By: Sydney Wills

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Over the past few weeks, multiple massive and unexpected rounds of snowfall hit the Tri-State area and buried New Jersey in over a foot of snow, with threat of more cold blasts looming. When everyone is tautly power walking around with hunched shoulders and hand-jammed pockets, there’s a tense desperation for some release, something to get smuggled through the seasonal contract. The latest from Twin Dolls arrives like back-alley delivery, all sparkle and sun-glare. 

TWEAKSTARS is the most recent release from the North Jersey-based duo Belal and Damian (aka MALIWANasf). Though it dropped this past Fall, the tape’s pop sensibilities, and the breezy sure-footedness that emanates from the two musicians in their discussion of it, make the work feel distinctly bright, like a summer refusing to wait its turn. The EP consists of six tracks with a digestible runtime, and was produced entirely by the duo. 

This feeling derives in part from an organic approach to music making and in part from intentionality. Belal, a founder and main creative engine behind Twin Dolls, detailed that the tape was worked on primarily throughout the course of the previous summer, and that his goal for when someone listens to it is to “bring back some of those happy-go-lucky sunny day vibes. Or maybe it could also be like an auditory cartoon. It’s a bit whimsical.” Damian succinctly encapsulated things in his description of the project’s musical philosophy: “taking our fun very seriously.”

These statements are indicative of the larger ethos behind the duo’s music and its friendship-oriented beginnings. Belal describes an immersion in underground rap discourse and the discovery of accessible musical production tools, such as Bandlab, as a natural evolution towards producing his own music — which initially took the form of funny, personalized birthday songs for friends. He mentions coming to the realization that “while the songs were clearly just made for fun, they were also pretty good, and that this was something I could be doing more seriously if I wanted to.”

So, much of Twin Dolls’ earliest work remained solely in the orbit of their friend group, with the principle goal of creating for each other. Belal remarked, “it was always something that was meant to be shared within my circle of friends. Like it was just fun to make something together, and for one another. At its inception, I don’t think I seriously considered the idea of publishing… My first song to be distributed was actually because my friend just wanted to be able to add it to their library, and I figured why not, and that’s when it all started I guess.”

It was natural at this point for collaboration between Belal and Damian to become heightened as the latter took on a drastically bigger role for TWEAKSTARS. Though Damian also releases solo music under the moniker MALIWANasf, he echoed the importance of connection and experimentation among friends as Twin Dolls’ animating force. He reiterated, “[Twin Dolls] was and is nothing if not friends. This music shit is nothing more or nothing less than a means to connect and inspire some real magic out of people who then can bounce back and do the same to me.” 

By making music with their own communities in mind as opposed to becoming engrossed with the “bigger picture” of release culture and the music industry, Twin Dolls occupy a rare space of authenticity. Damian spoke to the importance of creating things that are true to their lives and the demographics they address, saying, “I feel like we really care about being consistent in that way. I guess all this to say that our music is mostly not, like, a character for us like it could be for some other artists.” 

It is this rejection of facade and embrace of camaraderie that gives TWEAKSTARS its air of what can only be described as cheeky sincerity. That spirit comes through most clearly in the project’s playful verse handoffs, which—despite the duo’s Jersey origins—tap into a distinctly ’90s Southern conversational rap lineage, recalling the easy back-and-forth of OutKast or Goodie Mob and helping the tape build momentum track by track.

TWEAKSTARS opener “MATCHA” has an infectious Rhodes-esque melodic flute sample throughout; it gives the already-charming track a honeyed, bell-toned timbre. The loop adds a smooth chordal texture and overall warmth to the rhapsodic brass moment that it eventually builds into. The song was accompanied by a music video with punchily edited footage that forms a sort of montage of the musicians and friends traipsing around Jersey, matcha in tow. 

Belal explained, “the whole vibe of the song was just good sunny vibes. So we wanted the video to reflect that in a pretty casual way… We just wanted to have fun shooting, and hopefully that same energy was felt from the viewer’s perspective.” The sun-drenched clips have a playful handheld style and appear to be shot with a mix of cameras, some analog handycam and some with a sharper fisheye. Damian reflected, “somebody had the idea to get matcha from like 8 different places. Lowkey a satanic idea.” The videographer behind the offering is their friend and collaborator @emilijuo. 

The crispy drum patterns of “MATCHA” turn springy as the tape transitions into the elastic “CRUSH,” which preceded the EP as a single. This highest-streamed track is their unique take on a cutesy love ballad, with bubbly lyrics serving as an ode to an imagined crush and suiting for the coy culture of internet-era flirting. Imagine if New Edition’s “Candy Girl” featured All Might’s “PLUS ULTRA” battle cry — throw this one on and hit a Fortnite hug emote with your crush. 

