DOMi & JD BECK

Thundercat is the single most cited influence on DOMi & JD BECK — and the connection is reciprocal. The duo built their early YouTube reputation on Thundercat covers, and he became their most visible co-sign, inviting them on stage at Adult Swim Festival 2020 where they traded wild improvised licks alongside Ariana Grande. That live clip went viral and established their street credibility in the LA jazz-fusion underground. On NOT TiGHT, Thundercat appears on 'BOWLiNG', completing the circle from influence to collaboration. His hyper-technical fretless bass, anime-inflected absurdist humor, and fusion of jazz harmony with hip-hop beats is the direct template for the duo's own aesthetic.

"DOMi: 'Off the top of our heads I would say Thundercat, Jon Bap, Knxwledge, Madlib, and of course, J Dilla.'"

MusicRadar ↗

J Dilla is explicitly named by DOMi as a foundational influence. His off-kilter, deliberately imprecise 'Dilla feel' — swung beats that resist quantization and embrace the human lurch — is deeply embedded in JD Beck's drumming philosophy. Where most jazz drummers chase metronomic precision, Beck absorbs Dilla's lesson that rhythmic feeling trumps grid-locked time, resulting in grooves that breathe and lurch in uncanny ways. The duo's neo-soul and hip-hop harmonic palette is also shaped by the Dilla school: chopped, intimate, and unafraid of silence.

"DOMi: 'Off the top of our heads I would say Thundercat, Jon Bap, Knxwledge, Madlib, and of course, J Dilla.'"

MusicRadar ↗

Herbie Hancock is the canonical jazz-fusion ancestor whose influence DOMi & JD BECK literally made manifest on NOT TiGHT. On 'MOON', Hancock deploys his trademark vocoder — the exact same instrument and technique he used on his Headhunters-era records — over the duo's frenetic chord changes, then trades piano licks directly with DOMi. The NME noted this as the album's emotional peak: DOMi going toe-to-toe with one of her primary teachers. Hancock's fusion of jazz harmonic language with funk rhythms and pop accessibility in the 1970s (Head Hunters, Thrust, Secrets) is the exact synthesis DOMi & JD BECK are updating for the post-internet age.

NME ↗

Anderson .Paak is the architect of DOMi & JD BECK's commercial debut. He signed them as the flagship act on APESHIT INC., his imprint on Blue Note Records, and served as executive producer of NOT TiGHT. According to DOMi in NME, '.Paak sat us down with a whiteboard and was like, what do you want your album to feel like, what do you want to accomplish, and who do you want on it? He just made everything happen.' The duo had already collaborated with .Paak on 'Skate' for the Silk Sonic debut An Evening with Silk Sonic. His fusion of neo-soul, live-band hip-hop, and R&B showmanship — carried through Silk Sonic — is a direct throughline to the duo's aesthetic.

NME ↗

Madlib is directly named by DOMi as a core influence alongside J Dilla and Thundercat. His kaleidoscopic approach to sampling — pulling from Brazilian funk, obscure soul, jazz, and psychedelia and collaging them into something new — shapes how DOMi & JD BECK approach texture and genre collage. Madlib's Stones Throw aesthetic of deliberately lo-fi, organic, and eclectic production is a counterweight to the duo's virtuosity, keeping their impulses grounded in hip-hop texture rather than fusion showboating.

MusicRadar ↗

JD Beck directly names Tony Williams as one of the only drummers he is 'still really obsessed with.' Williams redefined jazz drumming in Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet — his ferocious density, melodic use of the entire kit, and ability to simultaneously drive and destabilize a rhythm section at superhuman tempos is the clearest antecedent to Beck's own style. Where most young drummers worship technique, Beck absorbed Williams's lesson that the drum kit can function melodically, harmonically, and structurally all at once.

"JD: 'For me it was Cleon Edwards, Deantoni Parks, Chris Dave, Tony Williams and Elvin Jones. Those are the only drummers I'm still really obsessed with.'"

MusicRadar ↗

DOMi & JD BECK built their early YouTube following specifically on Flying Lotus covers. FlyLo's synthesis of LA beat scene aesthetics, jazz harmony inherited from his great-aunt Alice Coltrane, and hip-hop production — particularly on Cosmogramma and You're Dead! — is a foundational reference point for the duo's genre-collapsing approach. Pitchfork's feature on them frames the duo as heirs to exactly the post-internet jazz-electronic fusion space that Flying Lotus pioneered from 2008 onward.

PopMatters ↗

Knxwledge — the LA beat scene producer behind NxWorries and a key figure on Stones Throw — is named directly by DOMi as a core influence. His hazy, chopped neo-soul aesthetic, built from muted samples and intimate drum programming, connects to the quieter, more intimate textures on NOT TiGHT. His approach to jazz-adjacent hip-hop — where harmony is felt as much as analyzed — mirrors DOMi's own instinct to make complex harmonic moves feel inevitable rather than academic.

MusicRadar ↗

Pitchfork's definitive profile of DOMi & JD BECK draws the most precise sonic analogy to Squarepusher: 'Beck sounds like the electronic drum programming from an Aphex Twin or Squarepusher track come to life.' Tom Jenkinson's hyper-technical fusion of IDM drum programming, jazz bass virtuosity, and post-human rhythmic complexity is the electronic precursor to Beck's live-kit approach. The comparison is not accidental — both artists treat rhythm as a form of information density, stacking events with a precision that challenges human perception.

"Beck sounds like the electronic drum programming from an Aphex Twin or Squarepusher track come to life."

Pitchfork Feature ↗

Pitchfork places NOT TiGHT explicitly in the lineage of '70s jazz-fusion and names Chick Corea alongside Weather Report. DOMi's harmonic vocabulary — dense, chromatically adventurous chord voicings, modal explorations, and the ability to play bass and melody simultaneously — draws directly from the post-bop and fusion piano tradition that Corea defined with Return to Forever. The duo's telekinetic interplay also mirrors Corea's instinct to treat the piano trio as a single organism.

Pitchfork Review ↗

Pitchfork's review places NOT TiGHT squarely in the Weather Report tradition of jazz-fusion. Weather Report's telepathic interplay between Joe Zawinul's keyboards and Wayne Shorter's saxophone — supplemented by Peter Erskine and Tony Williams-lineage drumming — pioneered the idea that jazz could be rhythmically adventurous, harmonically dense, and emotionally accessible all at once. The duo's instrumental conversation, where DOMi and Beck complete each other's phrases in real time, echoes precisely that chemistry.

Pitchfork Review ↗

MF DOOM was one of the first artists DOMi & JD BECK covered on YouTube to build their initial fanbase, alongside Thundercat and Flying Lotus. The Quietus notes they also covered Kendrick Lamar and John Coltrane's 'Giant Steps' (rebranded as 'Giant Nuts'). DOOM's abstract jazz-informed hip-hop — his samples mining hard bop and soul, his rhyme schemes following chord changes rather than pop patterns — is part of the duo's hip-hop vocabulary, pointing toward an understanding of rap as a jazz-adjacent art form.

The Quietus ↗