Multi-Talented Queens, NYC Artist, Actor Amir Royale Releases Second 2020 Single “Hold It Down”

Expressive Record Blends Soulful R&B With Impassioned Rap Verses

By StageScene MagazinePublished 4 years ago • 3 min read

From Amir Royale

“Hold It Down" is something I stopped consciously saying to myself a long time ago. Is that fair? No — maybe it isn't. But, I never take the time to concern myself with whether or not it's okay to be everyone's rock. I've came to terms with it. I've been the glue that holds circles together even when I never wanted to be. I've left and seen things crumble or lose things of substance — projects that I KNOW deserve to be seen by the world. I've been the kid that everybody either looked up to, looked down on for not being around long enough, or the atrophic object for other people's successes. Yet, that's my thing about all this. If I don't shout my homies out. Who will? If I don't show you all how powerful my family is and shall CONTINUE to be before they leave the Earth — which one of you will speak their beauty back into existence? If I don't keep loving the people I've lost, will they still get that love elsewhere? If not me, then who? If not y'all — I'm taking all the injustices, the beautification, and infamy to the grave with me. Trust...

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• Lyrics on Genius.com

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photography by: Aja Adam (Adam of Eden Photography)

design by: SPECTRUMM Animations

lyrics by: Amir Oliver

produced by: JabariOnTheBeat

engineered by: Amir Royale

mixed by: Amir Royale

mastered by: Amir Royale

musical key: E minor

bpm: 94

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Press Release

NEW YORK -- Friday, Feb. 28, 2020 -- Rising actor, recording artist, and entrepreneur Amir Royale released “Hold It Down” today, marking his second single in as many months this year.

Following January’s release of his emotionally powerful single “People Say,” the St. Albans, Queens-native delivered another introspective, soulful hip hop record.

Click here to listen to the record.

“The thing that I always think about is if not me, then who?” Royale said about the inspiration for the song. “If I’m not the person that puts my city on, or my friends on, or my family on, or myself—then no one is going to do it. Who is going to hold it down? I have to.”

Royale wrote the lyrics, arranged the vocals, and mixed the record. Brooklyn-based contemporary hip hop producer JabariOnTheBeat, who has credits with Snoop Dogg, Bryson Tiller, Fetty Wap, and Soulja Boy, produced the song.

The record samples the opening of “Morning Rain,” a single from futuristic R&B music group Sonder.

The cover art for “Hold It Down” features Royale, his father, and his grandparents, in front of his childhood home in St. Albans. The image was directed by Royale, photographed by Aja Adam of Adam of Eden Photography (a graduate of NYC School of Visual Arts), and designed for SPECTRUMM Animations.

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Cover Art for the single “Hold It Down”

Click here to listen to the record.

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About Amir Royale

Amir Royale, is a multi-talented recording artist, musician, actor, filmmaker, producer, and director with M. StageScene Communications / Blues Bell Music. Royale is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, where he also earned a minor in Cinema Studies. Royale hails from St. Albans, Queens—a neighborhood that was once home to many legendary musicians, such as James Brown, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, A Tribe Called Quest and Count Basie.

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