Kendrick Lamar’s Longtime Producer DJ Dahi To Reimagine National Anthem In New Documentary

Kendrick Lamar’s longtime producer DJ Dahi will be reimagining the National Anthem in an upcoming documentary in partnership with Onyx Collective, Proximity Media and This Machine.

According to a report from Deadline, the documentary titled Anthem has Dahi and composer Kris Bowers “traveling across America to create a new sound, inspired by what our country’s national anthem might be if written in today’s time.”

Peter Nicks will direct the documentary and also produce alongside Ryan Coogler, Kris Bowers, Sean Havey and Chris L. Jenkins with R.J. Cutler, Elise Pearlstein, Zinzi Coogler and Sev Ohanian serving as executive producers.

For those that are unfamiliar, DJ Dahi is known for producing some of the biggest records in Hip Hop such as “Money Trees” by Kendrick Lamar and Big Sean’s “I Don’t Fuck With You.” He had a busy year in 2022, landing credits on K. Dot’s Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, Brent Faiyaz’s Wasteland, Steve Lacy’s Gemini Rights, SZA’s SOS and more.

Onyx Collective will be airing the Anthem documentary along with Questlove’s untitled Sly and the Family Stone film. The legendary drummer’s documentary will explore the life and legacy of Sly and the Family Stone and tells the story of the rise, reign and fall of one of pop music’s most influential artists.

The film is produced by MRC, Network Entertainment, Sylvester Stewart, Two One Five Entertainment, Stardust Films and ID8 Multimedia in association with Sony Music Entertainment. Derik Murray and Joseph Patel are serving as producers.

Sly, Questlove, Brian Gersh, Shawn Gee, Zarah Zohlman, Common, Derek Dudley, Shelby Stone, Ron Weisner and Paul Gertz will also be taking executive producer roles on the documentary.

While he’s getting ready for the release of Anthem, DJ Dahi also has time to call out people who are leaking Kendrick Lamar’s demos online. The producer took to his Instagram Story last week to denounce the release of three new songs that appeared on a Spotify playlist titled “Morale Pack.”

The songs were thought to have been recorded during the making of Kendrick’s most recent album, 2022’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, but according to Dahi, they’re apparently much older.

“Why are y’all leaking shit from 4 years ago???” Dahi wrote. “We didn’t even bounce those records out. These kdot records are strictly demos. Y’all are really dying of thirst out here lol.”

[via]