For TIDES’ Dan Song and Innocent Tswamuno, the obstacles were evident from the outset.

“We were pretty much outcasts,” said Tswamuno, explaining why the pair bonded at a 2009 Grammy music camp. “I was a year into the U.S. from Zimbabwe and I still was super awkward. Dan was just this awkward Asian kid. We were, just, like, ‘Let’s just hangout.’”

The two compared music, each impressed by the other’s efforts. That connection eventually led to spending time together during the camp’s down time.

“We connected instantly, musically,” Dan said. “We vibed really hard from the get-go.”

Two weeks in Grammy camp wrapped up quickly, however, and the musicians went back to their corners of the country: Song to L.A. and Tswamuno to New York. Though separated by thousand of miles, their ideas seemed to travel similar paths.

“We exchanged some ideas. Then I went to college and we kind of lost touch in terms of consistent communication,” Tswamuno said. “I would always go to his SoundCloud [page] and check out what he was doing.”

“I rarely ever posted on my personal SoundCloud when I was in college, but every time I did, he would message me and say, ‘Hey, I checked out your stuff. Really great,’” Song said. “Even though it wasn’t consistent, we always kept in touch, in terms of music.”

While in college, Tswamuno, who was making music of his own, became friends with Kyle Smith—now the duo’s manager—who became a fan and eventually encouraged the pair to merge their efforts.

“Kyle said, ‘You have different strengths and you should really get together and make something happen,’” Tswamuno recalled. “That’s when the idea came to fruition.”

In December 2015, Song and Tswamuno had a heart-to-heart talk; and determined to make a name for themselves. They wanted to be sure music was still worth pursuing. TIDES was born just last February, after Song trekked to New York, just in time for the coldest weekend of the year. As temperatures outside reached bone-chilling cold (“It was minus-5 degrees with windchill,” Smith said), Tswamuno and Song buckled down and started writing, pulling from their different backgrounds.

“Dan is a really good guitar player who listens to pop and R&B,” he said. “I grew up in the church and listened to jazz, R&B and pop.”

Song said every time he works on music, it turns to pop, while Tswamuno brings the technical jazz touches ever-present on the dup’s songs. That collaboration is also how the duo landed on the name TIDES. Smith, now the band’s manager, came up with the idea of using the duo’s scrambled initials.

“It worked because they were bicoastal,” said Smith, in references to Song’s and Tswamuno’s push-pull music-making mentality. The duo remains on opposite coasts, but find plenty of time to write together, trading ideas back and forth online.

“We have our individual experiences, but we are usually we’re always on the same wavelengths in terms of sounds,” Tswamuno said.

The group’s newest song, “Take My Hand,” is a blend of all their influences, along with slow burn electronic beats. The duo had more time to write and record the track. This allowed them to discover and cement their strengths, at least for now. The next challenge for TIDES is to build off their collaborative origins to move into the same time zone. At the same time, they’re working on a debut EP.

With a couple months remaining, 2016 is proving to be the year of inspiration for which he and Tswamuno had hoped.

“All our songs thus far have been mixed in-house, just us two,” Smith said. “We’re thinking about doing it right this time and getting a mastering engineer to put out a final product that we are really proud of.”

Follow journalist Brandi Smith at Twitter.com/BrandNewSmith, Facebook.com/BrandiSmithTV and BrandiSmith.me.