In the interest of disclosure Manhattan has been one of my closest friends for 10 years+, but I didn’t go easy on him! He’s the co-founder of street and sport brand Lemar & Dauley clothing, an artist, a rhyme slinger and an interesting guy so I tried to get you as much of his words as possible on his new album Live From The Glitterdome.

WHAT IS A GLITTERDOME?

Upon Lemar & Dauley becoming successful we had to mature in a different way. We went through a lot of changes, mentally, emotionally.

I was watching Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome[1]. The part when he fighting in the dome, when they said, “2 men enter, 1 man leaves”, that’s how I feel about this business. So instead of Thunderdome it’s Glitterdome and then all the other shit is philosophical.

And the glitter?

That’s cause at at the end of the day we all shining. It’s what people are made of, we’re just made of shiny little things. We’re enamored by things that are small and shiny and that’s what I have going on in my head sometimes. I think everyone has that. Your ideas are just sparks of energy and we’re enamored by that, but yeah these are really my thoughts.

THE ALBUM

Favorite track: I will say the most personal one to me is “Where Do We Go”. Everything I wanted to say about L&D, that journey, I laid it out in that song.

The Song “Walking Contradiction”: I’ve always been that way. You’re not human if you don’t contradict yourself. I’m not saying be negative or be a hypocrite, but you should be aware you’re human and you’ll make mistakes that go against your views.

The song “Pathetic”: I want everyone to know I don’t endorse that track. I won’t celebrate that song by doing a video treatment for it because it doesn’t promote anything positive and that’s my fault but I needed to get that off my chest.

It’s about a combination of a lot different chicks over the years that are real corn chips. I’m not that important, but if it means that much to you to hurt me, you see it’s not working and you continue to do that…then that’s pathetic.

ARTIST PROCESS

I knew ahead of time I would have to come up out of my insecurities and I would have start making music if I really have a passion for it. I knew I would need to pay attention to some of the basic fundamentals and singing was one of them.

I’m not a singer but I took about 6 vocal lessons just to be able to do some of the hooks. I used autotunes only once on my album. You gotta try to show people that you really are passionate, that you care enough to go to those measures to be better.

Check out the behind the scenes pics and Manhattan’s video for “It’s Nothing” at lemaranddauley.com

ALBUM CREDITS

Producers:
M.I.K.E SEE: He produced 90% of the album from scratch. I looked for years for a synthetic sound with no live instruments, but had an organic feeling to it like somebody stuck their hands in the dirt. I think we both went above and beyond to make this album cohesive.

Christian Rich on “Countdown”: They are an awesome talent.

Beat Bully on “Truthfully”: So talented and the dude is so young.

Performers:
Sosa: on “Where Do We Go”: She found a way to inject soul into the organic synth sound I was trying to develop.

Skyzoo on “Rusty Boxcutters”: People hear Glitterdome and think the album will be pretty, but real Hip Hop grit wasn’t sacrificed. [His feature] gave credibility to my true intention for this album.

Shout out to my engineer Kenny McDonald. He understands every generation of music.

I don’t want to make it seem like everyone I worked with is so fuckin incredible. People just came together and everyone who needed to be involved with this project was involved with this project.

twitter.com/ManhattanLND

lemaranddauley.com

Lemar & Dauley’s Facebook
In part 2 we talk about the environment and BP’s oil gusher.

Be Sociable, Share!

•