 1977 funk/soul classic Smokin‘, and what Mr. Brown described as an “extremely rare Brazilian joint.” “Let’s go make some beats!” said Dahi, clutching the vinyl in his hands. This second major advantage in this action-packed episode is that Dahi got the chance to work with a brand new Serato software plug-in called Sample that integrates with Serato’s O.G. production software, Pitch ‘n Time. As the name suggests, Sample allows users to chop samples and manipulate them freely. BPMs can be adjusted to the utmost extreme without any loss of audio quality. A highly intuitive interface allowed Dahi

The slap of Kendrick Lamar’s “Money Trees” is one of the most recognizable and groove-inducing beats of the modern era, and it’s all thanks to DJ Dahi behind the boards. We caught up with the auteur behind some of the dopest west coast production in hip hop today, and sent him off to a record store to play this week’s edition of Rhythm Roulette. With his picks of Torche’s Healer/Across the Shields, Lights’ Little Machines, and Neil Young’s Hawks & Doves, Dahi is able to stitch together doom metal, pop, and Neil’s classic rock into a really unique sounding composition that’s still got a hip hop bounce. Using snippets of Young’s vocals he creates an ambient, looped background, and even breaks out the harmonica to jam out — we’ll bend the record sampling rules slightly in this case. Check out Dahi’s flip above.

DJ Dahi, the producer behind Kendrick Lamar’s “Money Trees,” Drake’s “Worst Behavior,” and countless other hits takes a break from music to chat with me about inspirations, the world of music, and his thoughts of making it as an artist.