The setting mattered. Dahi chose sister dreamer, lauren halsey’s architectural tribute to the color and excess of South Central, for the first public airing of Black Boy (Alternative). The Inglewood event this past Saturday was less a typical album playback and more an assertion that the project already belongs to a specific physical and cultural space.
Over the course of the set, Dahi moved between the new and the known. He premiered “Who Are You” with Vince Staples, Channel Tres, and French Anthony, and brought out Mez for “Find Me.” Childish Gambino took the stage for “Running,” while Ravyn Lenae and Jesse Boykins III handled the melodic pull of “Drowning.” These tracks will live on the full project, due August 28 via ALTER Music.
The producer didn’t ignore his history. He briefly stepped into the records that made his name, revisiting Kendrick Lamar’s “Money Trees” and “Count Me Out,” then Travis Scott’s “90210.” The gesture read less as nostalgia than as a reminder of how far his production language already stretches—from the grim snap of good kid, m.A.A.d city to the warped grandeur of Rodeo. Black Boy (Alternative) now asks listeners to reconcile that range with a project built from a more personal center.
