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.

Last week, the local imprint released a compilation called Code Red (listen below) that they say will benefit the American Civil Liberties Union. And it isn’t just a statement against Trump, says label co-founder Douglas Kallmeyer. The compilation hits back against corruption in U.S. politics and the financial system.

“Financial greed has enslaved generations to unjust mortgages and student loans. People are struggling and susceptible,” says Kallmeyer. “How can we help those that will suffer the most?” Kallmeyer says the ACLU seemed like an ideal beneficiary, calling the 96-year-old organization “a nonpartisan means to try to fight corruption.”

The nonpartisan part is key. Kallmeyer blames the current political mood on both Republicans and Democrats.

“It seems that any shred of moral value on either side of the aisle is finally gone. It’s insane to me,” says the Annandale resident. “The Democratic party cut their own throats, obviously railroading Bernie Sanders and installing Hillary Clinton.”

At 40 tracks, Code Red contains a vast diversity of expressive styles. Some artists, such as violinist James Wolf, create abstract soundscapes of dissonant tones. Others, like Peoria, Illinois, singer/songwriter Sarah Schonert, take a more intimate and melodic route. But the music overwhelmingly captures a negative view of current events, dwelling on feelings of tension, instability or urgency.

Kallmeyer worked with labelmate Dave Harris to put the call for submissions across social media. They were floored by the resulting enthusiasm.

“We were willing to settle with what we could get in 10 days,” says Kallmeyer. “We had 40 committed artists from six different countries… We probably had responses doubling that.”

Kallmeyer sees a global movement in the works, and he says Verses is ready to rise to the task.

“D.C. and the surrounding area of artistic community [are] mobilizing at a steady pace to respond to the absolute corruption we face,” Kallmeyer says, “and to be heard.”

“‘Mars and Me’ is about the tension we feel between Venus and Mars within ourselves,” says the Mount Pleasant resident. “When one’s self is truly illuminated, we see beauty and horror.”

The track certainly explores two vastly different musical ideas. “Mars and Me” opens on a lovely but anxious note, with minor-key arpeggios buttressing Anway’s soft vocals. The band doesn’t settle into a mood, though. Before long, drums and strings propel the song into another atmosphere.

“Mars and Me” continues Anway’s partnership with producers Tommy Sherrod and Mike Okusami. The three worked together on Brushes’ debut release, Whatever, Again. Since then, they have recorded over 20 songs together and grown into a live quintet that includes guitarist/keyboardists Matt Henderson and Nick DePrey.

“Mars and Me” appears on Grizzly Beach, a split EP with Boston band Today Junior. Unlike Brushes’ more nuanced approach, Today Junior is all about the fist-pumpers. Grizzly Beach features their song, “Lee’s Anthem,” a shout-along ode to believing in yourself.

Once again, the contrast in styles is deliberate.

“One of the things I love most about Today Junior is that they write songs to make you feel good,” says Anway. “Their music connects me to Boston, where I grew up, and to many of the surf themes that have become fundamental to how I write songs.”

Anway and Brushes met Today Junior over the summer and the two bands immediately struck up a friendship. Aside from working on Grizzly Beach together, the two bands co-wrote a song that will appear on a full-length Brushes album out next year.

In the meantime, Brushes and Today Junior plan to embark on a mini-tour of the Northeast U.S. and drop a vinyl release of Grizzly Beach in early 2017.

Brushes, Today Junior and Homeshake Monday play Nov. 28 at Songbyrd Music House & Record Cafe.

“When [President Ronald] Reagan entered office,” says punk elder statesman Mark Andersen, “it provided a focal point, like a physical embodiment of the things that we opposed.”

Andersen makes that observation to WAMU reporter Patrick Madden in a story that aired Tuesday. The co-founder of D.C. activist group Positive Force says that in some ways, the Reagan era energized punk in D.C. And some say the same could happen under President Trump.

Visit the WAMU homepage to hear Madden’s story, “Could D.C. Punk Thrive Under President Trump?” The sound-rich feature includes interviews with Andersen, Ian MacKaye of Fugazi and Minor Threat, filmmaker Robin Bell and Jason Mogavero of rabble-rousing D.C. band Jack On Fire.

“People still think we’re one person,” says Dijon Duenas, who sings and produces in the R&B group. But actually, says co-producer Abhi Raju, “We’re two different people making music with two different backgrounds.”

