Heart to "Heart": The Dirty Ol' Men Hip-Hop Collective Channels Loss and Grief On Its First Album in Four Years

MUSIC INTERVIEW

The Dirty Ol' Men gather on the porch of an Airbnb in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Members of the The Dirty Ol' Men hip-hop collective in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2023. Photo taken from The Dirty Ol' Men's Instagram page.

The hip-hop collective The Dirty Ol’ Men unexpectedly lost three members in 2021.

“Fourteen of us met in Memphis in 2021 and eight got COVID,” said Rod Wallace, an Eastern Michigan University alum and member of The Dirty Ol’ Men. “One of the variants was going around and we found out about it while we were preparing. The majority of us were vaccinated … but one of us—Blacmav [aka Mario Blocker]—passed away. Later that same year we lost two other members, Tasherre Risay and Chenika Bowens, who was also known as ThatBlessedGirl. One of our members, RTO Beats, had a heart transplant.”

The grieving remaining members channeled their emotions and experiences into writing and recording a cathartic album, Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled, during The Dirty Ol’ Men’s annual retreat two years later.

“It took a lot out of everybody,” Wallace said, “but we got back together in Charlotte, [North Carolina] in 2023. We created a bunch of music and I executive-produced and put the album together along with the producers.

“The music that we were making spoke specifically to the trauma that we had experienced in losing our friends. It wasn’t with complete intent to make an album that was about Black men and trauma, but it’s what came out of what we were creating.”

What resulted are 10 compelling boom-bap tracks from 20 members, producers, and collaborators of the hip-hop collective—which includes several Washtenaw County and Detroit artists: Quentin Barrett, London Beck, Boog Brown, Buff1, F13ldz, Finale, Kopelli, Mr. P-Dro, Queso Tone, Beretta Shells, JB Swift, Where She Creep, and Wallace.

The songs on Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled feature insightful rhymes, emotive beats, and candid spoken-word segments about survival, growth, and legacy.

“F13ldz and I said, ‘Well, let’s lean into this and figure out what we’re trying to say or what the music is telling us to say,’” Wallace said. “[The album title] Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled comes from John 14:1 and it’s a Bible verse that essentially says, ‘Everything will be OK—just remain faithful.’ I thought it was appropriate for what we had done.”

This is the first new music from The Dirty Ol’ Men since 2020’s Six Feet, and I spoke with Wallace about the hip-hop collective’s emotional journey to write and record its latest album.

Q: Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled explores the struggles of Black men coping with grief, loss, and trauma. How did your personal experiences and those of The Dirty Ol’ Men inspire the album?
A: I felt like saying the things that I said allowed me to move forward in a way. I always believe that the music that we create as musicians speaks specifically from our subconscious, and if we can allow ourselves to fall into that, then we can dig deeper into what we believe and think about our lives and what’s going on. The songs were easy to write and the production from the guys is always fantastic. When we derive an idea, the words just come off the page. And shout-out to all those people who were not necessarily amongst the enclave of producers and artists, but we had the opportunity to engage them in this—like Buff1, Boog Brown, and Finale. They were able to get right into that space and it was really great.

Q: How has the album resonated with listeners since releasing it in the summer?
A: There’s been this dialog that’s been happening in hip-hop about genres at this point. [We] don’t make the same music that a 21-year-old makes … and I think the more we see veteran artists continue with their craft … and put out great music, it encourages us as older cats to continue to write and engage in it. If not for anything other than it allows us to examine where we are and to stay close to our identities that we grew up in. It’s a cliché to say hip-hop is the voice of our generation, and hip-hop is from a cultural standpoint a complete message of expression period in our country.

Music transcends experience—it transcends a lot of things. One thing I was talking to the fellas about is that great musicians either go to where people are or they bring people into their world. We wanted to go to where people were with how the songs were said and the diversity in terms of perspectives and bouncing between the general concepts of trauma and concepts about our lives versus specific things, like talking about working on third shift [on “Third”]. We wanted to … allow people to take away from our stories what they needed.

But after we put the album out, the amount of people who came to us to start talking about what they had experienced and what they heard that they understood, made me feel like there has to be better or more platforms for people to express their thoughts about what they go through. I thought, “How can I tap into some of this storytelling that people want to do?”

