Muru - Poet & The Engineer Re-release
Following his first release of 2021, Stand Tall, for which a new Run D.M.C-style colourway was added to his logo, Muru is set to re-release an old joint that slipped under most people’s radar. The mixtape features 9 tracks, and there’s also a rumoured video with Forbes in the works.
Poet & The Engineer is a little-known mixtape that dropped on Soundcloud a full 18 months ago, but is set for a re-release this Friday, February 12th - this time, across all major platforms. Fittingly, the hook from the opening track proclaims ‘It’s Muru from the Southside, drop a big tune make you bounce right’. The 9-track tape was produced solely by Rowan B, the engineer, with the poet Muru’s highlights coming in the publicly-acclaimed Will You as well as the grime-informed Jump Up Flows with Forbes.
“It’s one of those ones that’s been slept on for a bit,” Muru told SOuthside in an exclusive interview. “So I think I need to re-release it. There’s a big track on there with me and Forbes, and I just feel like it needs to be re-released init.
“Back in the day, [Souncloud] was good. But, nowadays, nah. I feel a lot of artists will still have Soundcloud, but I feel listeners won’t be using Soundcloud because you’ve got all these streaming services now… So that’s why I’m re-releasing it.” The title of the project, Poet & The Engineer, was inspired by a 2016 mixtape from Havoc of Mobb Deep in collaboration with The Alchemist titled The Silent Partner, which is also reflected in the black-and-gold album artwork colour palette.
“A lot of this mixtape is old-school boom bap...I’ve done quite a few boom bap tapes before but I think, out of all of them, this is my hardest one...I’ve got some slow jams on there where it’s a lot more poetic than the stuff I’d usually do.
“The track with me and Forbes is annoying because we shot a video for it, some stuff happened and we just never released it… We still have a few other shots that we need to shoot, but shooting that video is definitely something that I’d be up for.
There’s another track called Life. That might be my favourite one.”
Muru’s anticipated re-release date is set for Friday, February 12th, 2021. Follow Lovemade Studios, Lovemade Muru and SOuthside Magazine for updates on Poet & The Engineer.