DOMi and JD Beck Came Back to Where It All Started With a Sold-Out Dallas Show

DOMi and JD Beck opened their North American tour Monday night at a sold-out Deep Ellum Art Company. The tour comes in support of the duo’s first album, Not Tight, which we named Best New Album in 2022. 

Having built a strong following on the internet through live recordings and their association with established hip-hop and jazz greats such as their producer Anderson. Paak, this looks like the first step toward a more traditional approach: Release an album and then tour relentlessly behind it. The teenage band members seem eager to ditch the “child prodigy” label that painted their early years. Of course, DOMi is playing the tour while sitting on a real toilet, complete with a roll of TP, so maybe they are just trading the “child prodigy” descriptor for “enfants terrible.”
JD says, "Let’s play our next song." DOMi says, "It’s called 'Fuck you.'" JD says "Shout out to my grandmother, who is here tonight."

I am standing next to JD’s grandmother at the time while shooting the show, and she graciously invites me to step in front of her to get a better angle.

JD and DOMi met in 2018, and then ran into each other again at Erykah Badu's birthday bash in Dallas. Within a month or two they started a collaboration. On multiple levels, theirs is a perfect match. When you are a child prodigy, it’s hard to find kids your own age to play with. To find someone your same age who is just as gifted and equally irreverent is once-in-a-lifetime crazy.

While their musicianship has gotten them attention from fans and seasoned pros alike, it’s the duo's obvious friendship and kooky kinship that has endeared them to a new and younger audience. The iconic imagery of jazz is ingrained in our minds on grainy black and white film from dark, smoky clubs. The men are distant, intellectual and unapproachable; the women sultry and wary.

That’s not the world of DOMi and JD Beck. Not yet, anyway. They are too busy making the complicated look relatively simple, the intellectual look fun and the intimidating look inviting. A quick check of their tour dates reveals show after show being sold out, so apparently it’s working.
Beck grew up in Dallas, but hasn’t been around town for a couple of years. Both he and the sold-out crowd were excited that Dallas was selected to kick off the tour, and given their origin story it seems fitting. At one point he exclaimed, “This is the first show on the tour, which means you get the worst performance.” If that’s DOMi and JD Beck at their worst, their future looks incredibly bright.