Dacoury Dahi Natche has shaped the sound of modern hip-hop from the shadows. As DJ Dahi, he produced the haunting minimalism of Kendrick Lamar's Money Trees, the hypnotic pulse of Drake's Worst Behavior, and earned a Grammy for 21 Savage's A Lot. Now, the Los Angeles producer is stepping into the foreground with Black Boy (Alternative), a debut album that reframes Black identity as self-defined and binds hip-hop, R&B and alternative rock into a single, cohesive statement.
The lead single Running, featuring Childish Gambino, sets the tone. It glides on minimal rhythms with warm guitar notes that shift into jazz territory, a Reckoner-like swell that feels both intimate and expansive. It is Gambino's first new musical release in over a year, and the pairing makes perfect sense given Dahi's history of shaping atmospheric backdrops for rap's biggest names.
The tracklist reads like a curated festival bill. How To Pray pairs Kendrick Lamar with Amber Mark. Find Me brings together Moses Sumney and Mez. Who Are You stacks Vince Staples, Channel Tres and French Anthony. Drowning pairs Elmiene with Ravyn Lenae. Across eleven tracks, the album moves between these voices without losing its central identity. This is not a producer compilation. It is a singular artistic vision that happens to be expansive enough to hold many voices.
Dahi has described Black Boy (Alternative) as a project born from the boy who found himself between genres. Growing up absorbing hip-hop, R&B and the alternative and rock sounds that the culture around him rarely reflected back, the album treats those influences not as separate lanes but as a single, intertwined language. The title itself is the thesis: alternative is not a departure from Blackness but a dimension of it.
Previous singles Rest Of Your Life and Find Me already hinted at the album's range, from atmospheric late-night drives to art-song ambition. With Running now out in the world and the full tracklist revealed, Black Boy (Alternative) arrives as one of the most anticipated debut albums of the summer. It is out 28 August via ALTER Music.
