NO ONE DOES IT LIKE DDESMS

by Stella Hughes 2 years ago

by Stella Hughes 2 years ago 4 min

As much as the term ‘multidisciplinary creative’ is arguably overused, it’s almost a prerequisite in today’s age. To be successful as an emerging artist nowadays means being truly switched on to internet culture, talented in your field, and able to bridge gaps between different creative industries and endeavours. Luckily, Ddsems has got this down to a T.

It also involves being motivated, too. When we caught up last week, Ddesms (aka Daniel) was seeing off the end of the bug that has been going around London in recent weeks, saying it was “mad two weeks ago… but I need to go studio so I don’t care”. Releasing a series of projects in 2021 which included tracks like Betty and Spaceships, this year saw the artist pay homage to his hometown, with the latest single LUNDUN.

Talking about the accompanying video for the track, Daniel recalled shooting it in just 2 days. “We just thought that we don’t really see people use London like we did… the areas that we used no one was doing that. London’s our ends, it’s our vibes. We know where we’re going so it was chilled – just me, the videographer and two of my boys, that’s it”. Keeping a close circle seems to be of high importance in Ddesms’ decisions. He spoke about his projects in plural pronouns almost exclusively, highlighting the sense of collaboration and community that make his drops and releases so successful, as well as giving credit where credit’s due.

Creative decisions, for Ddesms, are made from intuition – speaking about the video’s distinctive style, he noted that “this editor felt right, it just made sense. Sometimes different people can see the vision – and this style made sense for the video”. Distorted frames hit each beat, and scenes regularly transition with glitched out backdrops or waves.

As well as the slick edits, the video places a distinct focus on fashion, too. “It was more of how I normally take outfit pics, just walking around finding crazy spots and vibing”. Hinting at it here, Ddesms is also a big name in the fashion space – using his expertise in one field to inform the other. But as he explains, the video goes beyond a hype-driven fit pic. “People don’t really dress like me, so when people deep the outfits and understand them, it’s like a whole runway with a crazy track”.

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It’s clear that fashion and music go hand-in-hand, but Ddesms would describe his sound as “different. I don’t think anyone in the UK sounds like my shit right now, or has anything like my vibe. If it was up to me I’d drop a track everyday. But in reality it depends on the mood – for a track I dropped six months ago, now is the right time for a video.” Here, he further cements his intuition as the driving force of new drops – acknowledging the effect that a new video will have on an existing track, in time for Summer.

There is someone who has the final say on what’s good, though – his daughter Azura. “If my daughter likes the tune, I know it’s a banger. It’s weird how she knows – she vibes. She’s dancing right now to Lundun.” Check out the video below.