Dom Deshawn and Stale Brick find a pressure release in ‘The Mahogany Tape’

“Sometimes you gotta look back before you move on,” Dom Deshawn offers at the onset of The Mahogany Tape, his new album alongside producer Stale Brick. 

That these are the first words spoken by the Columbus rapper shouldn’t surprise. Over the course of his years in music, Deshawn has repeatedly leaned into this more reflective side, crafting lush, cinematic songs that interrogate failed relationships, the challenges that go hand in hand with trying to make a living in the music industry, and on songs like “The Transition,” from 2014 album Moods & Interludes, the type of person he is and also hopes to become in time.

The Mahogany Tape carries on many of these threads, though the weight Deshawn carries feels somehow lessened when compared with past efforts. Witness album centerpiece “Ethiopian Coffee,” which opens with the rapper acknowledging the pressures of adulthood – “I miss the stress-free life of being a child,” he sighs – but pivots toward the sun in its back half. “Today’s beautiful and so are you,” Deshawn raps, adopting an expression and life philosophy popularized by his friend, the artist and rapper Hakim Callwood. The beat, courtesy Stale Brick (born Adam South), heightens this carefree vibe, building on slinky bass, soft-stepping keys and airy brass that captures the feel of a springtime garden in full bloom.

“There was just something about his beats that instantly hit me,” said Deshawn, who joined Stale Brick for an interview ahead of the pair’s album release show at Good Land on Thursday, May 14. “His production, there’s a nostalgic sound to it, but it doesn’t sound dated. It just gives me this feeling. … And it for sure [put me in that headspace], but I’m also a pretty reflective-ass dude in general. With music, it’s whatever is going on in my life at the time and whatever I want to get out. I don’t keep a journal, but it’s an audio journal where I can go back and reflect on wherever I was when I made a song.”

With The Mahogany Tape, this could mean autopsying the end of a romance (“Autumn Prologue II”), joining fellow rapper Joey Aich in a tag-team match extolling the benefits of risk-taking (“Chances”), or pondering the future deep in thought while riding public transportation (“COTA”). 

Deshawn and Stale Brick first met in February 2024 at the Beat Bizarre at Ace of Cups, initially bonding over shared musical interests (Slum Village, J Dilla) and a mutual love of movies. “I remember we were striking up conversations, talking about films and things like that,” Deshawn said. “And we’ve talked in years past about … how much of a visual person I am with my music, and how much I love storytelling, and even sometimes when I’m making songs I’m approaching it like I’m making a film. And I’ve told him a bunch of times, ‘Bro, down the road I can see you scoring a film.’ … And when I’m listening to his beats, I just sit there and see where they take me. … There’s some music, where when I close my eyes, I really feel like I get taken to another world.”

Stale Brick said he received an early introduction to music via his parents, first taking up piano in elementary school and then learning the guitar a few years later. While struggling in high school with what he described as a lack of direction – “I never really tried super hard at anything,” he said – Stale Brick discovered beat-making software, first picking up GarageBand and then moving quickly to Logic, which he continues to use to this day. “And then it was like, I can really try at this thing,” said the producer. “And I hope the project shows a sense of life to it, where it’s not just sequenced MIDI notes. … I really try to put a musical feel into my work, because we need more music that really feels.”

Part of this process involves recording live instruments, which the producer then chops, loops and extrudes to create a more luxurious sonic tapestry that gives further fuel to the name The Mahogany Tape. These elements combined within “Ethiopian Coffee” to have an exhilarating effect on the rapper.

“And in that first verse, I’m talking about some real-ass shit,” said Deshawn, who drops lines about money arriving at a trickle and living one paycheck from oblivion. “But the beat behind it is so lush and beautiful that it takes some of that pressure away. And it makes it feel almost euphoric, in a way, even amidst the chaos of adulthood. And that can be a hard thing, but music is thankfully one way where I’m able to keep fucking sane in this insane world that we’re in.”