Earlier this week, participants in Nashville’s Kinfolk writing camp seemed perfectly at home in the Music Row headquarters of Warner Chappell Publishing. Every few minutes, the door to one of the many writing rooms would open, leaking the sounds of lyric discussions, laughter, and on-the-fly drum programming into the lounge, and one of 60-some odd Black music-makers would emerge to grab themselves a can of water or mix up a cocktail before returning to their collaborators.
For the second year in a row, the workshop was timed to Black Music Month. And leading one of the sessions was the guy who played a central role in convening the group: He’s known as either Dom or Dom J.
And it’s the way he’s positioned himself — working in licensing and publishing at Warner while he also produces music, DJs and curates events around town — that enables him to open doors.
In this case, that meant inviting Nashville R&B and hip-hop artists to try professional songwriting for big-name acts. He wanted to “give the Nashville community opportunity a real shot at these [song] placements, and also getting in rooms with people that they maybe didn’t have access to.”
That goes for access to knowledge too, so that those who’ve historically been shut out of their city’s well-established music industry can begin to understand how to navigate it.
Dom first saw the need for that when he moved down from Chicago half a decade ago. “There’s not as much infrastructure in Chicago as in Nashville,” he points out. So coming here, it’s almost like, ‘Wow, look at all these resources.'”
Dom began developing his collaborative skills working with Chicago acts like rapper G Herbo. Dom points to the track “Can’t Sleep,” a 2019 Herbo single, as emblematic of his sensibilities. “A lot of the production I do really leans into those vulnerable moments, mental health,” he says. Herbo sounds militant rapping over the foreboding beat, but when the drums drop out at the chorus, his angst is laid bare: “Angels talking, I just can’t hear what they saying to me / Suffering from anxiety, I’m fighting insanity.”
Hearing the work of Shelldhn, Kyleigh and other Nashville artists motivated Dom to get acquainted with his current local scene.
Through playing DJ sets around town, Dom found a way to get involved. “The DJ community here is very strong,” he says, “and I think it’s our responsibility to make sure we’re listening to new music from the community and trying to break those records.”
And he’s been doing his part to expand the array of hip-hop and R&B offerings in Nashville’s night life. He’s created multiple DJ nights with distinct aesthetics, from a Chicago house music experience he dubbed Lakeshore to the underground music showcase Wave, the neo soul-centric Green Room with live saxophone accompaniment and so many other concepts that he worries aloud about those he’s forgotten to mention.
“What you’ll notice with all these events,” he explains, “they’re all aspects of me and stuff that I love. I really believe that the best art has identity.”
Dom has helped translate the emerging identity of Nashville’s R&B scene to plenty of stages too, including that of R&B After Dark, a package show that tours City Winery venues. Thanks to him, those lineups have showcased Nashville artists who are eager and ready to tour.
“These other cities and other audiences were blown away by Summer [Joy],” he recalls, “blown away by Kyleigh and Shelldhn and Ashley [Emj] and Mille Manny. So it really, I think, also gave them confidence like, ‘I’m not only doing really good here, I am holding my own everywhere.’ ”
Back in his Chicago days, Dom witnessed the rise of the menacing, hard-hitting drill music sound of Chief Keef, Herbo and Lil Durk and the resurgence of conscious hip-hop with jazz-inflected, live band backing favored by Smino, Vic Mensa and Chance the Rapper.
“It doesn’t just take one artist to really put a scene or a city on the map,” Dom reflects. “It takes a collective of really dope artists all doing something. I think Nashville has some serious potential to do that with the R&B scene and all the talent that’s there and also the spirit of collaboration that’s here.”
He points to strong songwriting as a central ingredient. The country songwriting world places a premium on heartfelt lyrics. And despite the separation between Music Row and Nashville R&B, Dom thinks that the towering influence of those standards of songcraft has carried over to singer-songwriters like Summer Joy.
“People like Summer are so authentic to themselves and what they’re saying,” he says. “They’re willing to take a risk. Like, [her ballad] ‘Keep Me Where It’s Warm,’ the structure of that song…”
Dom trails off almost reverently. What he’s getting at is that Joy’s sumptuous, patient pacing and vocal phrasing lends the track an elegantly undulating, living and breathing quality.
Dom’s made music with Nashville artists he believes in that hasn’t yet been released. And that’s one more way that he’s contributing to R&B’s ascendance in his adoptive city.
“It takes a village,” he says. “It takes so many people having a hand in so many aspects of the culture for something to really shift and create a moment in history. We’re all trying to make history and make our impact. And I think one of the best ways to do that is to help other people build their legacy.”
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