I became enamored with the music of DLADD after the release of his mixtape “100% Pure D”. Being an artist myself, I wanted to go and converse with the man and find out what makes him tick. The mixtape was off the chain and I wanted to know how he does things his way and still maintains his artistic integrity.
JN HARRIS: In my short time looking into the local music scene, talking with various artists, getting feedback from them on what they do, I find myself wondering about the person behind the music. Since breaking into mainstream entertainment can be frustrating, I had to ask:
How did you get started and why do you even want to rap? Um . . . Rapping has always been like a hobby to me, and its pretty much been a hobby to me all my life. Well, I can’t say all my life, but since like middle school, I’ve been like writing, you know what I’m saying, and it just . . . it felt good ’being good’. You know, when I was at the lunch tables and I was just “killing ‘em”, it felt good so--I continued with it. But I always thought there wasn’t a way to make a career out of it, but then, you know, the music went where it went. I felt like if these guys could do it, make cash out of it and be successful from it, then I could do it.
Your latest video/movie is called, “Money out da ass!” Tell me the inspiration behind it, and why you felt like putting that out there.
Well, recently I had owned my own studio, and I was running it. I had it for probably about six months. Then we ran into some, you know, unforeseen circumstances, you know what I’m saying. So, we had to shut down. But, the last couple days we just did and knocked out so many songs, the we just had we’re going to have to get it in.
And BLOCK (Andre Johnson)came down and we sat down and we shot ’em down and got it in.
VIEW "Money Out The Ass" right here
Often, many people like to lump rap into one broad urban category and call it a day. In your mind, how has mainstream music effected the quality of independent artists like yourself?The main reason it’s kind of messed up is because. . .
Mainstream music likes to take black music and lump it all into one category. You have like things like rock music broken down into 16 categories or more. While Black music is mainly rap R&B, and hip hop and that’s it. You here names like Soldier Boy and Wocka Flocka and these people are top in the categories are in. They might be gangsta rap or swag rap, but there are many different categories of rap music.
You got Gangsta Rap, Lyrical Rappers (Mos Def, Common) Back pack rappers, (Whiz Khalifa) etc.
I personally don’t like it, but how do you feel about auto-tuning? I thinks its good. I am not one of the people that hate it, but I understand why people hate it. Some people take it overboard with their music. If you listen to a lot of the songs, there are a lot of good songs with auto-tuning in them.
SHUT EM DOWN w/ Kesha II COLD
I have heard it said that the price of fame is often the loss of anonymity and self respect. How far do you want this music to take you?
I want the music to take me as far as it can financially. I not really willing to go as far as losing my self respect and dignity. Nothing is worth that.
