The Smuggler's Candle

“The Smuggler’s Candle” inspired by our hero’s travels, the last four years living in Afghanistan, the people he’s met and the vivid universe he’s taken in this whole time.  
 With “The Smuggler's Candle” DJ Criminal takes listeners on a 41-minute worldwide adventure, presenting a myriad of sounds and guests along the way. DJ Criminal flexes all over this album, not only having a star-studded guest list but bringing the “Producer Album” to prominence once again. In between the vocal tracks DJ Criminal gives the listener a number of strictly instrumental tracks. It doesn’t stop there as those tracks are full of transitions, changeups, scratches, easter eggs, samples and more to add dimensions to his instrumentals. While Criminal is a producer & deejay, the undercurrent of this entire project is his title as Curator. With international crime journalist Sean Williams providing a few interludes throughout the record to having Jennifer Charles (who hasn't appeared on a Hip-Hop album since Dan the Automator and Mike Patton's Lovage) as a guest on the lead single “Mountain Tops” these intentional and conscious choices bring “The Smuggler’s Candle” to life. This is before names like Akil the MC of Jurassic 5, Slug of Atmosphere, A-F-R-O and countless others present themselves on the record.  DJ Criminal’s “The Smuggler’s Candle” is a 13 track album full of different moods and genres, a perfect chance to learn the breadth of the work a deejay does while getting a full buffet of dark yet beautiful music.