Art via Dewey Saunders
Kevin Crandall still misses Rudy Gobert in a Utah Jazz jersey.
You probably best know visual artist Dewey Saunders for the psychedelic collage art on the cover of Anderson .Paak’s Venice and Malibu. Or maybe you recall his work designing the trippy cover of Future’s The Wizrd. But a lesser known fact is that in the late 2000s, before .Paak, Pluto, and Turnstile came calling for album art, Dewey was writing raps over Roots-inspired beats in a shared apartment in Philly. An art deal for Ray-Ban’s holiday campaign brought Saunders out to Los Angeles at the end of 2018, at which point rapping took a backseat to making art with rappers, but the rhyme bug never went away. In the last half-decade, the California sun baked Dewey’s writing into the crisp low-rider smoke anthems decorating Beach Burners, his new LP with fellow L.A. transplant, DJ and producer Earoh.
Beach Burners is a breezy album best enjoyed with the tide lapping at your ankles and a gas station ayahuasca popsicle in-hand. Sunburned and enveloped in weed smoke, Beach Burners could easily soundtrack a remake of Baywatch—one of the “spiritual television programs” of the album. “Buzzin” sees Saunders smoking cilantro-infused spliffs over a beat that would be right at home in a “Welcome to LA” cutscene on any ’90s cable crime drama. Images of backroom high-stakes blackjack and joyrides in a Maybach fill the track, emphasizing the get-money-and-show-that-shit-off spirit that runs through Beach Burners. The video pushes the lifestyle hustler image, showing Saunders and Earoh slide through with all manners of shady characters (queue Chuck Inglish as Jerry Quarrell), making slick handoffs of Ras G vinyls, Beach Burners merch, and some pills for good measure. It sounds and looks immaculate.
Earoh and Dewey first linked at an art show of Saunders’ in 2019. The two built up a strong friendship over the pandemic, with Earoh working as a model for Saunders’ fashion brand High Comfort in 2021 and dropping a mix on POW to soundtrack the shoot. A couple years later after seeing a call for beats put out by Saunders, Earoh slapped together a pack and sent them over that same day. A few demos and some more writing in 2023 turned into an EP, which turned into Beach Burners two years later. Once an artist cutting his teeth on the L.A. DJ circuit, Earoh currently stands as the key sonic architect of the Beach Burners aesthetic: his production helped shape themes of love, drugs, and cliffside sunsets.
Despite the retro push Saunders and Earoh have going on throughout the LP, their multimedia approach to Beach Burners is contemporary as hell. The album is paired with a zine, and word is they’ve got an exclusive weed strain dropping soon. I sat down with the producer-emcee duo ahead of their release to chop it up about this approach and all things Beach Burners. We talked about the project’s mythos, their individual journeys to Los Angeles, and their favorite beaches.
​​(This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.)