Since emerging in the early 2020s as fresh-faced jazz phenoms with co-signs from Herbie Hancock, Snoop Dogg and Anderson .Paak, DOMi & JD BECK have possessed the sort of musical chemistry that borders on telepathy. Spend five minutes with the duo offstage and that much is obvious: BECK’s hyperactive enthusiasm ricochets off DOMi’s bone-dry wit with the ease of two Gen Z-ers who’ve long since developed their own language. On their sophomore LP for ,Paak’s Apeshit label through Blue Note, WHO ASKED?, that private conversation becomes increasingly difficult for outsiders to decipher. Thankfully, it’s rewarding to even try.
If 2022’s NOT TiGHT often felt like an exhilarating demonstration of impossible chops, its follow-up is more interested in composition than spectacle. Opener “ÉPiPHANiE” establishes the mood with fluttering woodwinds, Steve Reich-like piano figures and acrobatic strings, functioning less as an overture than an invitation into a realm where melodies arrive sideways and rhythms almost never stay put.
The vocal-heavy first half of WHO ASKED? can occasionally blur together, but individual moments linger. The disarming “GROWiNG OLDER” pairs one of the record’s strongest melodies with lyrics that quietly reckon with time’s passage (“days cascading out of sight / younger ways like fleeting light”), while its heartbeat-like bass line and slippery groove reveal a surprising emotional directness beneath all the rhythmic sleight of hand. Likewise, “SMALL EYES” appears to be an utterly sincere ode to a beloved pet — a delightfully uncool premise transformed into one of the most musically intricate songs ever written about unconditional animal affection.
Elsewhere, “LOVELY MASQUERADE” sharpens into a not-so-veiled critique of the modern music industry dog and pony show, its faux-cheerful refrain eventually giving way to a head-spinning final minute of distorted synth bass and BECK’s explosively physical drumming. “PUZZLE PiECES” answers with genuine tenderness, wrapping lyrics about friendship and faith in one another around glitchy electronics that somehow make the sentiment feel even more earned.
There are only three instrumentals here compared to 10 on the debut, but they’re all superlative. The dazzling “CONCERTiNO (FOR PiANO, DRUMS & ORCHESTRA)” ricochets from chamber music to IDM with gleeful abandon, while “ÉPiLOGUE” closes on a woodwind-led sprint that feels like the perfect musical portrait of DOMi and JD themselves: playful, impossibly virtuosic and forever chasing the next left turn before you’ve barely processed the last one.
On an LP where key changes can feel like trapdoors and grooves seem to exist in dimensions just adjacent to ordinary time, DOMi & JD BECK are no longer content to simply amaze you. Rather, they want to lure you into their world — and trust you’ll find your footing therein, eventually…