Growing up in Maryland, Raju says he mostly listened to Indian music and later, rock. Duenas, meanwhile, found his base in R&B and hip-hop. Together, the pair explore the pensive outer reaches of contemporary R&B music. They’ve been gradually tweaking the formula since their 2013 debut.

Raju and Duenas say they have creative clashes all the time. But those battles don’t make it into the finished product — including on their cohesive new EP, Montana (listen below), where Duenas’ wispy, reflective vocals and Raju’s sumptuous co-production sound like a fated match.

“The thing we share in common is immediacy and warmth,” Duenas says. “Whatever that means to anybody else we can’t say, but… warmth means the same thing musically to both of us. I think that’s the most important thing.”

That warmth began to take shape with “Twelve,” a 2013 track with rhythms you could find on an Aaliyah single. (The duo even brought traces of Aaliyah and producer Timbaland to “Baby Girl,” a song they produced for Talib Kweli’s surprise 2015 release, F— the Money.) Their 2015 EP, Stay Up, remains rooted in their influences, but forges a path toward a more spacious sound.

“For our last EP, we were like, ‘Yo, let’s do everything that we can possibly do,’” Raju recalls. “Now we’re more concise with it.”

On Montana, Duenas’ soft singing melts into sprawling, pulsating instrumentals. The five-track release lingers on fragmented emotions, from pettiness in “Ignore” to wistfulness in “Often.” While Stay Up felt mildly nostalgic, Montana sounds like growth.

What started as a hobby for the two self-described introverts has evolved into an “expressive exercise,” Duenas says.

“We don’t want to get caught in just any wave,” the vocalist says. They aspire to make music that’s as “sonically forward-thinking as possible without overthinking it.”

After Abhi//Dijon took a brief hiatus this year to figure out post-grad life and move from Ellicott City to Los Angeles, where they’re focusing on their craft. A top goal: refine their live show.

Onstage, Duenas says, “I never felt like I was representing myself the way I wanted to.” He struggles with anxiety, and he’s felt hampered by preconceived notions of what an R&B performer should do.

“Dijon’s not Usher,” Raju jokes.

“Seriously,” Duenas agrees. “That was the existential thing because, like, I’m not an R&B dude.” So he’s simply decided to perform more honestly. “It’s more about owning up to who you are,” he says.

Singer/guitarist John Davis (Q And Not U, Georgie James), bassist Michael Cotterman (Kid Dynamite, The Loved Ones) and drummer Elmer Sharp (Roofwalkers) handled their WAMU session with consummate ease: The songs “I Don’t Need To Know” and “Low Cool” sprung to life with all the immediacy that might be expected from a band with new material simmering for so many months. (If you’re a longtime WAMU 88.5 listener, you might already be familiar with Title Tracks’ sound — an instrumental version of “Every Little Bit Hurts” was the opening theme for the station’s now-retired Metro Connection show.)

The band celebrates the release of Long Dream on Friday night at Comet Ping Pong in D.C. The album is available for pre-order via Dischord Direct.

Subscribe to Bandwidth’s channel on YouTube, and don’t miss our awesome playlist of every Bandwidth session to date.

“Dating/In this city of ours/Oh what a waste of time/Oh it’s the blind leading the blind,” the D.C.-based performer sings in a near-deadpan over frenetic electro-pop rhythms in “Dating,” the new single by the band Stronger Sex.

“I’d rather read a book,” Fantastic says over the phone while dog-walking on a sunny November afternoon.

It’s not that Fantastic has had any spectacularly bad dates. The lyricist, singer and synth-player can only recall the comedian who called them “old” — they’re 32 — and the person who ghosted them. (Fantastic prefers third-person-plural pronouns over “him” or “her.”)

If there’s any angst, it’s towards the concept of dating itself — what the song calls “… the easy chance/To score on some bats–t romance.”

Fantastic hasn’t succumbed to dating apps, although friends’ hits and misses with the technology have been noted. Other forms of finding or keeping “the one” — from meet-cutes to marriage — aren’t appealing, either. Fantastic prefers to get to know someone who who “swims in the same current.” (Strictly music-wise, the current includes Stronger Sex bandmate Leah Gage.)

“Marriage is college and dating is prep school, y’know what I mean … and I’m not trying to go to college right now,” the artist says. “[I’m] not really looking to start a mutually beneficial financial partnership with another young adult.”

This isn’t to say Fantastic is unhappy — the phone conversation is downright jovial. Performing with Stronger Sex, the singer is animated and upbeat, dancing to the band’s haunting blend of slithering rhythms, electro sounds and noise-pop touches. Fantastic dresses to the nines, often wearing dresses or skirts.

