Stitched together
In ‘Walk With Me,’ local musicians link up to promote racial unity, equality
Hampton band The Dharma Initiative and Newport News rapper Mr. Moe come together virtually to create a Black Lives Matter anthem.
A little more than a month ago, Zach Moats posted to his band’s Facebook page looking for a rapper or hip-hop artist to collaborate with his rock/jam band, The Dharma Initiative.
Enter Maurice Thigpen, a Newport News-based rapper who performs as Mr. Moe.
Thigpen said his girlfriend shared the post with him, so he reached out to Moats to see what he had in mind.
“Zach sent me the beat and I couldn’t do anything else but do what I had to do,” Thigpen said.
Their song, a seven-minute track inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement entitled “Walk With Me,” releases today.
And though they created and recorded the song together, Moats and Thigpen have never met face to face.
Like many other creatives, social distancing because of the coronavirus forced the artists to work on the song and record their contributions separately. Only after the separate pieces had been electronically stitched together did they form a complete record.
As for the initial beat Moats shared with Thigpen, Moats said it developed out of a two-minute video clip an old friend and former bandmate, Scott Davis, sent him.
“He’s out in California now, and we’ve been wanting to collaborate long-distance for a while now. He just got some recording equipment and sent me a two-minute video clip of him just messing around on the drums,” Moats said.
Moats took the audio from the clip and dropped it into his own recording software and tried to make it “as weird as possible.” He never intended to release anything official from his musical musings.
But the song came together like Frankenstein’s monster anyway. Moats layered other sound clips and snippets he had from previous projects and improvisations he’s made lately. Some guitar parts were material originally recorded for a 2015 album released by his dad, Roy Ira Moats, a longtime local musician.
Then Moats’ wife and bandmate, Megan Sloggie Moats, heard what he’d been working on and pitched the idea of taking it from an exploration of sound to full song.
“She quickly wrote this song that was inspired by George
Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests that were starting up,” Moats said. “This is something that should be obvious to people, not to fight this movement for basic human rights and decency and equality. We’re in this kind of atmosphere where people are very socially and politically antagonistic, but this should be something that we can all wake up to.”
It’s as simple as the old catchphrase, “A rising tide lifts all boats,” he said.
In addition to the song’s beat, Thigpen said it was Megan’s words and message that motivated him to pen his own.
Thigpen said most of his music focuses on his own life, but never delves too deep. Seeing the message that Dharma was trying to spread in a time of pain for so many, he knew it was an opportunity to step out of his comfort zone.
“It was challenging. I really just wanted to test my own abilities and do so to help send this positive message,” he said.
He visited a couple of recording studios while trying to write his rhymes, he said, but ultimately free-styled much of what is heard in the track’s opening bars.
Thigpen’s words took aim at a simple message, he said. He chose to focus on one way our society can grow and see real change.
“We’ve gotta let kids be kids. They don’t look at each other and see color. They see a good friend. It’s the parents that teach them that black is bad,” he said. “If you can’t understand the song’s message, you’re blind and deaf.”
Initially, the song will release today on The Dharma Initiative’s Bandcamp page, and all proceeds will be donated to the Urban
League of Hampton Roads. The song will later be available on all streaming platforms. The song can be purchased at dharmamusic.bandcamp.com..