Album Cover via Lex Boogie/BandCamp
Son Raw might blow up but he won’t go pop.
Lex Boogie is from the Bronx and lives in Atlanta. Senz Beat is from Brussels and lives in Montreal. Despite existing worlds apart, these two artists, quiet as kept, have been building a remarkable and expanding catalog of underground rap.
During the creation of 2017’s A Tale Of 2 Planets, the duo developed an easy rapport as producers with both a love of classic hip-hop sampling techniques as well as the more cosmic and experimental ethos of early ’00s rap. Though A Tale of 2 Planets featured Lex’s first rhymes over Senz’ production, it was the pandemic-induced lockdown that led the duo to truly lock in: the 2021 release of The Hyena Lies Heavy and 2022’s Modus Operandi cemented their collaborations as adventurous takes on a post-Roc Marciano, post-KA strain of hip-hop.
On these records, Lex’s writing moved in ever-more expansive directions, highlighting both his lived experience at the dawn of hip-hop and his relevance to the contemporary strain of boom-rap. Meanwhile, Senz’ beats flourished thanks to his mastery of both old-school MPC beats and his cutting edge use of the iOs-based Koala Sampler.
The pair’s latest album, Dharma, features Lex’s most heartfelt rhymes yet as well as Senz’ most diverse slate of beats, with highlights dating all the way back to the early ’00s. Dharma is the rare grown man rap that isn’t just a polite euphemism for “old man rap” but as Lex states below, he’s not ashamed of his grey hairs either.
To celebrate the release of Dharma, I linked up with them to break down each individual song, while discussing beatmaking, life lessons, and art’s power to communicate and heal.
“Earth & Fire”
Senz Beats: It’s the second time this joint’s coming out. This is the finished version if you like. It came out as an instrumental on one of my Koala tapes and Lex heard it and wrote something over it. He said that beat compelled him to write something.
Lex Boogie: Personally, when I heard that beat, I wanted to do something different. It grabbed me because we had just did The Hyena Lies Heavy and I was rapping over a lot of loops, so this beat was really different. It was Senz going into his drums and really doing something crazy with the arrangement. I know he was using Koala [sampler] and I was really I was open and excited that he was using some new technology but he was making it sound like the old classic hip-hop shit that I’m used to. He was making it sound new and fresh but with a familiar feeling.
Senz Beats: This project right here, we recorded it at different times.
Lex Boogie: Yeah, it’s a mix. Some stuff was based off the energy of songs that we saved for different reasons. Songs that didn’t have a place till I came up with other songs. I was trying to go for something more real in a sense. Pure, in the sense of the content not being cool or performative. I’m not saying that a lot of my stuff is performative, but I wanted something raw. Less trying to write cool bars and just speaking to you through those speakers. Dharma is a lot of just regular conversations and Earth & Fire was representing me doing that, but also me rhyming over these crazy drums because we had just done a project where I was rhyming over loops.
“Aura”
Lex Boogie: That’s something from my older chamber that me and Senz cooked up. When I heard the beat, it reminded me of something that Senz previously did with A Tale Of 2 Planets -space vibes and sounds where you don’t know necessarily where to place it. I’m about sounding different and just doing different stuff, finding my unique space. That was putting my aura over that beat, that’s who I am, how I represent and what I am in this space. Just me as a person.
Senz Beats: What’s interesting about some of these tracks, like Aura, is that the album title Dharma came afterwards. We weren’t making tracks trying to fit the idea of Dharma or something spiritual/mystical. We work in those zones anyway, so we had the basis of tracks to pull from to build something cohesive. Aura was a standout track – we knew the album wasn’t there yet, but we knew it would be part of what we’d be doing next. It’s a foundational track for the project.
Lex Boogie: If it ends up sounding cool, I didn’t intend for it sound cool when I was writing it. That I would say the difference in Dharma versus a lot of other projects I have done. This is what it actually is. This is what actually happened. This is the real situation. This is what I’m going through. This is how I’m thinking.
“Love” (feat. John Robinson)
Senz Beats: That’s the only beat on the album that’s got a co-producer credit because my guy Kwame Universe from Ghana played that. Those first three beats are pandemic beats, when there was a crazy beat community on twitter and everyone was sharing stuff. Kwame Universe, he put out free samples for guys to use. So that’s how that beat came about because it’s such a beautiful sample. No sample snitching apart from this one!
