It has been some time since we heard a solo album from M-Phazes, but last week the award-winning producer dropped Messiah with Alison Wonderland. It is the first single to be taken from his forthcoming album as a solo producer, and was co-written with Alison Wonderland and Treyshun Campbell.
Messiah sees M-Phazes stepping away from the distinct hip-hop sounds we’re more familiar with, showing off a hard hitting sound that has reportedly been going off during many of Wonderland’s recent live sets.
“I’ve grown a lot as a producer and particularly as a songwriter so I think it’s a pretty big departure from the last record,” M-Phazes told triple j‘s Richard Kingsmill. “It’s hard to escape the sound that I’m accustomed to making and that’s the hip-hop: the drums being loud and the mix being in your face but as far as the actual genre of the music, it’s pretty far removed the hip-hop style that I’m known for.”
“I made the beat almost a year before we made the song, and it dawned on me that Alison would be perfect for it,” M-Phazes explains. “The lyrics come from a real emotional place for her, so I wanted to capture that feeling while also making it a song she could play in her sets.”
Having worked with some of Australia’s best, such as Bliss N Eso, Drapht, Meg Mac, Hermitude, N’fa, Pegz, and Illy, as well as several U.S artists including Eminem, Talib Kweli, Royce 5’9”, C. L. Smooth, Pharoahe Monch, Redman, and Oddisee, this album will surely boast one of the biggest guest line-ups the country has ever seen.
M-Phazes has already made his mark in the music world. Since taking out Sha Money XL’s prestigious 2008 One Stop Shop Beat Battle, which was judged by DJ Premier, Swizz Beatz, Sha Money and Denaun Porter, M-Phazes has produced gold, platinum and double platinum work across Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. He also has a handful of albums, including the ARIA award-winning album Good Gracious, Phazed Out with DJ Rhettmatic, Land Of The Crooks EP with the late great Sean Price.
Overseas, M-Phazes has already received Billboard and Grammy awards for his co-production work on the track Bad Guy from Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP2, and also received the 2015 Urban Work of the Year APRA award for his co-production on the track Tightrope, taken from Illy’s album Cinematic.
With such an epic resume and a new sound to play with, Messiah opens up so many possibilities for this album. The album is touted to contain a ridiculous selection of guest features, and we have no doubt that 2017 will be the year of M-Phazes.
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