via Pigeons and PlanesThis week we have Seattle rapper Dave B on the show! He’s an amazing artist that’s been working on putting his city on the map. He’s been compared to artists like Bryson Tiller and Chance the Rapper and collaborated with Sango on “Got it”. He’s going to be performing in Toronto on Sunday, April 2nd at the Velvet Underground. We have a contest going on right now for free tickets to his show, so if you’re interested you can find more details here.
In this interview, we talked about how his Christian upbringing shaped his music, why he’s ok when a majority-female audience, and how he randomly ended up at a Chingy concert once. You can read the transcription below to get the highlights, and play the podcast to hear more!
Music can be the light at the end of the tunnel
Chedo: Your music is all about spreading feel-good vibes, tell me more about that.
Dave B: We all have our own struggles and issues but a lot of that boils down to changing your attitude. For me, music affects the mood so much more than just being able to bob your head and dance to it. So If i could put in my piece and my contribution, it would be to make music that would make people feel good and make people see the other side of that struggle. [To tell people] not to just sit here and wallow in [the music] but to go outside, and know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
I grew up around a lot of Christian values, and I’m not necessarily that deep into the church anymore but growing up with that kind of teachings and that kind of morals are really important. The way I approach music now is affected by my attitude about certain things, the kind of things that I value. But just the vibe of gospel music is a majority of where I picked it up from.
MySpace was everything
Chedo: What was it like to first record?
Dave B: I use to watch a bunch of YouTube Tutorials… because my buddy had like Fruity Loops and other programs on his computer and he would make beats, and I’ll watch him make beats. It was like the coolest shit in the world to me. I would just go home and watch YouTube tutorials of guys showing me how to do different tips and tricks even though I didn’t even have a laptop to do those kinds of things. I didn’t have the things but I was like fascinated with the creation and production of music so I saved up some money and got this old white Mac laptop, and then that Christmas my sister got me a microphone that was like a hundred and something dollars … and I just started downloading instrumental packs and I would upload my freestyles to MySpace, trying to get people to recognize my little bit of talent or whatever.
MySpace was everything! I remember I was on there doing ridiculous things, I use to make little playlists, like three pages worth of music on myspace. And yeah I was still using it because Facebook looked too professional to me, I liked how MySpace had this little ratchet look and people could upload their music. But Facebook… people’s homies were on Facebook. I never wanted to upload my stuff up onto there.
Dave B’s first show
Chedo: At your first show you said you remembered that it was like 75% women at the show
Dave B: Yeah I doubt a lot of dudes would want to get tickets to the Dave show to hear some guy singing about dancing with another girl. But it’s cool, cause dudes are gonna find out that all their homegirls are going so they’re going to want to follow the females. For me, I think that when women catch on to it, that’s when it really happens. I remember thinking that this is what it’s supposed to feel like. I was wondering why there was a lot of women there but then we listened back to the records and we were like oh ok, this is mostly directed at that crowd.
Putting Seattle on the map
Dave B: Slowly, I’m becoming one of those guys that came out of Seattle. So just being able to represent where I’m from, in the right way or what feels right to me, just keeps me going. When you look around, Seattle is a place where a lot of my homies have never been outside of Seattle, it’s weird. So being able to travel, and being able to perform in different places and then that inspires me to be better and keep on grinding.
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