Lex Boogie: Me and John Robinson have mutual respect, mutual friends and are in the same scene in Atlanta. We just fans of each other so through seeing each other and through conversation, we started building. I always wanted to do a song with him because I respect him as an artist, just his unique self. I look at him like a jazz musician, like someone that adds a different element you don’t get from other artists: he makes other artists better. I thought that about him before I even did the song. When Senz did the beat, it reminded me of the intro beat – crazy drums, the arrangement. After I wrote it, I just heard John Robinson on it, I hit him up and he was down. The concept, I wanted something different, to represent who we are now. Not us as kids or rappers. Life is about love. You got to express some love, you know, it’s the shit that makes us wake up in the morning. Whether you realize it or not.
Senz Beats: Correct me if I’m wrong, but you guys both grew up in the Bronx, right?
Lex Boogie: We both grew up in the Bronx, yeah. When I reached out to him, I didn’t want to do any old song. This song really means something to me. What we rapping about really means something, it’s thought provoking. It’s heartfelt and I felt like these type of songs are important, and who better to do the song with? The whole Dharma chamber started coming about because I started experiencing real things in my life, both health-wise and different things I was experiencing. It was just a reflection of that, because Dharma is basically the teachings of the Buddha. I was trying to express different teachings, different experiences. So that’s why songs like Love are important because that’s a part of your life as a human being.
“Lazers”
Senz Beats: That’s some vintage Lex and Senz from our early days. I’m thinking 2016-2017. It’s been in the vault for a minute, waiting for the right time to come out.
Lex Boogie: Since I’m able to record continuously, without any pressure and just do my thing, I just archive stuff and keep planning. That was one probably the fourth or fifth joint I ever recorded to one of Senz’ beats.
Senz Beats: We have three albums so far and we got a 45 too. The first one’s a split tape So one side each [of their beats] but there’s some Lex joints on my side where he’s rapping over my beats. This will be our fourth full-length album. From my side, I heard Lex’s beats first. I got really blown away by a project he had called Lex In Space. Those beats were crazy, I never heard anything like it, I still haven’t honestly. As an emcee, I first heard him with MarQ Spekt. Then we got linked up by a buddy of mine in Brussels who was like “you guys should do a tape together.”
Lex Boogie: The rest was history. We connected over the beats first, sending beats back and forth, we had real chemistry. Even if it was like music that we wouldn’t necessarily like for each other, we was just vibing. I felt like that made a difference in approaching some of the beats that I wouldn’t normally approach, because we had that chemistry. I could approach this now because me and Senz are locked in, I could listen in a different way. That’s why we have so much music.
“Divine Intervention” (feat. DayTripper)
Lex Boogie: “DayTripper” is an emcee in Atlanta. I really respect him I just felt like he got busy. I don’t really work with a lot of people, I really try to preserve the quality of the emcees that I work with, because I’m just on it like that. He’s one of them emcees I really respect. He gets loose on the beats and on the rhymes. He’s that’s creative. When I wrote that rhyme I thought about him because he’s got a real loose conversational style. I’ve seen him freestyle at shows and come up with shit to the randomest beat, so I just knew he would kill it.
“Faceless Soldier” (feat. Wolfearspanthro)
Lex Boogie: By the time we get to this many songs and I’m getting the idea of formulating the album, I started experiencing some real life situations and started getting sick. I end up having a stroke and kidney failure plus a whole bunch of stuff that comes along with that. So it was hard for me to even record but I had a lot of songs already. So, “Faceless Soldiers,” we experienced Covid, but I wrote this before that. I thought “What if I was in the world and no one’s able to see me, how would I exist and how would I be perceived or received?” Being in the world, no one knows who you are and people have to deal with you as you are, not as you look and things like that. Just thinking about humanity and things like that, putting it in rhyme form. I had this whole idea of tripping out and having crazy experiences and having a vision. There’s someone chanting to me and this is where you get the chant in the song. That’s my man Wolf. That was a song that we did a long time ago and I held it because I just knew it was special. The whole vibe of it is like going through a portal, entering a different dimension to the rest of the project.
Senz Beats: It’s almost like you were rapping from the future [because of how the song mirrors covid masking]. We both recognized it. We were like, okay we don’t know what to do with this one yet. It’s not going on this record, it’s not going on that record, but we know it’s fire. it’s lighting in a bottle. So finally, this is the project where it finds a home. Plus, There’s another layer to that as well which is, that beat is one of the first things I made on the MPC 2000 XL in 2004-2005 when I just used to loop shit up. I didn’t know how to save beats. I just had samples on pads and I was hitting the pads and then recording that into Pro Tools back then.
Lex Boogie: I was trying to pick beats that really show Senz getting busy in multiple ways. So if you look at the beats I picked, you got Senz on the drums, you got Senz on the sample, you got Senz on Koala, you got Senz on the MPC 5000. It’s him moving around and cats don’t move around like that no more. He does it because he’s really creative. He’ll needle drop! We don’t even need no machines. We just need a record player and some records.
