Words by Jesse Serwer—
Dancer-turned-deejay Ding Dong and producer/artist Ricky Blaze have been joined since the beginning of the careers. For both, their music debut came with “Bad Man Forward, Bad Man Pull Up,” the 2006 single Blaze produced for Ding Dong to showcase the latter’s dance of the same name.
The song went on to become a classic; while Ding Dong has moved back and forth between dancing and deejaying over the year, Blaze has gone on to produce such tracks as Gyptian’s “Hold You” and Santigold’s “Disparate Youth,” and, more recently, one of our favorite songs of the year in “The Don” by Mr. Easy. You can read all about their shared path and history in the LargeUp Interview with Ricky Blaze from earlier this year. But right now it’s about their latest collaboration, “Syvah.”
The tune brings us back to the minimal vibes of “Bad Man Forward” but with more of a hip-hop feel—think vintage Bad Boy Records (“City! Kingston City! New York City!”) gwan a yard. It being Ding Dong, the video of course introduces us to his new dance of the same name. As Ricky tells us, “To Ding Dong, ‘Syvah’ means to ‘separate,’ so the dance is a energetic body movement almost reminding you of the way KrisKross danced in the 90’s.” The tune is already a hit with dancers in the streets. “Both Ding Dong and I feel this is the next ‘Badman Forward,'” Ricky says. “We have dancers all around getting involved and we’re planning a pop-up tour where we randomly pop up to events all around the world.”
Watch it here first, cop the clean audio on Soundcloud below, and stay tuned for more premieres from Ricky’s FME Recordings label on LargeUp in the New Year.
