Leonard Charles and Guilty Simpson sample Marlon Williams song for ‘Nobody’

Legendary Detroit MC Guilty Simpson and New Zealand producer Leonard Charles have teamed up as The Leonard Simpson Duo and are set to release a one of a kind 60’s & 70’s inspired, psychedelic & acid influenced album L.S.D. on 31 January on Berlin’s Jakarta Records.

The uniqueness of this very special symbiosis of Leonard Charles and Guilty Simpson can be heard within the album’s first single Nobody, which opens with a sample from Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore by Marlon Williams ft. Aldous Harding. The single premiered today on heavyweight US website HipHopDX.

The Leonard Simpson Duo’s Nobody came to be after Leonard Charles’ wife, Anji Sami, sent him what would become the 2018 Silver Scroll winning track with the suggestion that the chorus could come in quicker because it felt so good.

“I jumped in my studio and threw a draft beat together and looped up the hook,” he says. “I sent it to Guilty that night and it was a no-brainer, he jumped on it.”

“The song is about the evolution a man should go through during maturity”, Guilty adds. “Negative vibes will only get a person so far before they self destruct.”

The result is a stunning fresh take on what might be New Zealand’s ultimate break-up song, and an introduction to what the 40 minute, 14 track debut from two brilliant and ingenious musicians will offer adventurous music lovers in late January when L.S.D. drops.

The psychedelic sound of the album is heavily drawn from rare acid influenced records from New Zealand’s 60’s and 70’s, carefully selected, picked and sampled by musical multi-talent Charles himself and accompanied by very well placed instrumentals and interludes taking direction from late 60’s jazz/rock fusion, fuzzed out African records and compulsory David Axelrod leanings. All of that combined with the lyrics and the beloved attitude of Motor City’s finest makes this album a beautiful, inspirational and surpassing trip.

The duo met for the first time when Guilty came through Auckland on tour in 2016. Leonard Charles reached out to Guilty and the two connected immediately, getting in the studio to create the track Breaking Over You, that was released in late 2017. The pair then started working together on what was initially planned as an EP, that soon turned out to become a full-length album with late 70’s inspired psychedelic and acid influenced beats by Leonard Charles, overlaid with Simpson’s distinctive and uncompromising lyrics.

Listen to Nobody now on streaming services. The Leonard Simpson Duo’s debut record L.S.D is out digitally and on LP on 31 January 2020 via Jakarta Records and is available for pre-order now.