“SINGIN WITH THE AUTOTUNE ONNN” sees the pop elements of the EP perhaps most present, with a sing-song delivery and catchy melodic contour. Standout “BUBU” is packed with chopped up, whimsical textures to create a fantastically fragmented surface that gets anchored by a rhythmic five count loop. The project closes with the celebratory “For All The Dolls,” a wholesome outro that’s like a pared-back version of The College Dropout’s “Last Call.” It has an improvisational sincerity that serves to acknowledge community while shouting out friends and collaborators.  

In all, TWEAKSTARS is a borderline-plunderphonic treasure trove of pop samples, a production motif with easter eggs I would be doing a disservice by listing explicitly. Damian described their approach to sampling as “grandiose,” and this rings true. The attentive listener will be rewarded with refreshingly fun and creative sampling — think Michael Jackson vocal loops, Fortnite dance instrumentals, and stock sound effects of cheering crowds and banana peel slips — though some of them may only be identifiable for the more chronically online among us.

And that’s not a diss. There’s a reason contemporary underground music is so entangled with artists’ investments in pop and internet culture, as online platforms increasingly serve as the primary material infrastructure through which independent music can sustain itself. Though Damian heaped gratitude on his in-person communities and the experience of growing up in proximity to a lively musical culture, he spoke to the dual importance of this digital experience, saying, “I really can be a homebody and a dweeb, so, honestly, a lot of my community here is surrounded by internet stuff for sure. We, or at least myself, kind of suck all that shit up like a sponge and just kind of throw around ideas from there within our little internet communities and bubbles.”

The tongue-in-cheek referential feeling of TWEAKSTARS that results is a strong point for the project, and this digital influence finds other ways into the EP. Belal spoke of being influenced by one internet-inflected rapper himself: “I gotta mention Yeat’s 2021-2022 run. He really inspired me to get creative with my expression. What he was doing, especially compared to his contemporaries, felt so unique and organic and refreshing, and really inspired me to let loose and have fun with my music. The first ‘real’ song we made was directly influenced by his sound, though I’ve since abandoned that style for something more authentic to myself.”

Damian pointed to the influence of similarly sample-oriented experimental artist DORIS, particularly for his verse on “BUBU.” He said, “his influence mad obvious, in my opinion at least… I remember both of us were bumping him heavy while making some of these tracks.” Of note here is the lingering presence of both DORIS and Michael Jackson on the tape, two drastically different artists from different eras who both ad-lib unconventional mouth sounds into harmonic lines, and the way that this reflects the duo’s sharp eye for cultural touchstones and their patterns. 

The result: a unique ability to create musical collages that draw from idiosyncratic references. There’s a tangible blend of classics with the novel, reference to Sway Calloway alongside DOMO, SZA sampled next to sci-fi anime voicelines, Key & Peele with Fanboy and Chum Chum. Once again, Damian attests this to their collaborative approach to music, saying, “we love to make these projects even more like a collage of community and different perspectives.” 

The vibrant, saturated cover art for TWEAKSTARS is an apt embodiment of that. It features portraits of the two musicians accompanied by colorful images that are layered under hand drawn doodles, everything splintered into sections by borders. There are fun retro web motifs with pixel textures, holographic CDs, and Windows popups mixed into natural imagery of bubbles, rainbows, flowers, and fish. The design was done in collaboration with their friends Adrian Oakley and @palimpsestart. Belal expressed, “I couldn’t be more grateful for the work that my friends were excited to do. It was really amazing watching them put it all together.”

Twin Dolls’ community extends beyond the realm of their music. They often play at fundraisers hosted by their university’s organizations, many of which revolve around student activism. Belal asserted, “music, and art as a whole, is expression of one’s self, and the way I see it, a part of that self is ‘political’ if you are anyone who exists within a political system. Even if the subject of one of my songs is not outwardly political, my beliefs bleed into my art.” Most recently, they performed alongside a few other artists at a charity show for Palestine and Sudan that was hosted by local chapters of SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine), Amnesty International, and the fraternity Chi Pi. 

The next steps for Twin Dolls look like finding opportunities to create as full-time students. Damian is in the process of releasing new music as MALIWANasf, while Belal looks forward to honing his ability to write catchy tunes, and expressed appreciation to listeners. “It’s just a uniquely fulfilling experience as an artist for your work to be consumed at all, let alone really loved and appreciated,” he said. He plans on releasing a solo tape in late March.

TWEAKSTARS is an album rooted in friendship and supported by community, proof that warmth can be intentional without being manufactured. Its brightness isn’t a pose, but the natural result of people making music together with optimism and a shared sense of purpose. Damian summarized this outlook with a closing sentiment that feels emblematic of the EP as a whole: “I think we try to have an optimistic outlook on the world, our futures, and especially our present, so of course we’re gonna always be hanging around people who believe the same and are putting the genuine work in to build this happiness, not just for each other, but for all people that we can touch. Free Palestine, free Sudan, free us, free all our people.” 

In that sense, TWEAKSTARS not only celebrates but enacts connection, offering a vision of music-making grounded in the belief that community, when nurtured, can be both sustaining and expansive.