By Chris Richburg
Music producer DJ Muggs is crafting beats for a different medium as he was recruited to score the upcoming movie, Street Kings.
Directed by David Ayer, the feature stars Keanu Reeves as veteran LAPD vice detective Tom Ludlow, a man on the hunt to find the killers of his former partner.
Forrest Whitaker also appears in Street Kings as Captain Wander, Ludlow's supervisor who tries to keep the detective in line and away from Captain Biggs of Internal Affairs (played by Hugh Laurie).
Also making appearances in the film are rappers The Game and Common.
"We began the process of Street Kings by talking to David Ayer about the direction of the sound and how we wanted to convey certain moods in certain scenes," DJ Muggs said about creating an appropriate score for the film. "Then once the movie was shot, we went to work and brought the sound and movement to life."
Despite his experience in the music industry, Muggs, who has worked with artists like Cypress Hill, GZA, KRS-One, Ice Cube and others, admitted that creating music for an album is not similar to scoring a film.
"The main difference from scoring and making records is that in scoring the music can't loop," DJ Muggs revealed. "You gotta build, take away and add changes constantly as each frame changes. You have to make sure they [the directors and producers] get their vision across as well as the energy and emotion they want in the sound of their film."
Musically, DJ Muggs is working on his forthcoming compilation Soul Assassins III as well as DJ Muggs vs. Planet Asia, a concept album that has the super-producer providing dark soundscapses for the prolific MC.
Street Kings is slated to hit theaters on April 11.