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Dahi Steps Out From Behind the Boards With Black Boy (Alternative)

His debut solo album arrives August 28, and the guest list reads like a decade of favors finally being called in.

Dahi has spent years making other people sound like the best versions of themselves — the particular fate of a producer whose fingerprints show up on someone else's plaque. That arrangement shifts on August 28, when Black Boy (Alternative) lands as his debut solo album, credited to Dahi instead of buried in a liner-notes footnote.

The scale of the guest list is the first thing worth sitting with. Eleven tracks, and the featured artists include Kendrick Lamar, Amber Mark, Vince Staples, Channel Tres, Moses Sumney, Foushee, Ravyn Lenae, Baby Rose, Elmiene, Obongjayar, Mez, and Ant Clemons — a nearly one-to-one ratio of songs to marquee names. For a first solo statement, that's not a modest guest spot or two to ease into the format. It's a full call sheet, and it suggests Dahi is using the album to cash in relationships rather than introduce himself in isolation.

## Who Shows Up Where

The track assignments give the album some shape before anyone's heard a note. "Who Are You" opens the record with a crowd — Vince Staples, Channel Tres, and French Anthony all show up on the first song, which is a loud way to start a debut rather than a cautious one. "How To Pray" narrows that down to a two-hander, pairing Kendrick Lamar and Amber Mark on a single track, a pairing specific enough to function as its own event within the album. "Find Me" pulls in the opposite direction, pairing Moses Sumney and Mez for something that reads, at least on paper, as the record's quieter register.

Three songs are already in listeners' hands ahead of the August 28 release. "Running," featuring Childish Gambino, dropped alongside the album announcement as the lead single. "Find Me" and "Rest of Your Life" followed as early listens. That's an unusually generous preview for a debut — three-elevenths of the tracklist audible before the full project even lands, which either signals confidence in the material or an attempt to build momentum slowly for an artist whose name recognition, until now, has lived mostly in credits.

## From the Booth to the Marquee

SPIN's framing of the record is worth taking seriously: it positions Black Boy (Alternative) as Dahi moving from an established production career into the foreground as a solo artist, rather than as a stylistic reinvention. That framing lines up with what's already known about his résumé — production credits with Kendrick Lamar and Drake among them. Kendrick's appearance on "How To Pray," then, isn't just a feature; it's a working relationship extending into a new format, with Dahi now the credited artist instead of the name in the corner of the session sheet.

The physical release backs up the idea that this is being treated as a proper artist statement rather than a producer's victory lap. Bandcamp lists the album across digital, vinyl, and CD formats, with a special 2xLP edition that pairs the vocal album with a full instrumental disc. The vinyl itself is described as numbered eco-vinyl, packaged with a gatefold jacket, booklet, insert, and removable outer sleeve — the kind of packaging typically reserved for records a label expects people to actually own, not just stream.

That instrumental disc is the detail that lingers. Offering the beats on their own, alongside the finished vocal versions, is a quiet way of inviting listeners to hear the album as a producer's record even while it's billed as a debut solo artist's coming-out. Whether Black Boy (Alternative) ends up remembered for its vocalists or for the person who built the rooms they're singing in may depend on which disc people reach for first.

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