Imaged provided by Doobie & Krash Minati
Los Angeles-based recording artist, Doobie, first began to develop some noise in the latter part of 2017 when his single “When The Drugs Don’t Work” caught fire, with over 14 million YouTube views to date. Raised in Columbus, Ohio, Doobie became a double-edged sword as a rapper and producer, consistently dropping projects. Similiar to Russ’ 2015 drop-per-week strategy, Doobie continued to fire off content and invest into his YouTube channel within recent years. Now, at 112k YouTube subscribers, Doobie recently earned YouTube’s Artist on the Rise award amongst Trippie Redd and Moneybagg Yo.
To compliment the announcement of his nationwide “Faithfully Faded Tour,” Doobie’s dropped the Blues Brothers EP, which is a collaborative project with long-time friend, Krash Minati. RESPECT. had an opportunity to speak with Doobie and Krash Minati about meeting one another, drug use in Hip-Hop, YouTube success, and more. Read the conversation below.
You two have been longtime friends, but would you mind explaining to our readers how you guys met?
Me and Krash met at a football game at the school that we was going to he was in ninth grade I was in 8th grade. We found out each other rapped and we just started fucking with each other after that.
Doobie, can you describe the moment you made the decision to move to LA from Columbus? Were you hesitant at all?
I wasn’t hesitant at all because I was on tour out West. Tour ended up having some some difficulties so me and my brothers are left broke as fuck and stranded and the only the other choice is really to go to LA. We didn’t know we were going to live in LA but I just happened like that and I mean shit worked out for us so why would we change it now?
In Doobie’s Genius “Verified” segment he emphasized the importance of “knowing yourself” before doing drugs – but that can be applied to life in general. Do you guys feel like a lot of today’s musicians know themselves?
Honestly, no I do not feel like a lot of today’s musicians know themselves and the reason why is because I feel like today we live in a time of year where everyone is just saying things or doing things just to make other people happy or just to feel good for us. Kid will be doing drugs just because it their friends are on drugs.
Going into the ‘Blues Brothers’ EP, how important was it for you guys to tackle production yourselves?
It was important for me and Krash to tackle the production ourselves because really thats our sound. I generally do love other producers work but as far as our sound is just us and it’s better when we just do it.
With the project’s title you guys are referencing the 1980 film – but are there any ways that you relate to the characters of The Blues Brothers?
No.
Doobie – you have managed to develop a strong YouTube following with over 30 million plays. Clearly your hard-work is paying off, but in the beginning what made you invest so much time in YouTube vs. another platform?
So usually we were releasing all our music on SoundCloud, then we decided to change it up and drop a visual right with the audio so every song we drop we dropped a music video with it and just so happen the third one that we did on my new channel just went viral “when the drugs don’t work” and now it’s at 13 million. Then continued that with 10 more releases including “nikki sixx” “rolling up my weed” and it clicked with the fans on there.
“More Like Me” is definitely one of the more catchy tracks on the EP, so we can see why you made it a single. What was the creative process like for this track?
“More like Me” was the one of the first songs that I made when I first moved to California as well as one of the first songs I just freestyled on so its very different than my usual which is writing.
A majority of the EP consists of boastful records, but gets a bit more serious towards the end. Was this done intentionally? What do you guys hope listeners take away after listening this EP?
Really the main thing I want people to get from the Blues Brothers is hearing Krash Minati. He’s an amazing lyricist, he’s my brother and he’s a dope artist and producer as well.
What can fans expect next?
Doobie: You can expect a headline tour coming real soon in June and July. I’m also working on a solo album with the debut single “Icy Titties” that everyone’s been seeing on Fatboy’s page.
Krash Minati: I’ll be on the Faithfully Faded tour and officially releasing my first solo single “Snow Day” and video real soon.
Stream the Blues Brothers EP below and purchase tickets for the “Faithfully Faded Tour” here.
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