Q: Religion is another key theme on Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled. How did the different religious backgrounds of The Dirty Ol’ Men inspire the album’s tracks?
A: I grew up in a Southern Baptist household, but what I’ve come to learn is that we experience the spiritual realm and spiritual growth differently. There are all these individual doctrines and perspectives; it’s all about making meaning for our lives and aligning ourselves with a deeper purpose. That’s why throughout the project there are different perspectives on religion. You have the title of the album, you have a Muslim prayer, you have a Native American prayer, and it’s almost like a ritual that exists. It’s attacking these perspectives about life and death and trauma and living … from different angles. I think we’re all saying the same thing.

Q: The title track highlights the challenges of grief and loss and feeling powerless. How was writing that track a cathartic experience for you, DJ Widebody, and F13ldz?
A: As rappers, we hear a beat or we hear something and it just sticks to us. As soon as I heard that beat—DJ Widebody made it—I instantly knew this was the song that told the whole story. I come from a generation where we listen to music as tapes or CDs. It was the quintessential No. 2 after the intro [“Zero Noize”] to me and it’s the palette cleanser for the rest of the project. This perfectly encompassed exactly what we encountered and so we talked about some of that. I wrote my verse … and I voice-noted my verse piece by piece. F13ldz did his thing and DJ Widebody talked about some personal things that he’s encountering and we all came at it from that perspective. I alluded to the fact that I had lost both of my parents in a short amount of time and it allowed us to deal with that very quickly. Because it’s that record, that’s why I heard voices and strings, so we continued to build it out.

Q: “Lifewater” emphasizes seizing the day, following your passion, and finding ways to grow. What was it like for you, Queso Tone, F13ldz, and JBM Beatz to reflect on growth and replenishment while writing this track?
A: The end of “Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled” has a sample that plays out and fades out into this speech or this Islamic prayer. It’s another one of those situations where I heard the beat—which is by JBM Beatz—and the beat is called “Lifewater.” I thought, “How do we come back from [these losses]?” The losses that we encountered are now two or three years behind us and music serves to replenish us.

In my verse, I talk about how my process of healing involves making music. I do music and I do music for myself in some ways—although I’m highly collaborative—simply because I don’t know if everybody knows my relationship with music and how it helps to heal me.

To me, it’s like a meditation. At the end of the song, I say, “Hip-hop is very much a part of who I am, and don’t put me in a situation where I have to make a choice between hip-hop and not.” I have all these fantastic accomplishments and everything, but at the end of the day, none of it means anything if I don’t have peace.

Q: “The Basement” examines how people find refuge in their basements and how they function as labs for creativity. How did creative experiences in your basement inspire this track and reinforce the idea that art comes from underground places?
A: The underground has such an important role to play in the music that we make. We spend years and years working on stuff … and then all of a sudden there’s this spark and something fantastic happens. I talk about how we spend hours after hours trying to learn how we use these powers. In the superhero montage, the superhero finds out that they have powers and they’re trying to learn how to use them. I also like how Buff1 talks about how it’s a place of fellowship and risk-taking. And now with that same feeling, he gets to teach kids using the same thing, and what a blessing it is. And Beretta Shells—he’s a DJ—I love how he finishes it with an abstract sense of how music just happens.

Q: “Good Vibes Only” focuses on creating your own definition of success and finding new ways to do things. How did writing this track bring you a renewed sense of purpose? What did DJ Widebody, Boog Brown, and CX The Producer help bring to it?
A: It is about balancing and finding this peace. One thing that we struggle with that music allows us to do is be present; it’s hard to be present because we focus so deeply on what’s not right in place. Here in this moment, it’s good vibes only. Let’s just hang out—it's cool, it’s no pressure. I said I’m seeking something that’s familiar to me, like I’m not trying to recreate or reconstruct anything. I’m just trying to find something that speaks to my spirit and that speaks to me and allows me to be whole. DJ Widebody did the same thing and captured it perfectly.

We heard the beat when we were in Charlotte and CX The Producer sent it over to us. I started saying the chorus and we called the rest of the guys in. DJ Widebody and I recorded our verses and another producer, JB Swift, said, “Man, you should send this to Boog Brown.” I sent it to Boog Brown, and she said, “I got you.” We worked it all out and we did something.

