Dropout Devin

After 7 long years, Jamal Knight (me) & The Vibe Riders return from our hiatus! On January 1st at midnight (your local time) we will be presenting our album, Tex House, via all social and streaming platforms.

Find us on SoundCloud to hear the full album early, or just swipe through previews of each track here.

Track List:
1. South of Somewhere
2. Silicon Hills
3. Lone Shores of Star Bass
4. String of Thought(s)
5. Jelly 512 (Interlude)
6. High 35
7. Don’t Mess With The Heart
8. Can’t Hold ‘Em
9. Dust Bowl

.us

I don’t know man, the forbidden fruit (a.i.) is looking real good 🤷🏾‍♂️

Couldn’t fall asleep, which meant it was time to make music, but instead of Ableton, I finally looked up Suno on a whim.

In 5 minutes I made an account, copied over the lyrics from a song I wrote back in 2014 while on a working party in Japan setting up a festival for locals to visit our base, and added a few sentences briefly describing the idea for the song.

Not ten seconds later, I had four songs sitting in front of me.

I wasn’t expecting anything but an opportunity to hear the lyrics performed for the first time by a voice besides my own compressed with voice note recordings on my phone. The vocals are not recited in the style that I planned to eventually have people perform them in, but I do like the new direction.

Same feelings on the actual track production, but considering half of my own songs get rewritten into new genres once or twice depending on how long I sit on the idea, I’m not put off by it leaning more towards deep soul vibes than hip groove. I mean the song was originally written as a hip hop track before I shifted it to house, so what’s another detour?

Anyway, here are clips of the first four tracks I “made(?)” with ai.

I haven’t looked around the rest of the site yet, but it looks like there’s an option to extract the stems. Five minutes of fun wasn’t enough for me, so I think I’m going to pull the stems from all four of these, have a few more hours of fun messing around with them, and release and EP that I’ll under a pseudonym as an ai side project.

I like the name Ai Sharpton, but maybe it’ll be something a little less on the nose and a little more on brand.

I don’t know…as a DJ and someone who initially learned to produce with sound presets, pre-recorded loops, and samples, Suno really doesn’t feel too different from making music that way. Sure, no one is getting paid for the samples or plugins it’s emulating, but I don’t know a single producer that didn’t start out by ripping bootleg samples and using a cracked version of a DAW or VSTs. Kanye got caught at the peak of his career using a cracked bass plugin (Serum), and the gave him a GRAMMY… 🤷🏾‍♂️

First year as a recording artist in the 📚

Interesting things I found out while compiling stats:
-A handful of people were Shazaming my music at the only gig I played this year, so I expect to see streams go up in 2026 as I start playing shows and hosting events again.
-People seem to gravitate towards the tracks with emotional vocal hooks, with the exception being Culminate and its thumping baseline/kick combo.
-I don’t upload to Bandcamp or Beatport yet, and did not push physical or digital sales, but with current plans I expect total sales next year to be (at least) comparable to total streams this year.

Somehow I’m not the top listener of myself. I love whoever out there is listening to more of my music than me.

Opened X at the just the right time yesterday! I’m now a creator on Bond, a growing platform for artists to directly connect with their fans and support other artists.

I had already been thinking about how to create and distribute exclusive content alongside my music, so I’m going to lean as heavily into this new medium as I can in 2026 to give access to unreleased music, bootleg remixes, invite only events with , occasional guest list to other gigs, behind the scenes access to my production workflow, and whatever else I come up with along the way.

I’ll put something together and share more by early next year. In the meantime, since Bond is still invite-only, they gave me 50 invites to share with friends and fans. DM me if you want to be one of my first 50 supporters there, and I’ll send you a link. There won’t be any exclusive content shared yet, but I’ll throw a free boat party in the spring for my first 50 supporters who bond $50 or more🛥️🌊

Thanks again to & .blau for the opportunity to join the future they’re building for creators. If you’re an artist or creator, they’re a great resource to keep you thinking and working outside the box.

One week. The final four releases of year one. Ending on High Note with a collection of high energy, club ready, groove inducing house and techno tracks.

For the game, for my team, As Seen On TV!

‘Drop The Ball’ is out now on most platforms ☄️

Should be on Apple Music by tomorrow

Happy 250th Marines 🇺🇸

Go Pack Go 🧀