Dom, Marc, Congratulations on your new Beatport Number 1 with “Rhyme Dust”! How are you?

Dom: Thank you. I just arrived back in Australia after a month of some amazing shows in the US. Catching my breath, finishing new music, and happy to be chatting with you again.

MK: Great! So happy to have the track out there. We knew the fans were ready for it but the reaction and support has been insane. Feeling grateful to be in this position.

You’ve worked together on remixes before but “Rhyme Dust” is the first time you actually made a joint track.

Dom: It is. Marc and I started crossing over at shows and festivals over the last few years, and we’d talked about working on a track together. Marc’s had a huge impact on dance music, so working on “Rhyme Dust” together has been pretty special.

MK: Yeah, we’ve wanted to collaborate on a record for some time and “Rhyme Dust” came about pretty organically. Dom has been making waves for a while now and I knew we could make something epic.

How did this happen? How did you work together on the track?

Dom: I sent Marc an idea for a track just before COVID started. It was an early, and completely different version of “Rhyme Dust”. We sent the track back and forth for a few months, and eventually got together in Marc’s studio. As fate would have it, it was the exact day that the borders were closing so I rushed to the airport to get home and we shared files back and forth for months. 

MK: Dom came to my studio in LA and we landed on the initial idea. Unfortunately, this happened to be the day that COVID caused the world to shut down, so over the next two years we worked remotely on the track, playing it out live and making changes along the way.

The track is based on a sample from a hip hop classic – Q Tip’s “Breathe & Stop”. Who came up with this? And have you heard any reaction from Q-Tip himself on the track?

Dom: Q-Tip has always been one of my favourite rappers, “Breathe & Stop” is just such an iconic track. I’d been thinking about an idea to use the vocal for a while. Marc and I explored plenty of different ways of using the vocal – stretching, warping it etc. It was important to both of us to respect the authenticity of the vocal, but still shape it for the dance floor. Incredible to get Q-Tip’s blessing to release it. 

MK: Making a record with Q-Tip has always been a dream. So when Dom & I found a way to incorporate his iconic vocal with our own sound we knew we’d hit the jackpot, and getting his nod of approval was a great feeling.

You started playing different versions of the track in your sets as early as summer last year and demand for it increased each time until the still unreleased track started to trend on TikTok. What happened and how much of this can you actually plan?

Dom: This track really was designed on the dancefloors. I started to include it  in my sets over summer last year, and eventually in my Selected Session in November. It was one of my favourite moments in that set, the whole environment of being on a rooftop, in Serbia, as the sun went down just added some special magic. I posted it online and well, the rest is history… It’s always enjoyable getting feedback on unreleased music but Marc and I (and our teams for that matter) couldn’t have possibly imagined the reaction. It’s been a journey, that’s for sure.

MK: It’s definitely evolved from being part of our sets. We both started playing it out pretty heavy last summer, Ibiza especially, and the crowd reaction was wild. Then Dom shared a snippet of it from his Selected Session on TikTok at the end of last year and it took on a life of its own. We knew at that point we had to get it out, so it’s been a process for sure but an exciting one – the fans made it happen!

If you fans are now demanding a follow up collaboration – will you give in?

Dom and MK: Never say never!