American producer Kingdom and songwriter/producer Rush Davis are thrilled to announce Transmission, their new collaborative album out November 12th on TOKiMONSTA’s Young Art Records. Kingdom’s ethereal club-inflected R&B provides the architecture, while the emotional spectrum of Davis’s personal and collective relationship stories infuse heartfelt messages of community, commitment, and self-sovereignty.
By bridging technical wisdom and experimental freedom, the duo birth a rare frequency embodying queer artistry and amplifying left-of-center dance and R&B records that are pushing the limits of sound. This is championed single, “Element.” The sound of “Element” points to the classic Kenny Dope house anthems often sampled in ballroom culture, Janet Jackson-inspired production, mixed with Kingdom’s complex syncopated rhythms, and a bit of melancholy and sex sprinkled in. This bedroom club anthem beckons an old hook-up back into the sheets to explore the curiosity of a never- ending sexual spark.
Davis and Kingdom have paved their respective lanes working behind the scenes for more than a decade. Kingdom is the founder of his Fade to Mind label, as well as an internationally touring DJ, and producer for Kelela, SZA, and Tinashe, to name a few. Davis has worked with a long list of pop, hip-hop, R&B, and electronic heavyweights such as Duke Dumont, Dawn Richard, and Scarface. Yet the spirit of this album is rooted in something purely grassroots: Mustache Mondays, a legendary queer party in Los Angeles, co-founded by the late Nacho Nava. There, Kingdom and Davis’ worlds collided for the first time in 2013. At this party, Kingdom played his first DJ sets in Los Angeles, and Davis found a home that called queer performers, primarily people of color, to the center, developed, praised, and celebrated them.
Transmission is dedicated to Mustache Mondays, as the energy from those nights seeps into the records. Revelers found love and missed connections on the dancefloor and bonded with their chosen family. A creative expression ran free from voguing performances by the House of Xtravaganza, live performances from artists like Kelela, and a plethora of avant-garde DJ sets. This project chronicles the genuine devotion that keeps a community like this going through the ups, downs, and messiness of it all. It is no wonder Transmission found the perfect launching pad for the album in Young Art Records, a label by electronic dance mainstay TOKiMONSTA, who is building a home for fresh recordings light years ahead of the present moment.
Although Davis and Kingdom had developed a friendship from their rave days, it is not until now that they’ve brought their minds together at this remarkable capacity. Brimming with creative angst due to the downtime that 2020 brought, the origins of Transmission began when Kingdom sent Davis the instrumental of the urgent and angular beat, “Love Is Blood,” that no other songwriter could seem to nail due to the challenging rhythm and chords.
“When I heard that track, everything in me shattered into a million pieces,” says Davis. At that moment, he reflected on the genius of his friend Kingdom and the beauty and evolution of the relationships attending Mustache Mondays. Rush’s lyrics are a testament to those years. This track was a seed for the project. “I was like if he can make this weird beat into something this special, he's gonna destroy all of them,” says Kingdom. Digging into the album, you’ll find more of this burning passion for their community, fueling time- bending sounds.
The sigil featured in the Transmission album art captures the project’s themes. Davis and Kingdom envision that if someone discovers the sigil and the music within it in a million years, it will evoke an authentic, loud, direct portrayal and proof of their community’s transcendent existence. Ultimately, Transmission is an everlasting artifact containing the aesthetics and moods of the tight-knit spaces where Rush and Kingdom found solace and belonging. Through sound, their truth is permanently imprinted in the universe forever.
