About Us
Zen, zu_keeny and E Major. Photo by Mike Northrup (www.strobophoto.com)
Under Sound Music is an underground hip-hop label formed in 2004 by artists and producers with the goal of giving artists a voice. dropping consistently creative music without compromise.
Under Sound was founded by Aaron ‘zu_keeny’ Keeny, Ashante ‘Zen’ Saunders, and Ian ‘E Major’ Mattingly. We originally met during high school at Carver Center for Arts & Technology and each of us pursued Fine Arts during college. After college we held degrees in Photography, Music Production and Painting respectively and at that time further solidified our friendships and business relationships around a shared love of music. Not long after we formed Under Sound Music and started work on our first release. Everything from recording music, designing cover art & photography along with mixing the final project was completed all in-house.
2005 marked the label’s first official release with Breaking Ground Vol. 1. which featured new music from Wordsworth, E Major, Oddisee, Cappadonna, The Procussions and more. We followed that with E Major’s Major General Mixtape and in 2008 Under Sound released his anticipated follow-up album, Majority Rules. Majority Rules received acclaim from critics and fans a like and generated quite a buzz for E Major and for Under Sound as a whole.
We’ve continued to work hard utilizing the power of the Internet and the contacts and fan base that we’ve gained over the years to solidify ourselves as a recognized name within Baltimore Hip Hop and have used our hometown style of music, Baltimore Club, to break barriers down in the industry.
In 2009, E Major and our resident selector, DJ Impulse teamed up as The Demonstrators to release a single that even took us by surprise. “Paper Runnin’” was an instant success, getting thousands and thousands of downloads and being posted all over the Internet. Remixes started to pop up all over the place, most notably the DJ Booman remix that has enjoyed many spins on Baltimore’s largest commercial Hip Hop station.
We’ve continued to keep to our goal of releasing nothing but dope music without compromise and we like to think we’re now known for it. We have a number of projects and collaborations coming this year and we hope that our fans, friends and family enjoy what we have to offer.
Please visit our artists page to find out more about our roster and also visit the music page to get some new tunes!