“I guess if I were a pessimist, I wouldn’t bother writing a song at all in the first place. I would just sit at home and feel sorry for myself,” Fantastic says.

Stronger Sex is working on a followup to 2015’s eponymous debut. The new record is due next year.

For now, Fantastic prefers to spend time on things like hanging out with friends and going on trips.

“[When you’re not in a relationship],” the performer says, “you have to learn how to be confident in who you are.”

Will Hackney is packing gear into a van on a loading dock in Portland, Ore. He’s the bass player and tour manager for the band Flock of Dimes. They’ve got four amps, a ton of guitars and keyboards — and, Hackney says, “a British guitar player who brings the biggest suitcase I’ve ever seen.”

Over the course of 30 days, the group will travel 8,000 miles and visit 22 cities in the U.S. and Canada. It is Hackney’s job to get them there. Tour managers are responsible for virtually every aspect of planning and executing the trip, and almost anything can go wrong. But there are some things Hackney has never worried much about.

“You know, in all my years of touring, security has not really been something I’ve ever had to think about,” Hackney says. “It usually feels like a pretty safe bubble.”

For many, that bubble popped after the Paris attacks. Just a few days later, Robin Laananen was on tour in Belgium with the band Refused — and Bataclan was on everyone’s mind. During a Refused show, she spotted members of the military inside the showroom behind their sound engineer.

“That’s hard to see — people that you love playing music up on stage and knowing that that’s a possibility and that could be going through their heads,” she says. “And then everyone’s worried about everybody in that room. It’s really hard.”

Among those killed at the Bataclan was Nick Alexander, one of the crew for Eagles of Death Metal, the band playing that night. Jim Runge was friends with Alexander. Runge toured with The Black Keys and worked shows at the Bataclan before last year’s tragedy.

He says the attack was the catalyst for some changes to industry practices. It’s now more common to use spotters to keep an eye out for anything unusual in the crowd. “There is somebody on stage, whether it be the tour manager, production manager, stage manager — somebody who is in charge of calling the show,” Runge says.

But Runge freely admits there’s only so much that can be done. “You can check bags to make sure people aren’t carrying in bombs or explosives or guns — dangerous things,” he says. “But — I hate to even say it — if someone is coming at your door with automatic weapons, other than having armed guys at the door, protecting the door, which none of us want, what can you do?”

That sense of helplessness has had a lasting effect on the psyche of the touring community, says Chris Coyle, calling from the road while on tour with rock band Red Fang in Malmo, Sweden.

“I don’t really know how to put it into words about how I felt about [Bataclan],” Coyle says. “It was immediate sorrow. Talking about it now gets me all choked up. We never thought about having to deal with guns or anything at shows.”

Although Coyle says he hasn’t drastically changed the way he runs tours, he now finds himself in the job of spotter more often. “If I see anything, I will stop the show and I will get the boys out,” he says.

Back in Portland, Hackney is done packing the van. True to form, he has already shifted his attention to working out the logistics of his band’s next stop. But before driving off, he takes a few moments to reflect on the one-year anniversary of the Bataclan attack.

“The point of that attack was to make people scared to have live music and do things like this,” he says. “And everybody that I know is not going to stop for that.”

He doesn’t have time to stop. He’s got 17 cities and 6000 miles to go.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

The cool-but-not-too-cool house and techno tracks — attributed to by Doms & Deykers, her and his surnames — sound unencumbered by life. But life has changed for the Sterling resident: He’s been maintaining his creative energy and his international profile with a new addition at home. The Dutch-born musician and his wife have a toddler daughter, and he’s had to learn how to compartmentalize things.

“You can’t do any eight- or nine-hour studio sessions and just sort of completely lose yourself into compressing drums or whatever,” Martyn says, chuckling. “Every two hours there’s something new, then you have to go there, or then she wakes up from a nap — there’s all these little things that you have to think about all of a sudden.”

Perhaps it was natural, then, for Martyn to find a different mode of making music for the time being. Known for his club sets and his creative, sonically adventurous solo albums — including 2014’s The Air Between Words on the Ninja Tune label — the 42-year-old says he was “never really interested in working with other people” until recently. The project with Doms stemmed from his DJ gigs in Europe. (He’s currently doing a monthly residency at Panorama Bar in Berlin.)

“When we sit together in the studio, ideas happen really fast,” he says. “We just lay jams down, and usually we spend a couple of hours on one, then record everything, and move to the next idea. And usually what happens when we get back home, and we’re in our own studios working, we take these jams and build them into complete songs.”

