Hailing from Birmingham, England, ROMderful aka Rommel Donald is a producer, DJ, multi-instrumentalist, and sound designer. Most people have stayed at home during this never-ending pandemic, but ROMderful decided to make a move and Korea has been his home since January of 2021. Why Korea? ROMderful explains, “I’ve been coming back and forth to Korea for a number of years, mainly to play DJ sets and see friends and I just ended up falling in love with it. I actually remember being really scared to come here the first time because I knew no one or nothing about Korea at all and I had no idea that anyone was aware of me here, but I received so much love whilst I was here like I’ve never had in my career before and I just felt like taking a risk and making a full-time move and seeing what happens? Who knows? BUT KOREAN FOOOOOOOOD so either way it's a win.”

The move has been very good to ROMderful as he’s happy and inspired every day, doing things like learning a new language and navigating this new world that he has chosen for himself. His latest album, PLEASE RECONNECT CONTROLLER, was released last week and symbolizes moving on and moving forward. He said, “I really wanted to make something like a small story. One day, I really want to make a cartoon or a movie soundtrack and I feel like this is my first try at it. I had SO MUCH fun making this one.”

Since he’s linked up with a lot of Asian stars before, so LiFTED thought it would be great for him to give us a list of his favorite features for this month’s edition of Dim Sum Down-low.

One of my favorites was with Dean! Who happened to be one of my first Korean friends :) I’m still not even entirely sure how everything came to be or how he found out about me but I met him the very first time I came to Seoul in 2016 and we kept in touch after that and met in various places such as London and LA.

Dean happened to be in London whilst I was working on my first album and one day we went to the studio and I was just showing him a bunch of beats and I really wanted a song with him, he picked a few and some days later, he sent me a video of his feature back with TABBER and I was like OOOOH. It was my first track with a Korean artist and I was so happy that I got to share a track with him on my debut project.

PYRA from Thailand is so charismatic and awesome and I love her style, her general vibe, and these insane outfits and how unique her music is! You can tell she spends a lot of time on her art and is so comfortable with herself and I love it!

So it actually came about as our managers are friends and they thought it’d be a good fit. A few conversations, laughs, and demos later, Pyra sent me back this INSANE demo and me and my manager were blown away by it! One of my personal favorites from the new album. I think this may be one of the most unique songs I’ve made so far

Woogie feels like my big brother who always tries to help me and make sure that I’m OK and I really hope to be like him as I get bigger and better. He even helped me whilst I was in quarantine and ordered me food and groceries and I’ll never forget about that! We haven’t even met in person yet. How amazing?

So Woogie sent me a message on IG early last year and asked for some vocals on a song he was working on for a single, and obviously I jumped at the chance with excitement. I got the hook and guitar line done in like 15 minutes and sent it back and the rest is history! The first time that I was a vocal feature actually as I’m usually the producer yet I didn’t produce this one so it stands out for sure! I felt so good and proud after hearing the final product.

9m88 from Taiwan with such a beautiful soulful voice and a vibrant colourful style and amazing music! Again, this came as a recommendation from my management but as soon as I heard her music and we started speaking, it all came together naturally and as soon as I was making that beat for the feature on my album, I knew it was for her! That song makes me feel so good.

BIBI is KILLING it and I love her whole style and sound, and I feel like we could make something super unique together and show off our colorful looks and be something special! What can I do? Keep being myself, producing and showing my range with all the different artists I work with and feature with and hope to catch her attention.