Q: “Driver’s Seat” highlights taking charge of your life and encountering wins and losses. How did personal experiences help shape this track? How did Kopelli, Where She Creep, and JBM Beatz take it to the next level?
A: I feel like “Driver’s Seat” is the beginning of the end of the project. The realization is that we have control over stuff and we don’t have control over other stuff. In terms of controlling what you control, you have to be willing to be bold enough to say, “This is the life that I’m going to have.” People may not agree with it and people may not be comfortable with it, so I think that’s the end realization. At the beginning of the project, we started in a place where we had no control, where we had no agency. There were angels and there were demons and all these things were happening. And then you get to “Driver’s Seat” and it’s saying, “Well, I’m going to control what I can in my life,” and that’s what it comes down to.

I like what Kopelli and [Where She Creep’s] Kyle [Love] did on it. That record was made over at Grove Studios one day in the middle of the day and we all just started writing to it. We did that song that one day in a few hours; I had Kyle riffing through … and Kopelli came through.

Q: “If I Die” prompts people to think about death and the legacy they leave behind. How did writing this track help you and The Dirty Ol’ Men view death differently and find closure from the losses you’ve experienced?
A: “Driver’s Seat” rolls right into “If I Die.” And “If I Die” is like the next step and it’s saying, “OK now, I feel like I’m in some relative control over what’s happening. If this opportunity is taken away from me, this is how I want the people who care about me to know how I perceive death.”

At the compound in Charlotte—we stayed at a huge Airbnb—it had a nice guest house … with all of the super-duper musicians in it. Diggahertz was there and he was playing the beat and the sample was saying, “If I Die.” And I thought, “What if you talk on the record and give specific instructions about what to do if you pass away?” When I heard F13ldz do his verse, I said, “Man, that is so spot-on,” and it’s exactly what I would have envisioned being over it.

But Diggahertz had also put another beat in the folder that had the very same tempo that felt similar and it was the second part of “If I Die.” When I listened to it, I said, “I can start giving my instructions, but this has a very indigenous feel to it.” That’s when I ran across that skit involving indigenous perspectives about death and returning to the earth, so that’s what I talked about. [It’s about] being one with the universe when you pass away and your spirit becoming part of the essence of everything that’s moving. I wanted to talk about it from that perspective because there’s a part of me that believes that.

Like I said at the end, what I took away from the deaths of my friends in a short amount of time was that I have to die empty. I have to leave here with something and I don’t care about the money that I make—it’s intended to support my family—but none of that means anything to me when that time comes. What I came to realize is that I will leave behind a lot of words that encouraged people, made people feel whole, and gave people an opportunity to look at themselves differently. To me, that’s a legacy, and I’m proud of the whole album … and our willingness to confront these things that go unsaid in some way.

Q: Tell me about the creative process for Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled.
A: We made a lot of the initial recordings while we were together in Charlotte. We made a folder of beats and there was a flow of consciousness. And then afterward we filled in a lot of the blanks and rerecorded stuff. I want to give a shout-out to The Dirty Ol’ Men because they gave me the ability to get into their music and play around with it. I’m grateful that I work with people who allow me to get these ideas out of my head and be able to say, “Hey, what if we added this? What if we added that? What if we got this artist on this project or this song? What if I move this verse to this place?” I get the opportunity to do that and I’m very appreciative of that opportunity. A lot of the album was recorded right there and a lot of things were done conceptually when we were in Charlotte last summer. I always love the opportunity to take all of the pieces and put the puzzle together in a way.

Q: As executive producer, how did you help The Dirty Ol’ Men fulfill its creative vision for the album?
A: They submitted their initial tracks where we had an opportunity to conceptualize what would happen, and then we could go back to them and say, “Hey, this is the concept that we have. What do you think about it? What do you want to change? What doesn’t sound right?” I played the role of picking what I felt needed to be in there, but there are dozens of other songs that didn’t become part of this project that are around as well.

I felt like these specifically captured it not only from a content area, but it’s also distinctly boom-bap hip-hop. It’s also different types of boom-bap hip-hop in a way. “Summer League” is more inspired by Benny the Butcher and Westside Gunn and with no drums added to it—it’s more like a loop. “If I Die” is distinctly Diggahertz with a drum slap and some great accompaniment. I feel like “If I Die” is our trademark sound and it’s very clean, crisp, and snappy.

Q: What’s up next for The Dirty Ol’ Men?
A: There was a retreat in early July in Maryland, so they put some music together and we’re weighing exactly what we want to do with that. Some of us are putting out individual projects, but they don’t have release dates on those yet. As for The Dirty Ol’ Men, we’ll have something out in the early part of next year.


Lori Stratton is a library technician, writer for Pulp, and writer and editor of strattonsetlist.com.