Shahmen

Biography

B L S, MC, Los Angeles.
SENSE, Producer, Amsterdam.

This Summer SHAHMEN presents their debut EP: Enter the Circle. SHAHMEN is what hip-hop is supposed to sound like in the year 2010. The SHAHMEN sound is a dance between moments of pure tonal bliss and dark, hard, banging beats.

Imagine, SENSE as the mystical, more musically composed student of Muggs and RZA, who learned a secret his teachers did not. Building from their foundation, he reaches new plateaus in the dimensionality of sample composition. Finding his own, unique formula for interweaving haunting melodies between head banging drums, the music pulls you into a trance like state where the rock solid voice of B L S finds the perfect soundscape to sink in.
Straight up, B L S has the realest voice in rap in a very long time; ranging from a thundering bass which most rappers can only mimic with a pitch-shift, to a hazy drawl reminiscent of a cowboy in an old western. The unique vocal tone is matched in the lyrics, and B L S stands apart in the original narratives he weaves, leaving far behind the overused and tired archetypes of street stories, and pop-culture punch lines.

Simply put, SHAHMEN the illest seven letter word since OutKast or Nirvana.

“Been around the world, already touched six continents, the same pair of Vans slip-ons walked all of ‘em, 
I found Sense floating on a boat in holla land, and ever since then we been building and acknowledging…
The world is truly strange, and it only gets stranger, The scenery is beautiful but I also sense danger…” -The Stranger, SHAHMEN

The Story:
While travelling through the city of Amsterdam in the winter of 2006, B L S fatefully met SENSE. Like two old friends who had yet to meet, they recorded a song in an afternoon at SENSE’s houseboat studio, went out for the night in the city, slapped hands and parted ways.

B L S went back to New York, where he was studying Psychology and Film and SENSE went back to work on TheQ4’s Sound Surroundings record and his various other projects. Back in NYC, B L S was playing The Q4’s demo and SENSE beats all night, every night in his Manhattan apartment, writing, freestyling, and plotting out his return to Amsterdam.

The summer of 2007, B L S returned to the city of Amsterdam with one mission, make an album with SENSE. SENSE just did not know it yet. The two began working on their second song together, one sunny day in June. B L S casually mentioned to SENSE producing an entire project together, but SENSE was reluctant, saying he was already involved with too many projects to make any promises.

As fate would have it that afternoon when B L S left the studio, he left behind his rhyme book. That night SENSE opened up the book and began reading the rhymes B L S had been writing that last year. SENSE had found the words to match his sound, and called B L S back that very night to record and SHAHMEN was born.

In their first month together in the studio, the two recorded more than 50 songs. And over the course of the next 3 years, B L S and SENSE continued writing and recording in Amsterdam. While also travelling through West Africa and South America, to write and record their debut LP. During this time, the legendary lone wolf Unorthadox (Rotterdam) joined the SHAHMEN pack, and B L S and DOX began writing new records, while DOX wrote additional parts to existing SHAHMEN songs.

After living in the studio for the better part of the last 3 years, SHAHMEN is here to see the light of day. Enter the Circle, a digital EP will drop early this spring, Download it for free at ProjectMooncircle.com. The full length vinyl LP will follow in September.

SHAHMEN. The Next Chapter, is here.