te'amir sweeney & professor h: circle

The works on Te’Amir Sweeney’s & Professor H’s Circle began in early 2016, as they visualized the project while sitting and listening to beats. They dreamed of bringing together a community of musicians working towards a common goal – a live hip hop album that reflected the cultural fabric of the city of L.A. and everything it encompassed. 

They joined their forces: Te'Amir Sweeney as an acclaimed L.A.-based drummer and producer who tours and records with soul singer, Aloe Blacc and plays with many of the musicians who have crafted LA's unique brand of hip hop, beatmaking, jazz, and soul including Kamasi Washington, Mark de Clive-Lowe or Miguel Atwood-Ferguson; Henry “Professor H” D’Ambrosio, also based in L.A., is an engineer and producer, currently engineering sessions at the music-landmarks of Truth Studios, Stones Throw Studios, and Red Bull Studios and works in his curriculum with a long cast of artists including King Mez, Dom Kennedy and more.

So, in the spring 2016, a selected crew of L.A. musicians, vocalists, and MC’s came together for three days at Red Bull Studios in Santa Monica. Sonically inspired by the sounds of 70’s jazz and soul, a long cast of creatives including vocalist Jimetta Rose, live remixer/composer Mark de Clive-Lowe, and MC’s Thurzday, Hugh Augustine and Omar Offendum began recording and collectively crafting the sound of what would become a full length album born from those early 2016 late-night beat sketches. 

Over the next several months the sessions were carefully mixed and edited, but the project sat for over a year before being completely finished. Common Good Records came along and conversations with Te’Amir resulted in this early 2019 great hip hop, neo soul record. Circle pays a real homage to the city of Los Angeles as a whole: a vibrant patchwork of neighborhoods, full of culture, art and beauty, but also hardship and injustice. The album is optimistic in its feel, but realistic in its messages. Musical and social relevance. A collective, equal in their vision and contributions, coming together to create a project imagined by two creative minds, now available in vinyl, courtesy of Common Good Records.

“Circle is a live hip hop album that’s inspired sonically by the sounds of 70’s jazz and soul and pays homage to the aesthetic and sample-based grit and color of the beat scene.”