Biography
Dakim Saadiq, who puts out recordings under his given name as well as the shorter alias Dak, works as an experimental beatmaker with roots in Detroit and later ties to Los Angeles. Known for keeping a low profile, he ranked among the earliest artists signed to Matthewdavid’s Leaving Records, where his jagged, lo-fi constructions built from samples drew favorable notice from established figures in the city’s beat community, among them Flying Lotus and Ras G. Standthis, issued by Leaving Records in 2009, marked his debut. After issuing several CD-Rs on his own, he delivered a pair of 7" EPs titled Ntoo and Damage in 2011, then unveiled 34 Fragments the following year—an album assembled from captured fragments of daily life—via the Italian imprint Senufo Editions. Additional cassettes appeared on Leaving Records thereafter, among them Youstandit/Leftrecord, Ddust Regos (credited to Dak), and Soap. Reishi, a complete LP that Dakim crafted under the moniker Saafron, came out through Leaving in 2016.