Local Hip-Hop Act Muamin Collective Works With a Live Band on New Album
The local hip-hop act MuAmin Collective has been doing its thing around the city and beyond over the span of more than ten years. During some of the performances, the duo of emcee Josiah “Zion” Quarles and producer Aaron “aLIVE” Snorton occasionally rock with a live band. This planted the seed for their latest project, a entire live album with a four-piece band entitled DIG, which the band celebrates with a performance at 9 p.m. on Saturday at the Euclid Tavern.
“This one was a little bit different than everything else,” says Quarles. “We had done a random hit back in the day at Compound Fest, which was mostly like a punk festival, and we did it for a couple years. We were pretty much the only hip-hop act. The third time we did the festival, we kinda wanted to spice it up. We talked to Neil Chastain [percussion] and Jake Wynne [trumpet], and they were down to play over aLIVE’s beats and it worked out really good. So we were like, ‘Let’s see if we can do some more work.’ Neil had a trio, and we started working with them a bit. Just hashing out some of the songs, mostly ‘World B. Free’ songs. We probably played about three or four gigs like that.”
Through a mutual colleague, keyboardist Eli Hanley ended up coming into the fold after sitting with the group during a performance at NEOCycle. Mike McNamara on guitar rounded out the group’s lineup.
