In conversation with OMNI!: The Rise of the Alt-Rap Scene
A look inside the band's creative process
Hello, and Welcome back to my newsletter. Very special announcement before we begin, but OMNI! actually just got a lyrical lemonade feature! I’ll link it down below, but you can click here to read it before this article. Anyways, I’m sorry for the delay, fortunately, however, today’s article is an interview with (new) favorite band of mine, OMNI! Coincidentally, this week’s track of the week is “Britney” off of their album, DOPEBOYS. For anyone has hasn’t heard of OMNI!, check out my initial review of their album, here. Britney, for those who haven’t heard it, is a catchy, more pop cut off of the album. The verses are classic abrasive rap, but the chorus is a high pitched, high tempo, immediate energizer. Everyone listen immediately for a classic melodic rap track. Now, let’s get to it.
Also, I’m formally returning to my weekly format, I apologize for the way-too-long delays, but I’m ready to talk about me every week again ;)
(pictured above, OMNI!; credits to @watchthespectrum; all photos, unless otherwise stated, are credited to the instagram)
Let me paint the scene for you. It’s Sunday, March 20th. The interview had already been delayed several times, due to my writer’s block when it came to questions, and my ever-changing work schedule. However, today was the day. I had garnered the motivation to figure out what our main topics would be, and I did the unavoidable. I called them.
First to pick up was Jovaughn. For those who don’t remember Jovaughn, he was the band member I kept initial contact with throughout my album review process. He is one of the three vocalists of the group, and joined the latest. Jovaughn answered the phone with David, also known as Dawvro, by his side. Dawvro, who I have the utmost respect for, produced the entirety of DOPEBOYS, and took a lot of inspiration from Brockhampton, AG Club, etc. and was able to find his own sound within this sonic landscape. Unfortunately, J’aime was at work, and could not join the call, however, he is a very focal lyricist and contributes many of my favorite verses to this project. Now that we’ve introduced all the members, let’s get to the interview.
(pictured above, left to right, Jovaughn, J’aime, and Dawvro; credits to @steelsimmons)
The chemistry between Jovaughn and David was immediately clear. The call began with Jovaughn introducing David, who immediately could not get through the hello without both of them laughing. Although the smallest gesture, it calmed my nerves immensely to notice they were both comfortable. From there, the dialogue flowed. David and J’aime used to bond over music since the inception of their friendship, in middle school. In hindsight, the band idea shouldn’t have been hard to predict. Straight from the recollection of David, “ One day [J’aime and I] were skipping class, and I brought up to him how I had all these beats - but was too nervous to rap over them, cus usually kids were made fun of for rapping in high school.” From there, the band began. Jovaughn, however, didn’t join for another year, “They asked me to join and I told them to shut the fuck up.” The call erupted in laughter, but Jovaughn insisted that he was dead serious. However, this wouldn’t stop David. He persisted, and eventually, the next year, Jovaughn joined. “I didn’t have friends for most of high school, and I wanted friends forever, so I just did it. Next year, I dropped out of college and spent $5000 on equipment.” I was FLABBERGHASTED. Five-thousand dollars? “Music is expensive man, especially if you’re doing it by yourself,” Jovaughn wasn’t kidding, ending his response with, “If I’m gonna do it - I’m not going half way - I’m fucking doing it.”
With the foundation of the band set, we began to discuss the inception of their debut, DOPEBOYS. “We had an album called Into the Omniverse, and we were just boombap heads,” (unfortunately, I couldn’t find any traces of this album online, much to my dismay) “inspired by Joey Bada$$, Flatbush Zombies, and all of them, and we got confused as to why we hadn’t blow up yet.” This was when they were inspired to switch up their sound. David talked about the rapport he built with AG Club, right before they blew up (coincidentally exactly what I’m doing), inspiring him to go towards a more alt-inspired sound. At this same time, Jovaughn was listening to a lot of Brockhampton, which ended up inspiring what eventually became DOPEBOYS (and Into the Omniverse was scrapped). “Willie was the first song that made the album, David sent [Jovaughn] the beat, and shit was trash, so I told [David] to fix it, and we did the first half. The second half of the song, which’s called Backhand, was made 6 months later, and we thought it was dope. That was the first finished record.”
(pictured above, two of them)
After hearing a bit about their process, I started to go completely off-script on the conversation guiders I had written out. They were a lot more organic and spur of the moment kind of talkers, so I adapted as necessary. I decided to keep prying into their creative process, because the open, honest-natured approach had caught my attention. David described their usual studio set-up. “Usually we’ll set aside time and go hang out at someone’s house, or someone’s car, cus we have a portable studio. Actually, I snuck Jovaughn into my dorm, when I was in college, and we would just make music in my dorm. What we’d do is we’d put a verse and a hook on a song, and we’d call it a ringtone. We made, like, 1000 of those, and then we narrowed it down to nine for the album.”
We got onto the topic of their over-the-top approach to voice modifications, to which David took over the conversation. “Honestly, it was a lot of Rocky influence, and we don’t really like how our voices sound, so I messed with ever-changing vocals, and it sounded dope.” David (Dawvro), was the producer for the entire project, and actually ended up inspiring Jovaughn to learn how to produce, mix, and arrange instrumentals. “I thought it was cool, so I decided that I wanted to learn how to do it.” Sure enough, he mixed the entire thing.
“We basically ruined DOPEBOYS”
Anyways, back to David. “When the album was first finishing up, it was all just me and Jovaughn on verses. J’aime works a lot, so he was barely able to get any verses on the album, so one night, we hung over at Jovaughn’s house, because we had plenty of verses to finish too, and we basically ruined DOPEBOYS.” Jovaughn interjected immediately, “Holy shit, I was scared. We had to fix the album within a month, and we locked in for a week to finish it.” To be completely honest, I thought they were joking, but Jovaughn’s voice had such an urgency that I had nothing to do but laugh.
While we shared a ton of laughs, it struck me how easy to talk to JoVaughn and David had been, as I had been anticipating sticking to a sort of ‘interview script’ when, in reality, the entire conversation was mostly free-flow. They were a great bunch to talk to, and we spoke for a while longer after I stopped recording. The last thing I wanted to leave everyone with was the last question I asked. “What’s the next step for you guys?” to which the answer was an immediate “second album, soon!” If you guys haven’t checked them out yet, do yourselves a favor and listen to DOPEBOYS in anticipation for their new album, and I guarantee you won’t regret it.
Before I close this article, I wanted to leave you guys with links to their album, their lyrical lemonade article, and their instagram. As always, thanks for reading 😏