East End born former West London darling of mid noughties acoustic soul jazz, Victor Davies, has reinvented himself with a brand new moniker, RUNK. Harnessing elements of 90s hip-hop, soul, house and funk; new track “She Don’t Want Ya No Mo/feat.Crackerjack”, experiments with alt-country, folk influences infused with versatile, potent modern day pop elements.
The track is taken from RUNK’s upcoming EP due later this year and you can check out our exclusive premiere of the song here:
RUNK says: “This track is about someone holding on to someone with hope when they should have let go a long time ago. It feature vocals from Crackerjack, a wise old character giving knowledge and straight truth. A mixture of hip-hop and country music it creates a very current sound but the idea for this was forged s few years ago. I had real fun making this track laying down guitars and beats and you know its good when you spend most of the time laughing”.
The song follows on from his dizzying debut ‘Nut Butter’, where the accompanying visual clip was shot entirely on an iPhone by Victor himself.
To say RUNK is a reinvention would be an understatement. Coming from the imagination of Victor Davies, he was never really comfortable with the ultra coolness and taking yourself far too seriously brigade. “I always have had a weird sense of humour and can be self deprecating and just found it odd to do these serious interviews in Japan etc. about my connection to broken beat scene when I just wanted to go and have a beer.”
After taking a back seat from releasing five of his own self produced albums Victor spent more time producing and playing live with his partner Mika Urbaniak as well as her legendary Polish jazz musician parents Michal Urbaniak and Urszula Dudziak. “Working outside the UK gave me time to think and not be in the spotlight and at the same time have amazing experiences like having dinner with Quincey Jones till 4am and him telling me about working with Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra.
An avid painter and illustrator, Victor also creates thought provoking art pieces exploring new landscapes of expression. His work has been curated and exhibited across galleries in Warsaw, London, Mexico and the Middle East.
The name RUNK stands for Rebels Unite With New Knowledge, it’s the idea that the world is changing and information is becoming more available to everyone which can give us power to rebel against the old gate keepers.
