When 21-year-old newcomer Dan Duminy was growing up in Durban he competed as a racing driver, which gave him the opportunity to travel the country and overseas.
While travelling and competing, he dabbled in videography and took a keen interest in the entire content creation process.
His love for content creation grew over time and led to him meeting a few people in the music industry, which in turn encouraged him to branch out into recording his own music.
"I was always doing content creation during my racing time and making videos, editing, photography whilst playing around with music, but I kept that to myself," he said.
At the age of 18, he went to the US and stayed there for about 10 months. Whilst there he continued to connect with people in the industry, which further peaked his interest in music.
A few years later, in 2020, as music began to take centre stage in his life, he met fellow Durban rappers Blxckie and Crowned Yung.
"When I met Bxckie he was down to earth with only 1000 followers, but super talented," he explained.
"It took about 6 or 7 months for us to make music together, which was super easy to do because we kicked it off and completely vibed out together.
"With Crowned Yung, I met him a few years ago at the Ivyson Tour with Nasty C whilst I was still doing videography. We started being friends from then, which was 4 or 5 years ago. We’ve all become friends outside the music."
The trio recently teamed up for a fun, melodic and trappy record titled ’Alone’. This comes after their previous collaboration, ’With Us’, which was released in June last year.
"Alone" was recorded early last year, he said: "We were all in Sandton together just hanging out as bros, and Max had made this beat and we thought it was a really cool beat. Then Blxckie came with an idea and the hook, which he laid down first. Yung and I then put some verses together and recorded it. It was all very organic."
The energy in the studio was electric and infectious, leading to a song with feel-good and mellow energy. "Obviously when you are making music with your friends or doing something you love to do with your friends it’s always a good time.
"Every time I’m in the studio with Blxckie and Yung we always make something crazy. Just going into the session, we were all excited to work."
"I think with all of us being from Durban it gives us that extra comfortability to trust each other, be good to each other, and see each other win ’cause we are all from the same city with mad creative energy."
"Alone" was simultaneously released with a music video directed by Clout Casette's Morale Morule.
The video has an interesting storyline that starts off with a skit with Dan, Blxckie and Yung selling lemons before ultimately hustling themselves into a position whereby they sell out lemonade together.
"It's basically, just a story showing that you need to put in the work, be consistent and you really can go crazy. We just wanted to show people like how we started and where we are now through hard work and consistency."
Now back in Los Angeles and working on new music, Dan says we can expect a project from him sooner rather than later.
"I’m just out here trying to work hard, continue to bring my name up, and hopefully give you guys more content and keep on handling!"