RK's Journey

RK's Journey

Bruce Von Stiers

RK Dawkins has been around the music industry for quite some time. He learned to play the guitar while in college. By the time he graduated law school, RK had already worked in a renowned studio and decided to branch out and build his own. From 1985 until 2006 RK worked with rappers, blues artists, jazz musicians and others in his studio. But in 2006, RK changed up things, moving to Atlanta and beginning a law practice. In 2016, RK retired from practicing law and went back to music. He designed a new studio and began to work on an album.

That album was released earlier this year. Appropriately enough, the title of the album is Journey. The album is self-released. It was produced by RK and he plays all of the instruments on the album. Those instruments include rhythm and wah guitars and keyboards. He also did all of the programming. The album has ten songs and a play time of forty-four minutes.

A song titled The Strut begins the album. It is a light, funk laden piece. It has some cool programming effects.

Discovery begins sort of like an R & B song. It has light vocal loops and a slight groove.

Things move forward in an R & B fashion with The Wake. It kind of reminded me a bit of Paul Taylor.

The Jungle (Bag of Tricks) begins with some jungle type of sound effects. It slides into a subtle groove with some woodwind effects and slick keys music.

Cruise is a moderately paced, hearty R & B flavored tune.

Like its title suggests, Serenity is light and easy.

Arrival has a little bit of funk and a whole lot of subtle groove.

There is a definite R & B flavor mixed in with the groove in the song The Search. Again, I was reminded of Paul Taylor.

The Trudge has a whole bunch of stuff going on with it. Some groove is there with a lot of funk in the middle.

The album concludes with the song Smokin'. Because of the title, I thought that this would be a fast and furious piece. Instead it is a really cool, moderately paced groove piece.

RK utilized a lot of loops and sample libraries in the making of the album. But even knowing this, the music sounded like a full band was behind it. RK did an excellent job of melding the parts together to make each song cohesive. The entire album was enjoyable, but I especially like Smokin' and The Trudge. The album definitely captures the essence of RK's musical journey.

Journey is available at iTunes, amazon, CD Baby and other music outlets.

If you are interested in learning more about the album, visit RK's site at www.CsoundMusic.com .

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