The 2010 The Jungle album by Dumhi was reissued last week via Zilla Rocca‘s Three Dollar Pistol Music. We spoke to producer Haj about that, and more.
The Jungle originally came out digitally in 2010. Tell us about why now felt like the right time to reissue it, and bring it to wax for the first time?
This is really all thanks to Zilla. Several months ago, Zilla reached out about this idea and, at the time, I was finally considering moving some previously released projects up to the streaming platforms. Then I realized that 2025 would be The Jungle‘s 15 year anniversary and (loosely) the 20th anniversary of releasing Dumhi projects in general, so we really just ran with it from there. Opportunity meets circumstance, maybe?
The album is partly inspired by a documentary short of the same name, released in the late 60s. For the those unfamiliar, what was it about the short that resonated with you, and how did it influence the album?
I am always looking for ways to collage multiple elements together for projects. The Jungle album really started when a buddy of mine brought through a ton of Ethiopian jazz music and it seemed like hitting a jackpot for flipping and chopping. It didn’t take long at all to pile up a bunch of beats and songs started coming together very quickly from there. Around that same time is when I accidentally found the documentary. It just all came together perfectly. Coincidentally, later that same year, a local non-profit film organization also must have discovered the documentary. They put together a screening in which a lot of the participants of the original documentary actually attended. I went and after the screening, I rather timidly introduced myself to the guys and told them about our project. I wasn’t sure how they were going to react but they loved it. They loved that the project they had done so many years ago was garnering interest and inspiring creativity in 2010. I left there so happy because I really had some concerns they were going to be like “nah, man! what are you doing with our stuff” but it wasn’t like that at all. And I mean, they were old men in 2010 but, I still wouldn’t mess with them. Hahaha. So yeah, when that all happened, it just made the experience that much cooler.
You have some high-calibre emcees on there. How did those collaborations come about?
Almost everyone that participated in the project were already friends of mine and people who I had made music with before. I had met Reef, for instance, two or three years before and by the time I started working on The Jungle, we were roommates and basically “non-blood” family. I tend to wake up early (even back then) so, I would be downstairs working on beats in the morning and a few hours later, Reef would come down the steps and just point at me like “that one is mine”. He was so heavily “featured” on the project that we could have easily co-billed this whole project as Reef x Haj (or Haj x Reef lol) but, at the time, he was getting ready to release Fight Music and I don’t know. We didn’t have strategic planning meetings. We just were making music all of the time and things were just happening naturally.
I had also known Mega Ran for years at that point (going back to maybe 2003 or 2004) and he had been a part of several projects that I did previously (Yoga at Home, Indian Summer, etc). We are still good friends. I was actually with both him and Reef earlier this week. I had also known and been making music with the Lessondary Crew since probably 2004? I was doing a bunch of songs with Che and Jermiside around that 2007-2010 time period and they were heavily featured on some of my other projects (Yoga at Home, Indian Summer, Flowers, etc). I think this was the first time I actually made a song with ELUCID but I had known him for a few years and he was already one of my favorites emcees just based on some live shows and random “mixtape” verses he had floating around at that time. Burke lived a few blocks away from us in South Philly. Oxygeen is Reef’s cousin and would be around the house a lot. Flud is an old friend that is actually the first person to ever rap on a beat that I made.
The big exception (aside from Sean P which we will get into later) was Ethel Cee. Aside from a few quick introductions around town, I didn’t really know her personally at that time but we had a lot of mutual friends etc. I reached out and asked if she would be interested in contributing something to the project and we started talking through that collaboration. We have been by each other’s side since. Totally changed my life.
But yeah, for the most part, we were all just friends who loved making music and hanging out. Respected and admired what each other was doing and enjoyed hanging out with each other. I continued making music with all of them and although time and life has led to some of us not connecting as frequently and I might like, I still consider them all friends and family to this day.
Sean Price is featured on the remix to “The Knife”, this coming five years before he died. What was your experience like working with P?
I really did not know him well. I had met him (or perhaps more accurately, been introduced to him) a few times at random events but, I am not going to pretend that we were best buddies or anything. He was a total character though. A few months before I reached out to him about “The Knife” remix, he wound up at my house for a couple of hours before a show he had booked in Philly. I was there with probably about five friends when he walked in. After daps and introductions Sean told the room he was wrapping up a project (I don’t remember which one, maybe Mic Tyson) and asked us if we wanted to hear it. Everyone was like “hell yeah!’ thinking he was going to pull a CDR out of his jacket pocket or something. He then made a fist and proceeded to rap into it like he was holding a mic for like 20 minutes laughing to himself between punchlines. We were all cracking up. He was a lot of fun to be around and shoot the shit with. Just making jokes and clowning on people and being goofy. RIP, Legend.
The reissue is coming out on Zilla Rocca’s Three Dollar Pistol imprint. Obviously you both have the Philly connection, but how far back do you and Zilla go?
Yeah! We go back. I was living in NY when I first really started making beats around 2000 but then I moved back to Philly around ’05 and started meeting a lot of people in the indie hip-hop scene. It was such a cool time back then. Everyone was making music. Everyone was hanging out. I think everyone was also really competitive behind closed doors but, for the most part, when you were out and about in the scene, if you were cool about it, people were mad cool back. I do not remember exactly how I first connected with Zilla but, it was definitely through that scene. It was back during the Clean Guns era and I would hang with Zilla, Nico, Big O, Al Mighty… and that whole gang out at Yardibox Studio in West Philly. There would be 20 people sitting around there and everyone would have headphones on. Half the people were writing to beats, and the other half were making beats. Then in the next room, someone would be recording verses. Everyone was drinking and/or smoking something hahaha. I would have a blast during those sessions. Actually, one of those nights was one of the first times I met Reef too. We recorded our first song together there (“Squeeze” from Yoga at Home) and if I am not mistaken, Zilla was hitting the buttons on that recording session. We seem to always bump into each other, at least a couple times of year at various shows, events, or just out and about town. Between that and social media, I guess we never really lost touch. That said, I was still really pleasantly surprised when he hit me up about this whole anniversary release idea for The Jungle. And now I am all sentimental thinking about everything that was going on in “2010” hahaha. Good times.
Lastly, with this being a reissue, what can we expect in terms of new music from you going forward?
As I mentioned earlier, this is (what I have been considering) the 20th anniversary of Dumhi so, I am planning to continue adding some more of the catalog to major streaming services and just sort of celebrating all of the good times and good tunes that we have put together over the years. I will likely start moving The Whole World is Watching up next as that is sort of the companion piece to The Jungle. In the meantime, I have also been shifting my approach a bit when it comes to making new music. Most of the projects I have produced have been really sample driven but, since the Covid 19 pandemic, I have found myself (re)obsessed with playing guitar. In 2022, I put together the Uncle Miles Ep which was a little different than my other projects because all of the songs started as simple guitar riffs/chord progressions instead of going straight to samples. I have been putting a lot of time into actually learning the instrument better though and I am excited to really make that the driver of new material but, who knows? I also still love sampling and collaging so, every few weeks I still open up Ableton and put some straight sample based stuff together. I think the only thing that I definitely can say for certain is that I do not expect to ever stop putting new music together in some capacity. I love it.
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The remastered release of The Jungle by Dumhi is out now via Three Dollar Pistol Music. Purchase the stream, CD and vinyl via Bandcamp, or listen on Spotify. Interview by Grown Up Rap Editor Ben Pedroche.