K. Agee, Mission, J. Rohdan, Joshua Heath, Billy Wiginton, and others produced songs on Murray’s mixtape. Murray says that until he neared the end of Dark Vader, his songs didn’t share a sound that made them alike. “They [the producers] came along and completely flipped things upside down for me.”

The first song on Dark Vader is “Part 1 (FDA).” FDA stands for fear, doubt, and anger. Dre Murray was raised in a rough neighborhood in Houston, Texas and had fears relating to that setting.

“You had doubt, because for one, you didn’t know if you were going to survive in that environment. Being awkward because you have all these different things in society telling you what you should be, so you doubt yourself all the time. It gets to a point where all of that comes to a head and it’s just anger.”

The second track is called “’93 Coupe De Ville” and the title references the car of Dre Murray’s friend Greg. “He was the manager of Wendy’s on the southwest side of Houston. I lived on the Southeast side and would ride the bus to get to work, and I would ride home with him in his ’93 Coupe.”

Dre Murray was a teenager at that time, and often instead of taking the bus all the way to his job at Wendy’s, he would get off near Rice University and walk the rest of the way. Rice University is in a nice neighborhood, and Murray liked to look at the houses along the way, seeing another way of life than what he was used to.

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