Bittersweet - Alkaline’s producer honours twin brother’s legacy through success

Producer Darren Sorite has been immersing himself in all things musical following the passing of his business partner and identical twin brother, Dane, in July 2021.

Darren and Dane made their names with production credits on three songs on Alkaline's sophomore album, Top Prize, and, now flying solo, Darren produced a trio of songs for Alkaline, namely Boss, Motivation and Nah Laugh, which hit the bullseye. But for the Westmoreland-based producer, the success has been "bittersweet".

"I'm still at it carrying on the legacy ... I want to make Dane proud," Darren, the CEO of SartOut Records, told THE STAR.

"Working with Alkaline now is similar to working with him before, it's just that without Dane I had to figure out my sound and it took me a while to become confident in it. Basically, I did a few months of revamp and searching to get where I'm at now. "

In his journey to finding his sound, Darren teamed up with a young composer from YouTube, who his late brother admired.

"His name is D'andre Barnes, known as Dre Barnes Beatz on YouTube. I started working with him when he was 17, right after Dane passed, and special mention must be made of him," Darren said, insisting on giving credit where it is due.

He noted that Alkaline supports the direction he's going with the sound "and from the results, we see that it's working".

Released two months ago, the video for Boss has accumulated 1.6 million views so far, while after one month, the music video for Motivat ion is at 704,000, and the songs continue to enjoy huge streaming numbers.

Reflecting on the past two years, Darren shared that the road has been difficult, as he also lost his father during the same time, but he hailed his family for their immense support.

" I was struggling ...depression, grief ....I've been in a dark place for a year. However, all that changed, thanks to my family. My family means everything to me. We've grown closer since everything, my mom and sister, my nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles we've all gotten closer and they've been supportive which I truly am grateful for. I take comfort in knowing that Jehovah is real, that love and light still exist and even though we have to go through some dark times, there's always a light at the other side," an emotional Darren said.