Lrnd d$troy, fka Leonard Dstroy, is a producer from Kansas City who over the years has worked with everyone from Mac Lethal to Ces Cru to Kutty Slitz. He’s also produced a lot of top notch instrumental music over the years, with his last collection, ADHD Vol. 2 coming out back in 2015. Now he’s come back with a brand new instrumental project, All City Vol. 1-3.

Way back when, before he was Lrnd d$troy, hip hop producer, he was a young graffiti artist in the city. In the past year, looking to get back to his first love, d$troy taught himself how to shoot, edit, and produce video content. He then decided to shoot some graffiti in KC and document some of the street art in his city. What was originally planned as a three-minute video quickly blossomed into a web series, which then required a score, which d$troy was more than happy to compose. That brings us to the music of All City Vol. 1-3. For a project like this, you’re not looking to reinvent the wheel, you’re just looking for some classic boom bap instrumentals that match up well with videos examining the graffiti around Kansas City. Falling somewhere in between a beat tape and a full-length album, d$troy is up to the challenge, presenting some well-developed, soulful, gritty beats to nod your head to as you look at the visuals. It’s raw goodness, but d$troy is also enough of a veteran artist to add a lot of variety across seventeen tracks and develop each track enough that you actually go on a short journey – you’re not just stuck on a groove until you move to the next. The result is a release that works well as a soundtrack, but also can be enjoyed on its own merits.

Lnrd d$troy has made a lot of great hip hop over the years, but when you’ve been at it as long as he has, it’s also easy to become complacent. It’s nice to see him challenge himself with a new project, and to release something that he clearly enjoyed making.