DAMUNICE MUSIC
Bio
Dutch McVeigh is a underground Hip-Hop producer/beatsmith currently based in metro Atlanta. Born Darin Leveridge, (a native Floridian, raised in Irvington, New Jersey) at the age of 9, he fell in love with Hip Hop upon initially hearing Run DMC's "Sucker MC's". By 12, aspirations of becoming an emcee came into play when he began writing rhymes as a pastime, heavily influenced by the heavy hitters of Hip Hop's then-Golden Era. His fascination for the culture & music in general would continue to blossom when, at 17, he tried his hand at spinning records with the help of a family friend at parties. "He's a long time friend of my dad. We used to buy all of our movies & music from him. I'm talking VHS tapes & cassettes. He also use to DJ parties on the side. One day, I was at his house and I seen all of his records and equipment. He taught me how to catch grooves when you drop the needle and how to crossfade being records. Everything but how to scratch. He didn't allow me to scratch on his tables because he didn't have the right needles for it. From then on, I was hooked but I knew my parents weren't gonna buy me any turntables. So anytime I could, I went over there to try and practice. I did a few gigs with him, carried crates of records & even spun some sets. But unfortunately, I ended up not sticking with it long enough."
A year after graduating high school, undecided on what he really wanted to do & not wanting to get caught up in the tough streets of Irvington & Newark, he made the decision to enlist in the U.S. Navy, in hopes of making a good life for himself. Discharged for misconduct after serving three years, he moved to his parents' native Henderson, North Carolina for a short time, where they had just recently relocated. Just after a few short months, growing discouraged by the sudden slow pace of life in the South at the time (& also grieving the loss of his grandmother), he moved back home to NJ but after two years, he subsequently found himself right back in North Carolina in early 1999 after things didn't exactly pan out. By this time, his love for music grew even fonder as he began to aspire wanting to become a beatmaker after paying more acute attention as to how some of his favorite producers would manipulate and chop samples...and growing tired of having to write lyrics to other established artists' material. "I used to buy instrumental CD's all the time from the corner store. Those were the only beats I could afford. I didn't know of anyone personally who made beats at the time. I really didn't have anyone close that was fuckin' with music like that. I didn't have money to buy beats or go to anybody's professional studio. But then, almost like out of nowhere, I remember just telling myself that instead of using everybody else's stuff, I wanted to learn how to do it myself. And then, I found the MTV Music Generator." In early 2000, he taught himself how to make beats.
The MTV Music Generator was a beatmaking software program released in late 1999 for the original Sony Playstation, where you could create your own beats and save them to a memory card. Subsequently, there were two more installments made later for PS2, which Dutch also utilized and mastered. Dutch would connect his PS to his mother's house stereo, creating full cassette tapes of his beats then play them for whoever who listen. "I taught myself everything. I taught myself how to find & create a tempo, where to place kicks, snares, notes...how to loop & chop a sample. How to pitch. Above all else though, I taught myself how to listen. I remember picking up on things relatively quickly...trust, I still didn't know everything. Obviously, I picked up things along the way. But I fell in love with the fact that now I could do what my favorite producers were doing & I had a means to do it myself. So when I had the Generator, I became obsessed with it because now I was creating...and for it to literally come off of a Playstation, I was making a lot of quality stuff with the limited resources I had at the time." A short time later, after upgrading to a desktop computer, he purchased a Cakewalk Studio software program to continue his beatmaking prowess. But then a close friend & fellow beat wizard turned him onto something that would forever change his outlook on production & help further improve his craft.
" I met my man Amadi Sadiq (formerly J.L. Proof) thru a mutual friend around 2002. He was impressed with what I was doing on a Playstation, of all things, with the Music Generator. Once I finally got hold of a computer, he introduced me to Fruity Loops 4.1 (now known as FL Studio). The rest is kinda history, as they say. He told me if I could do what I did on a Playstation video game console, then imagine what I could do on Fruity Loops. That's pretty much how we bonded, through our love for beatmaking. I always credit him as being my mentor when it comes to this because he shared a lot of his knowledge with me and we also share a lot of the same views & opinions on Hip Hop in general." In 2006, McVeigh produced and recorded his very first demo entitled "Rare Breed". Since then, he has utilized the Internet to network, discover & connect with various unknown artists from all over the world. Through the years on his grind, he has released various projects online including 2008's "Dopetracks Dystrophy", 2011's "Late Bloomer: Damunice Mixtape Volume Deux", his first instrumental album 2012's "Damunice Music presents The Dutch Files: Beat Tape Vol. 1", 2014's collaborative effort "Lifted" (with Minnesota emcee Ka$ual) & a second instrumental album in the Dutch Files beat tape series 2015's "Vol. 2 - The MJ Collection" (an ode to the legendary late, great "King of Pop" Michael Jackson.)
Armed with a variety of solid, hard-hitting sample-driven material under his belt, Dutch is now looking to contribute to the culture on a wider scale. Some of his musical influences & inspirations vary among legendary Hip-Hop producers including DJ Premier, Diamond D, Pete Rock, Marley Marl, The Bomb Squad, Large Professor, Erick Sermon, The RZA, Dr. Dre, J Dilla, Havoc, Kanye West & 9th Wonder, just to name a few. To this day, he still uses FL Studio to crank out his bangers but now has also included Maschine to his arsenal of amazing jaw-dropping production.
His production credits to date include Ka$ual, Big S.I.N., Doomz, C-Roy, Razah Joe, Stormin' Norm, Red Eye Bugatti, Joe Dirt, Monsta Mook, Aztec Dinero, Swerv, M Dot Hollo, Jadon Success, A.C. Kinetic, Trigger The Soldier, and more to come.
Founding his own imprint Damunice Music back in 2001 and since reviving the brand after some setbacks, Dutch McVeigh seems to be poised to finally make his mark doing what he loves to do....deal or no deal.