Hip-hop duo Taoreta 倧れた have released their new single, Samurai Nation. The video will be released as the fourth instalment of the duo’s five-piece film series entitled ‘Shadows In Dust’. Taoreta’s double EP, also titled Samurai Nation, includes 12 tracks, as well as an additional two videos. Mixed and mastered by Adam Lewis Mixing, with all tracks produced by DJ Icon and written by Loaneski, the EP has already received praise from publications and industry professionals such as Blue Rhymez Entertainment, Sleepingbags Studios, and Mercury Group PLC. We caught up with Taoreta to find out more...
Hi Taoreta 倧れた how are you both doing? What have you been up to recently? Hello! We’ve been great thanks! We’ve been busy promoting our debut double EP called Samurai Nation and its visuals. We’ve also been rehearsing for our upcoming live shows in the UK.
If you had to describe your music in 3 words what would they be? We would describe our music as ‘Modern Samurai Soundtracks’
Who would you say are your musical icons? Our musical influences are the following:
Jedi Mind Tricks Metallica Wu-Tang Clan Public Enemy Nas Klashnekoff
Just to name a few…
Can you give us some insight about the meaning behind ‘Samurai Nation’? Samurai Nation is about conquering your fears, there are many ways in which we can overcome our obstacles without having to ever lift a finger violently. It’s very easy to give up when life gets difficult, however, when we decide to confront these challenges we become inspiring, often helping others without even realising.
Tell us a bit about the concept of your music video for this track. The visuals for Samurai Nation is the fourth in a five-part short film series which we created entitled Shadows In Dust. Set in the 1600s and our story focuses on a Ronin (Samurai without a master) who battles with the ideology of Bushido (code of the Samurai) and questions whether the samurai are architects of their own demise.
The concept behind the video focuses on our Ronin character internally fighting with past demons, we wanted to portray a psychological battle between the heart and soul. In collaboration with Born Ready Films (Director of the series), we came up with the idea of creating a black endless void representing the ‘heart’ and the characters dressed in white bespoke Kimonos created by Claudette Cre8s, representing the ‘soul’.
All parts of our short film are available to watch on our website and YouTube, just search for Taoreta 倧れた - Shadows In Dust [Short Film Series].
The principles of the Samurai, such as honour, courage and respect, are clearly important to you both in your music and lives. Can you talk about this a bit more? We're modern-day Hip-Hop Samurai, tackling taboo subjects and addressing the elephants in the room, as well as trying to inspire others by giving insights into our experiences.
What message do you have for your listeners? Thank you for joining us on this journey, it’s really been eye opening as we had this idea four years ago. Four years is a very long time and life can be unpredictable as we all know, however each person that comes into contact with our music and visuals seems to be immediately won over by us. Keep continuing to support us as we have soo much more to offer!!!
’Samurai Nation’ is all about conquering your fears - what has been your biggest obstacle to overcome to get where you are now? The first half of our project was self funded but the national lockdown impacted our progress so we looked for alternative methods to support our project and explored the idea of applying for funding. This was no easy task, as many criteria’s that we came across were that you either had be an organisation or you had to be under a certain age e.g 18 - 25.
We approached Arts Council England and they loved our idea. We would also like to encourage more artists of all art forms to applying for funding as this can lead to many other doors being open. Both members of Taoreta have managed to successfully open up separate companies which support the communities in the city of Leicester, using music as a positive vehicle to engage.
What’s next for Taoreta 倧れた? Do you have anything exciting in the pipeline for the rest of 2022? We have started planning for the next Taoreta project which aims to be bigger and better! We will be releasing the final part of our short film in the next couple of months, the final piece is called Fadewhich is also the name of our final track on the debut double EP which we released earlier in May called Samurai Nation. We would like to finally say Thank you Music-News for having us.
