Blu & Exile

Formed in Los Angeles underground circles, the duo pairing MC Blu (born Johnson Barnes) with DJ/producer Exile (born Aleksander Manfredi) drew immediate widespread praise upon issuing their first full-length project, Below the Heavens, in 2007. Reviewers hailed the album as an ideal fusion of Blu’s everyday-struggle rhymes and Exile’s beats shaped by Pete Rock and J Dilla influences. At the time Blu was still hustling to cover basic expenses when the pair first met in the early to mid-2000s; the rapper had been working as a hype man for soul and hip-hop acts including Slum Village, Platinum Pied Pipers, and Exile’s own group Emanon. Blu already knew Emanon’s other member, MC/singer Aloe Blacc, who arranged the initial introduction between the two future collaborators. After electing to join the L.A. independent imprint Sound in Color—Exile’s existing label home—in 2004, Blu recorded several tracks alongside the producer and lent support to Exile’s solo album Dirty Science, released in 2006. While Blu continued searching for an industry foothold, Exile had already secured production placements with Jurassic 5, Kardinal Offishall, and Mobb Deep. Issued in August 2007, the soul-steeped joint effort Below the Heavens placed both artists in the spotlight and generated strong interest among alternative rap listeners, yet it especially earned Blu repeated “Artist to Watch” placements across print and digital outlets from that year through 2008. In the years that followed they pursued separate endeavors far more often than joint ones, though 2012 yielded a second co-billed album, Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them.