Modern day soul maverick MC DRS has sparked up 2024 with high grade intention. On January 2 a surprise release of album proportions dropped on the Space Cadet Bandcamp page: Everything Must Go!
Described by DRS as a self portrait painted by many hands, a sonic art installation and the sound of him clearing his hard drive, Everything Must Go! comes with explicit instructions to listen from start to finish in the order suggested. It flexes DRS’s full range from dreamy Afrobeat to full fat funk by way of all shades of D&B murkage and every flavour in between and it’s weaved together with provocative and personal skits featuring the sounds of the road, his family and lonely long distance connections.
Featuring the likes of Dogger, Sl8r, Mindstate, Safire, Think Tonk, Disrupta, Jamezy, Creatures, Vangeliez and Chiccoreli, rising talents such as JPthatscold, DHtheproducer and M3nacebeats, Zar, RVS and Skeptics – plus a few intriguing mysterious aliases such as Mither and Asif Ahwud – the body of work was made in various studios around the world on tour over the last few years post-covid… As Dogger hinted when we went dog walking with him last year. (See here around 8 minutes in)
As if being a deeply personal, community-crafted, boundary-bunking, guerilla-dropped body of work wasn’t quite enough. Everything Must Go! also packs a curt middle finger at Big Streaming in the manner it was released. It actually dropped a few weeks ago…
Instantly available to those who pre-ordered the full release, the full tracks dropped on January 2. 10 days later, the album drops on all streaming platforms and download stores.
“It’s a reaction and kickback against major streaming platforms blatant disregard for our art,” DRS tells us direct. “It’s changing the way music is being made and how people think about creating music. That isn’t right. As a label, and as an artist myself, I’ve been thinking about ways of combating that and also how we can capitalize on our releases before the streaming platforms do. So every one of my releases moving forward it’ll be on Bandcamp for 10 days before they’re on platforms.”
Explaining how he hopes his artist family on his label Space Cadet will do the same, the artist also known as Delrokski promises a fresh energy to operations as his imprint rockets into its sixth year.
“So much work goes into these projects and it can’t be thrown at the mercy of algorithms or what these platforms think, or want us to do,” explains the UK MC pioneer who dropped a similarly meaningful switch-flipping project exactly five years ago. 2019’s From The Deep was his first hip-hop album in almost 10 years at that point. Made with Pitch92, it was the second release on Space Cadet and it landed with no hype or fanfare or contrived promo schedule. Just raw soul, laid bare.
The journey DRS has been on during the five years that have passed has been phenomenal. Now sober and a band leader at the helm of a crucial live show which can take on esteemed venues like Jazz Café, Everything Must Go! is a celebration of this and continues to extend his ability to weave his hip-hop and drum & bass roots into a whole number of styles and moods from sleazy funk to delicate soul.
“I don’t make music for charts or playlists. I’m lucky they arrive in these places,” continues the MC who’s also dropped his biggest studio album of his career since then – 2022’s Del-Rok-Ski on Shogun Audio. “These things happen naturally and that’s the way we’d like them to happen. So from now on all releases will be solely on our Bandcamp for 10 days.”
“Everyone has become real conformist and beige to fit into these pigeonholes and categories. That’s not how music works. We’re taking back the power.”
Never confirmist, never beige, always miles ahead of the game; DRS continues to blaze his own trails in his own inspiring way. Follow Space Cadet to see where this power is channelled next.