What Do You Get When You Mix Japanese Anime With Authentic Italian Roots And A Love For R&B Feat. Che Murdah SRVC (Service)

In this episode Durell is joined by Electronic R&B indie creative Che Murdah SRVC (Service). This episode is pretty cool because Durell has his first internationally born guest on the podcast. Che and Durell begin the episode by sharing how they both met and got connected via The New Skool Rules music conference and festival. Che also quickly dispels the myth that American style Italian food isn’t the same as what real Italian born people eat. Che shares that he was born in a non-musical family and the way he got introduced to music and writing songs by taking famous songs he heard on the radio and re-writing the lyrics to make fun of his sister. Che shares that he had no intention to do music professionally, because for him what really caught his attention was drawing. He says that he would watch Japanese Anime dubbed in his native Italian language everyday after school.

Che shares that he grew a love for soul music by first falling in love with hip-hop in the late 1990’s because of the way samples were used. He talks about hip-hop being really underground and the only way to get access to it early on was the mixtapes. He shares that one of the first hip-hop songs that he loved that blended the two styles together was 2pac's “Do For Love'' that had the Bobby Womack sample. He realized very quickly that he enjoyed the soul sample much more than the rap verses.

Che talks about R&B not being a big thing in Italy and it being hard to find spaces to really be able to explore the genre. He still loved to sing and make music, but he decided to go to college in Rome and began studying Japanese language with the goal to become a professional Manga artist for the Japanese comic books. While he was in Rome he was able to be around and participate much more within the genre of R&B and even started recording much more professional sounding records. He shares that he moved to Osaka, Japan in 2009 where he was able to really make a name for himself in the city. He says since it was much smaller than Tokyo he was able to make a name for himself. He then moved back to Italy and began to write songs and was convinced by some friends to pitch to some record companies which landed some placements and even a number one record. Che shares that he really didn’t enjoy the politics of songwriting so that's when he decided to go back to the basics and his love for Japanese comics which birthed what he’s currently doing today as Murdah SRVC.

Che shares that he wrote a story for a Manga and from the Manga he began to write songs. Today his project is an audio and visual project, the music is the soundtrack to the Manga and the Manga is the visual for the music when he performs live.

Durell and Che end the episode speaking about the power of being different and the way that can appeal to indie creatives, building their audience. They also talk about how the pandemic has affected the live music scene. Che also shares that he’s always in the lab creating new comic ideas and that he’s been working with a Dub-Step producer that has really helped to craft a sound for the newest Manga he’s putting together which will take him about a year to finish along with an EP to go with it.

For more info on Che Murdah SRVC, please visit his social media handles:

Instagram @MurdahSrvc
Facebook: @MurdahSrvc