Damu the Fugemunk is a producer from Washington D.C. that has been putting out music for over a decade now. Last December, he gave us an excellent collaborative album with Raw Poetic called The Reflecting Sea (Welcome to a New Philosophy). He followed that up with an EP in February done in collaboration with an up and coming emcee from D.C. by the name of Flex Mathews. That EP, however, was just the teaser, as they’ve now come back with a full-length album called Dreams & Vibrations.

There’s no real secret to the formula behind this album. You take a talented producer and team him up with a talented emcee, and then they make great music together. Damu has killer soul samples for days, and he’s got a knack for flipping them into these bright boom bap beats with some of the crispiest drums you’ll hear this year, and as the album progresses, he subtly expands the sound without losing his core identity as a producer. On the mic, you might not know Flex Mathews, but this relatively young emcee comes across like a veteran who has been doing this thing forever on this album. He’s got just the right amount of verbal dexterity and trash talk to combine with some really earnest personal lyricism to make this album extremely fun and relatable. On top of all this, Damu and Flex have great chemistry together, and there’s a give and take with the beats and rhymes that’s tough to teach that these two pull off on this album that makes it that much more enjoyable. This is an album that’s going to sound great on some sunny summer days, full of great beats and rhymes and positive vibes. The only minor criticism I have is that the album is just a tiny bit on the long side, but even then they manage to pull off several long tracks that work better in practice than they would for a lot of duos.

Dreams & Vibrations is a great summer hip hop album that just feels bright and sunny and fun. Damu the Fugemunk and Flex Mathews have great chemistry together, and they’ve given us a great album of East Coast hip hop.