New Collaborative Album Ashes To Be Released October 23rd; "Let's Go" Serves As First Official Single
The Song:
Earlier this month, Oh No announced a new collaborative album with upstart producer Chris Keys. The album, titled Ashes, in which Oh No, for the very first time, relinquishes totally his producer reins, will be released October 23rd via Heavy Keys Records. In announcing the project, Oh & Chris gave fans an early preview with the gritty Guilty Simpson and Montage One-featuring "Devastation," and now the rapper and producer pair are excited to release the album's first official single, "Let's Go."
"Let's Go," premiered today by MTV Hive, continues to show off not only the strength and quality of the music coming from Oh No's collaboration with Chris Keys, but also the diversity the two have been able to achieve; while "Devastation" beat its way through speakers with verses just as raw as the production, "Let's Go" instead pulses its way to listeners' ears. "I wanted to make a song that'd be a little more hype, something with a little more of a party vibe," says Chris, who admits that he wasn't sure about the song until he heard what Oh No did with the track. "I couldn't really hear how it was going to come out," explains Chris, "but when I heard what Oh did with the hook, I knew it was a definite single."
For Oh No's part, he pulled his inspiration for the song from a recent party that he stumbled upon while on tour in Europe. "I walked into this big ass rave," recalls Oh No, "with fire torches, tents, thousands of people getting drunk, no police, no problems – just everybody having a grand time."
Please contact Michelle or Dan if interested in talking with Oh No & Chris Keys.
The Background:
Producer Chris Keys hails from The Bay, but cut his teeth at the Lamont School of Music in Denver, where he studied jazz piano. Oh No’s reputation is virtually certain to precede him – but that’s only part of the story. The real story lies in the breadth and depth of Oh No’s own work, his precision as a producer and his versatility as a rapper. And now, for the first time, Oh No has relinquished total control of the desk and focused squarely on rhymes, and both men point to an almost instantaneous creative chemistry that arose when they first started to work together. The end result is Ashes, a deeply musical album that balances gritty yet musical production against heavier themes in Oh No's writing. Ashes, which also includes features from Guilty Simpson, Big Pooh, Montage One, LMNO, Declaime, Roc C, Lyric James, DJ Romes, Killah Priest and Wildchild, will be released October 23rd via Heavy Keys Records.
About Heavy Keys Records: Founded in 2012, Heavy Keys Records is a brand new label with an old school idea: intuition and talent first, everything else is just noise. Heavy Keys' artists may have myriad styles, but they are unified by a seemingly bottomless instinct to create, to collaborate, to keep making, making, making. They are artists who believe in the lab, who put musicality first and who trust their guts. The Bay Area-based label was founded by electronic music pioneer Mikael Johnston (Mephisto Odyssey, Dresden + Johnston) and hip-hop producer upstart Chris Keys, after the two were introduced to each other by producer Bobby Ozuna (Raphael Saaqdiq, Erykah Badu). Johnston quickly recognized Keys as a talented producer and, for the first time in his career, decided to focus strictly on the business end; within Heavy Keys, Johnston is the mastermind while Keys is the the label's north star, seeking out talent and producing and collaborating on all Heavy Keys releases. The first release from Heavy Keys Records will be Ashes, which is produced entirely by Chris Keys, and which serves as the latest solo album from acclaimed rapper Oh No. Ashes will be followed later this year with a compilation mixtape, which will feature and include a range of artists that Heavy Keys plans full releases from in 2013, including Roc Marciano, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Dudley Perkins, Killah Preist, MED, and more.
