ARTIST: Chester French
ALBUM:Love The Future
SOUNDS LIKE: Pop-rock made by kids who love hip-hop
FUN FACT: Chester French's founding members D.A. Wallach (left) and Maxwell Drummey named the group after the American sculptor Daniel Chester French, who designed the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.
WHY COMPLEX IS CO-SIGNING IT: Anyone who can get Pharrell Williams and Kanye West into a bidding war is worth taking a listen to. (For the record, Skateboard P won.) First featured on Entourage, the two Harvard University grads have been making music together ever since their freshman year in 2003. After signing with Star Trak, the duo in recent months have toured on and off with acts such as N*E*R*D and Lady Gaga and performed at SXSW. They've also released a free mixtape—Jacques Jams Vol. 1: Endurance—on their website that has artists like Pharrell, Bun B, Talib Kweli, Jadakiss, Diddy, Jermaine Dupri and Wale rapping over their instrumentals. Even if its genre isn't your thing, Love The Future is accessible pop-rock with a hip-hop sensibility.
To promote their new album, which drops today, Maxwell and D.A. came by the office to give an exclusive track-by-track breakdown of Love The Future. Check out their behind-the-scenes stories and listen to snippets from the new LP below...
Interview by Andrew Rivera and Reginal Thomas
"Introduction"
D.A.: Last song we wrote. We were vacationing in the Caribbean, the drum pattern was inspired by "Takeover," the Jay-Z song.
]
