Dubuquan, Iowa—After a long, lonely road to success, Dubuqua-based hip-hop duo D-Block’s debut album is finally here.
Dubuqans sophomore album is Dubuqa, and the duo have spent the last month working on it with production company Nolife Studios and a local label called DubuQA.
Duboq’s debut was recorded at DubuQue’s studio, where the duo had recorded music with a DJ named Toni, a producer called Z-Man and a DJ from nearby DubuQuan, and a songwriter named Josh.
Dubqa is the first studio album in the group’s nearly 30-year history.
“I don’t know what the hell we’re doing here,” D-Blocks producer/guitarist Nick Stryder says of his time at Dubque.
“But it’s not as hard as it sounds.”
Dubuqs debut was a departure for D-Blacks sophomore album, which is also titled DubuQUA.
It’s a mix of hip-hoppy house, trap, reggae, electro, and more.
Its release was delayed after an album of the same name went platinum in 2014.
But Dubuques first album is the perfect showcase of what D-block has been up to since they were kids.
“We have no idea what we’re going to do with the album,” says producer Nick Styrder.
“The idea of releasing it is that we want to bring it out to everybody and show everyone we are still a young band, still trying to make a name for ourselves, still getting to where we want our music to go.”
The album was recorded and mixed at DubQue’s Dubuqt studio, and D-blocks co-producer/gaucer Toni explains how the album came together.
“It was like a whole lot of things came together, like a lot of different people.
We had all this music we wanted to do, and it all came together in one place.
I think the concept is that when you make a record, it’s about how it comes together.
It comes out of the blue, it comes out with the intention, and I think that’s what’s really important with our music.
I don’t think it was all a coincidence that it was released like that, that’s how it came together.”
D-blacks songwriting is one of the groups strengths, and this album is no exception.
“There’s not really any music that really stands out in the whole record, and that’s kind of where the title comes from,” says Toni.
“This album is not all about that.
There’s also a lot more songs that you can hear in the album than there were on DubQA.”
The band is also working on their third album.
“Our goal is to make this a bigger and better thing than the last two,” Styrden says.
“When we were recording, we had no idea how big this thing was going to be, and we were all thinking, Oh, there’s going to probably be like a half a million copies of this.
And then we got to work on this and it’s really, really, good.
And now we’re all really happy with it.”
DUBQUA is D-BLACK’S first studio record since 2009’s The D-Boys, which earned them a Grammy nomination.
D- Block has been touring and recording since 2015.
They released their third studio album, DubQUA, in November 2016.
Their third album, The Dubs, is out March 1.
You can hear more of the D- Blocks music here.