That’s the premise of their collective, Dope Music Village — a play on the letters that represent their stomping grounds, the DMV. It’s meant to support all forms of art and bring together artists and fans alike.

“It’s like, ‘Let’s build [a platform] that not only we can stand on … but other people we like and respect can stand on with us,” says Brain Rapp, who says he came up with the name at work.

That communal effort plays strongly into the trio’s first collaborative release, You’re Welcome, a project that welcomes others into their village. They join their distinct flows — Brain Rapp rides on steady, cultivated energy; Ezko hits on strong, free-flowing lyrics and Nature Boi matches his own melodic, adaptive production — in a way where not one of them outshines the other. The eight-track release shows a wide and fluid range of moods: from restless, frustrated energy in “Venting” to appreciative affection in “Ms. Amerykah Badu.”

The collective first came together in 2015, when someone said “Dope Music Village” on a track for the first time on Ezko’s Sleep EP.

Brain Rapp and Nature Boi have known each other since they were teenagers. The 20-somethings solidified a working relationship while Nature Boi produced Brain Rapp’s 2015 release Elevator Music, and they’ve even lived together. Ezko came into the mix after Brain Rapp connected with him on Facebook, noticing the younger rapper on music blogs.

“At the end of the day, these guys are my family,” Brain Rapp says.

One song, “It’s Been Lit Ever Since,” came from a phrase Ezko once uttered. Brain Rapp and Nature Boi took it and ran with it. They had to wake Ezko up to record the song.

It’s hard to categorize the hip-hop trio, Brain Rapp says. He jokes that he looks more like a Starbucks barista than a rapper. Brain Rapp’s father is a well-known entomologist, and he studied environmental science at the University of Maryland. Nature Boi has been making music for at least a decade, but he’s a collaborator at heart, and he only recently started focusing on solo work. Ezko — whom Brain Rapp likens to Joey Bada$$ —just tries things out in a freeform way until it sticks.

Together, they don’t ride only wave of hip-hop. They play with R&B rhythms and trap beats, and their subjects flow from politics to weed-smoking.

“Now that I am [older]… I can’t escape the realness and the gravity of the world,” Brain Rapp says. “For four minutes, I would like to not live in that reality.”

The three artists are working on their own projects at the moment, but Brain Rapp hopes to keep shaping Dope Music Village — into a broader collective, perhaps, or even a record label.

But no matter what, he says the focus will remain on spotlighting their music as well as their community’s. That’s what it means to be in a village.

“There’s nobody in my mind that’s up and down 295 the same way that we are,” Brain Rapp says.

Thus we have “Jada & Styles,” by Maryland’s Nature Boi and Brain Rapp, a leak from their upcoming EP titled SPRNTRL (like “supernatural”).

Over Nature Boi’s late-night, horn-buttressed beat, they get playfully old-school: “Reportin’ live from the cul-de-sac/Nature Boi/Brain Rapp/Fly so high in the sky, gave a plane dap.”

From the archives: Read Bandwidth’s profile of Brain Rapp and his entomologist father.

Maryland artist Nature Boi lost his mother last year, and music has been curative for him as he’s gone through the grieving process. But sometimes it’s produced unexpected results. Take “Uhh” (listen below), his latest release.

“I made the beat July 25th, 2014, the day before my mother passed,” writes the 28-year-old — real name Antonio Ervin — in an email. “At the time, I hadn’t recorded in a while.” He had been spending time with his mother in the hospital.

One year after his mother’s death, Nature Boi got back into the booth, put his soul out there and delivered a tribute for Mother Nature. But it’s not exactly “Candle in the Wind.” “Uhh” is equal parts turn-up and realism, addressing Nature’s survival instincts and somewhat volatile emotions.

“It may sound like a regular trap song, but everything I said in [it] was reality. I was under the influence [and] I was angry and violent,” Nature Boi writes.

His feelings ooze out of the track, just as they would from a Kanye West or a Teddy Riley, two innovative artists he cites as influences. He thinks it would impress his mother, whom he calls his biggest supporter. That’s key, he points out, because her approval eluded him at first.

Nature Boi’s mom wanted him to pursue a different career. “She wanted me to be an electrical engineer because of the money, and because it seemed like more of a sure path,” he writes. He gave it a shot at Frostburg University, enrolling in the classes he’d need to take to enter the field, but he left school the following year to commit himself to music.

Nature Boi had to win his mother over “more than a stranger,” he writes. When she finally gave him her blessing, she became his No. 1 fan. That meant “everything” to him.

Beyond “Uhh,” Nature Boi finds himself wearing a variety of hats, musically. He has production credits on Elevator Music, a project he worked on with fellow Marylander Brain Rapp; he DJs; and he has his own batch of songs, Super Natural, slated for release later this year. There’s just one problem with wanting to cover so many creative bases.

“My biggest issue is being a perfectionist,” Nature Boi writes.

On the other hand, he’s a rising artist without a big fanbase yet. That low profile can be an asset, he says. “Because nobody is really checking for me, it’s no pressure.”

Warning: Explicit lyrics.