Doms, who is also Dutch-born, traveled to the Virginia ‘burbs in the spring to help finish the album, which was released this week on 3024, a label Martyn runs with artist Erosie. Martyn also found time over the past year for another collaboration: Fierce For The Night, by a Berlin singer called, coincidentally, Virginia. Martyn, Doms and the Dutch producer Dexter handled all the production.

Martyn moved to Ashburn, Virginia, in 2008 for love and was married the same year. In 2012, he became a U.S. citizen. The family has since found another apartment, in Sterling. He’s had some time to put Loudoun County in perspective.

“I must say that — especially with traveling to other parts of the U.S., I noticed that Ashburn and Sterling is not the norm,” he says. “I think we’re all quite privileged to live in this area. Although sometimes it can be a bit of a struggle, this is a really sort of wealthy area of the States. That’s something I only discovered when I started traveling to other places and see how other cities are laid out, also smaller towns and things like that … this is not what the entire U.S. looks like, you know?”

As his adjustment to suburban-dadhood continues, he says it’s “important to stay inspired.” He has time to listen to music on international flights, but he’s got a tactic at home, too.

“Once you actually find your groove again, you can actually make it part of your life again. Like, one thing we do is play a record almost every day — a new album every day so that in the house there’s always music,” he says. His daughter “really enjoys the music as well, even though sometimes it’s a bit weird for her, maybe. That way I can sort of engulf myself in music and give my child a little bit of education in a way.”

Martyn speaks highly of D.C.’s growing dance-music scene, particularly the Future Times and 1432R labels, and the roving-party series known as ROAM. He recently DJed at one in September.

“The crowd was just so healthy. It was so nice to see people really into the music and not really about posing or just taking pictures of themselves, just generally enjoying the music and generally enjoying the atmosphere and the other people,” he says. “It was just really cool to see that. It almost felt like a European party, you know? That’s something that I hadn’t experienced in D.C. before. … It was less sort of institutionalized clubbing, and more sort of, freedom. That’s obviously a very good time for people to play their music.”

Despite the recent stretch of working so much with other artists, Martyn says he’s returning to his roots in the coming weeks, with work on a new album that is likely to sound more “abstract,” given the club-oriented nature of the Doms & Deykers album and the project with Virginia.

“I’ve just been aching,” Martyn says, “to start working on solo material again.”

The experience was rife with racial tensions, however. “It wasn’t anything like I got spat on,” he explains. “At the same time, I think the coaches and the environments I would be in didn’t set right with me.”

So he was particularly moved when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem earlier this year. The NFL player said he wanted to call attention to the systemic mistreatment of minority groups in the U.S.

“I always wondered what was up with racist sports fans who may cheer for a player of color, but will not respect their rights as human beings once the game is over.”

“I think what he did definitely made people reflect and it exposed so many differing viewpoints for people to have this conversation,” says Ardamus (real name: Artemis Thompson). “We don’t give people with fame credit when they stand for something positive and meaningful.”

Thompson’s new song, “The Athlete,” pays tribute to sports heroes past and present who were unafraid to speak up about racial disparities in America. A confident, sauntering beat produced by Ardamus himself buttresses two segments of storytelling: In the first verse, the MC recalls the patient determination of baseball player Jackie Robinson, who first broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. In the second, he praises Kaepernick for using his status to call attention to social issues.

“The Athlete” appears on Thompson’s After I Replace You EP, which came out last week on the Delegation Music label. Thompson had written the bulk of the song a year ago, but Kaepernick’s protest inspired him to return and finish it.

“I always wondered what was up with racist sports fans who may cheer for a player of color, but will not respect their rights as human beings once the game is over,” he says. “Someone like Kaepernick takes a stand then all hell breaks loose. All these critics come out and show their true colors.”

It’s no surprise that Thompson is also a voracious sports fan, rooting for baseball’s San Francisco Giants, hockey’s Nashville Predators, both sides of basketball’s rivalry between the Brooklyn Nets and the Toronto Raptors, and of course, D.C. United soccer. He sees a deep connection between hip-hop culture and professional sports.

“So many rappers want to say they’re a version of this player and that player in the hip-hop industry. Then you have so many players getting involved in hip-hop music” he says. “I think they will continue to influence each other as time goes on.”

Ardamus performs Oct. 28 with Of Tomorrow at Solly’s in D.C., and Oct. 29 with Red Moon Preachers at Tree House Lounge in D.C.