“I’m Not Done”
Lex Boogie: That was a hard one to do for multiple reasons. It was physically hard. I had a hard time even recording it because I needed the breath to physically record it. My ego wouldn’t let me chill to do what I need to do to be healthy. I wanted to continue on finishing my work but I learned that I did have to relax. I was able to get that off my chest on that particular song. I can’t even front: I’m not done writing songs yet but I really thought I was done. Just to be honest with you, I really thought this was it. That’s how I was feeling emotionally, but it’s mind over matter sometimes. I felt like if I did it, it’d be dope. You know, this mission I’ve got Senz on with me – I ain’t let him down and I ain’t let my family down. It’s still me putting myself out there for the world and that means something to me. I was fortunate because a lot of people have strokes and are way worse off than I am. I could still communicate. And now, guess what? I’m about to drop an album! I documented the journey and gave [the listener] the experience. Now I can move on to my next thing and continue being great. That’s why this is more important than anything, that I could keep doing this shit. You gonna get all these gray beard raps.
Senz Beats: That means a lot, hearing all of this and it really puts it in perspective because I might get caught up in a music roll out, where I have to fulfill whatever obligation. But this is why we do it, it’s a vehicle for this, not to cross off something off a list, it’s to deliver some genuine soulful shit that you can listen to forever.
“Black Coffee”
Lex Boogie: That was me loosening up. I got out the hospital and I’m feeling a little better so I go downtown to get a coffee. I’m an adult: that’s what I do! You know, get coffee in the morning, get coffee in the afternoon… it makes me feel good. Simple as that: get coffee, talk shit.
Senz Beats: That song, when I heard it, it was like drinking a black coffee. It woke me up, woke certain things up inside me and made me feel good. Lex is telling me: “it’s all good: we can do this!”
Lex Boogie: It’s always good to rap over a loop. I’m from the Bronx. I’m from the home of Hip Hop and like we rap over loops! So when I heard that, it was like a breath of fresh air. It felt like a good cup of black coffee in the morning and I could just do this song and go on with my day.
“Krylon”
Lex Boogie: Senz told me that this was an old beat he got off the MPC. It reminded me of being a kid growing up in the Bronx: we used to be tagging and shit. Being a kid, you’d be home and practicing your tag in your book before going for a spray can. I grew up in a neighborhood with Tats Cru – that’s a heavy graph crew. It reminded me of that feeling, a grungy New York kind of vibe with dirty train staircase. It reminded me of getting up in the morning and what I had to do to survive that world, so I wrote it from that perspective.
Senz Beats: That was an MPC 5000 beat that was hanging around in the machine. One of those you forget you’ve made and then it becomes a song.
“You Gon Pay”
Lex Boogie: This was another one that was hard for me to do physically. I had a hard time recording but I was trying to get through the song to prove to myself that I could still do it. It’s just some real shit: you know you’re gon pay… we all gon pay for whatever it is that we’ve done or didn’t do. That’s just life and I just wanted to say that because sometimes you go through life and you forget that and you take shit for granted.
Senz Beats: I don’t know if you were more intentional with certain things. I’m just understanding now that this is about karma and it’s on a record called Dharma. I don’t know if you intentionally picked some of these tracks with that in mind, I never asked you that…
Lex Boogie: Definitely, once I once I knew where I was going with it. I’ve always been fascinated with just the teachings of the Buddha, not that I’m a Buddhist. When I started really looking at what I was writing, I’m just trying to create my own bible. I ain’t gonna be here forever, none of us are, so I’m writing my bible through music. You get to hear some real shit that you can really learn from, real experiences: don’t take this life to granted and things like that. Once we started having a certain amount of songs and I heard it, I really thought about the content that I was putting into the songs.
“Dharma”
Lex Boogie: After I had the stroke, the whole time I was going through this in the hospital, I was writing notes and some of the stuff you hear on the record comes from those notes. Laying on my back, feeling uncertain when things get really dark and I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Once I started feeling the energy I was getting from Senz, where we can do this again, I went back to them. You know, journaling what I’m experiencing through life. I’m hoping that someone else can benefit from it or at least be an example. I can be an older rapper and not waste your time.
Senz Beats: Since we started work on this project, I think I feel like certain things have come out where people are discussing the 40-50 year old lifestyle in a certain way without it sounding corny. I feel like this song and this album adds to that chamber without pigeonholing it. It’s for everybody but it’s an example of growing older gracefully.
