NYU musician Orrin Campbell is dropping his debut EP

It was a cold and overcast February afternoon. Orrin Campbell played a game of water pong in an apartment near Union Square, as he told me about what initially sparked his passion for music.

He lifted his hand, flicked his wrist, and arched the ball towards a triangular formation of red solo cups. The plastic orb missed its target and bounced onto the floor.

“I met this guy in high school that had his own studio set up,” said Orrin as he lined up his second shot. “One day he asked me for some help on a few songs…I ended up sleeping over for three days. He told me I was so much help that I should try making my own stuff.”

Nearly four years later, this 20-year-old Sternie is still honing his hip-hop skills and is ready to show the world what he’s been cooking up. He will soon be releasing his first EP, March, in collaboration with three of his friends: Joey Del Villar, Warren Wolfe, and Zach Michel who produce for him. The record will be available on March 21st.

“We’ve been working for a year now, taking it slow, analyzing what other artists are putting out there,” said Stern junior, Aníbal Suriel who works as Orrin’s manager. “This EP is a calculated approach, he hasn’t put anything out in a while so we have to make sure he comes correct.”

March is an artistic rebirth for the young NYC-based rapper. While this is his first official release, Orrin has posted a few singles on his SoundCloud, which have garnered over 100,000 plays in total. His older work was a mixture of cold and subdued vocals over somber beats. Although the MC’s first few songs have found him a sizable audience, he felt that there was a discrepancy between the music that he was making and the music that he wanted to make

“Over the summer Warren, Joey, and I worked on our shit day and night, up until the day that I left to go visit a friend in Europe,” said Orrin as he plopped down on a couch and grabbed a PS4 controller. “When I got on the plane I listened to one of the songs we made and I was like ‘This is it, this is what I want to be making.’”

His newest song, Miami, was released on February 17 and gives us a taste of what March has in store. The beat was reminiscent of Wave Racer and the vocals have a Post Malone vibe to them. Like a lot of the tracks on his EP, Orrin sonically puts you in his shoes and takes you on a journey through his mind at different points of his life. This results in constant fluctuations of mood.

“We want for there to be something for everyone in March so we listened to all types of artists when we were looking for inspiration,” said Joey. “We had Justin Bieber’s new album on loop when we made Miami, but for this more aggressive song we listened to Arca’s abstract and exotic stuff on Yeezus.”

Even with this new EP under their belts, Orrin and his production team have already began working on an album that is tentatively scheduled to drop in July. After nothing more than a brief hiatus, Orrin is back and making waves.

I advise against sleeping on him.