Speech forged a musical relationship with Rambo (previously Daunta) with Arrested Development's This Was Never Home album in 2018. The storied producer crafted three tracks for the project, including “Suit Up,” “Let’s Go and “Trauma."
“Trauma” would end up as the featured song during the credits of Speech’s award-winning documentary, 16 BARS. On the other hand, “Suit Up” was licensed for an episode of the Showtime hit series The CHI.
Following those wins, Speech invited Rambo to come to Atlanta so they could write more songs together. The concept for EXPANSION evolved into expanding on good camaraderie and turning a spark into a flame. Speech invited Rambo to live at his home for weeks and they recorded in Speech's Studio — also known as The Podium — where Speech set up two separate desks in one room. One desk was for Rambo and one desk for Speech, and they started simultaneously creating tracks and air dropping ideas to one another via the internet.
Songs such as “Way Down Here” and “Just Too Cold” were among the songs written during this period.
“Just Too Cold” track was produced by MRK SX, another friend of Speech’s. From there, they showed the tracks to Christian Mombru, an instructor at Speech's arts school, The Victory Spot (VictorySpot.org). Christian then wanted to get in on the collaboration. Christian and Speech’s debut collaboration was appropriately titled “Seeing For The First Time” and features the rising Kenyan hip-hop star Xtatic. With the excitement looming from their debut song, they penned "Do It" next featuring Ke'Andra who Speech knew would love Christian's tracks. Speech then introduced Rambo to Ke'Andra and together, they co-wrote "Way Down Here.” Expansion is an EP multi-part series, featuring: Fareedah Aleem, Tasha LaRae, Arabiah Love, Twan Mack, Otis Mensah, MRK SX, Dara Carter, Nakayo, Will Montgomery, Eric Dozier, Fletcher Dozier and U Will.
Welcome to Expansion Part I.