Danny! Enough Said

Allegations of a grade-changing scandal led to The College Kicked-Out, an album by a hip-hop head, vinyl collector, music guru, and Definitive Jux artist, Danny! While the album title is an obvious play on West’s debut album, the comparisons don’t end there. With humble beginnings as a keyboard beat-maker, Danny! has grown into a skilled producer and lyricist. But make no mistake, when it comes to his style, Danny! stands on his own, with a catalog of three full-length LPs and two instrumental collections.

In celebration of up and coming artists, Scheme highlights Danny!, and a handful of Hip Hop revivers pushing for balance in this lackluster industry who inspire all of us to turn off our radios and check for the real.

Scheme: How did your music career begin?
Danny!: I first started making beats when I was about fourteen or fifteen, and I didn’t start getting serious with music until I sold my first beat when I was seventeen. So I’d been doing it for a couple of years before I wound up taking it that seriously. Before I sold my first beat, I started writing lyrics. So I started rapping when I was sixteen, but all this stuff was going on while I was still in high school and rapping was the last thing on my mind. At least a music career was the last thing on my mind.

I started taking it more seriously maybe about 2002. I think I was about nineteen by then, and I got more passionate about it. I saw people around me doing the same thing and I figured I could do it too. More than anything else—at first anyway— I wanted to use my album as a vehicle to sell my beats. People started liking my music instead so I just started putting out more albums and it went from there.

Scheme: I watched the video show you did for MTV-U a while back where you featured Hip Hop videos and the videos for the tracks they sampled. You seem to know your music.
Danny!: Yeah, that’s what they say about me. I have like 1,500 records in this house right now. I’m always into whatever sounds good. Even the stuff that doesn’t sound good… I could probably tell you something about it. That’s another thing that got me started into music too. I was making beats on my keyboard for years when I first started, but when I started using records and starting being around records, and learning about the artists—like I’d listen to a Diana Ross record or even a Jackson Five record, and I’d look online to see similar groups. So at an early age I was listening to music and trying to seek out, you know “Who sampled this?” or “Where did that beat come from?” I’ve always been really intrigued by older music and just music period.

Scheme: I’m going to give you a little music trivia. Since you go by your government name, name five Hip Hop artists who also go by their birth name.
Danny!: Andre 3000. Erick Sermon, of course. Keith Murray. I got this. Check it out. Pharrell Williams. Jim Jones.

Scheme: You’re obviously a fan of real Hip Hop. You named Erick Sermon, so I have to give you kudos for that. Does it bother you that there are artists—and I use the term artists loosely—who don’t know much about the art form itself?
Danny!: I think in the last five or six years, people just saw it as a way to make money, which of course you want to make a living off what you like to do. But if you’re just in it to make money, you’re not gonna care about the art form. You’re not going to care about the history and the culture and things like that. You’re trying to make a quick buck, and more power to you if that’s what you want to do, but don’t get mad when you don’t get recognized. The artists with longetivity who care about the art form of course are the ones carrying the torch right now are gonna get the awards… are gonna get the recognition.

Scheme: How important do you think it is that people who are currently contributing to the art form actually know about Hip-Hop and its roots?
Danny!: It’s something I say all the time: You’ve got to know where you’ve been to know where you’re going. So if you’re just like, “Yeah I’m gonna start rapping today because my mans and ‘dem down the street rap,” I can’t even say that’s cool. It’s not really cool but if that’s your goal in life, just to make a quick buck then I guess you’re succeeding in that.

Me personally, I think it’s going to hurt the art form down the road, because the more people that we have doing it that don’t really care about it, you’re going to get the outcome that you’re putting out… quick songs, and the rappers that are going to be gone tomorrow. They might get a spread in XXL or something like that but the next month they’re not going to have anything. I could name a dozen rappers that were hitting last year at the same time, but if you talk about them now it’s like a joke. They were obviously in it just for the money.

Those are ringtone rappers. That’s a term I use too. I guess you can’t fault them for making money, but at the same time, they’re only hurting the art form. So we need more artists that care. I can think of some artists who really care about it but don’t get half the recognition that they should; but that gives me some solace. If we have more of that, the art form won’t be in any real danger, but as of right now I think it’s looking kind of bad.

Scheme: A lot of Hip Hop heads have a personal beef with the industry itself. So if you had the opportunity to address the industry as a whole, what would you say?
Danny!: If we’re going to have artists that are being all over the place with the obvious money making and get rich quick schemes and all that stuff, at least have a balance. If you’re going to see Rick Ross on TV, I also want to see a Tanya Morgan on TV. We definitely need balance and I would stress that so much, and I think I say that a lot in my interviews and my songs even. For this art form to survive you’ve got to have some of this and some of that, and they all have to have an equal amount of exposure. Among other things, that’s the first thing I would say.

Scheme: Tell me a about your upcoming project.
Danny!: The new album is called And I Love H.E.R.. It’s a play off the Beatles “A Hard Days Night,” and it’s also a reference to the Common track, ‘I Used to Love H.E.R.” Basically, I’m taking your last question and I’m making a whole album out of it. The whole album is basically an allegory for my Hip Hop career, and what I’ve done from the very beginning to the very end. I’m just telling the ups and downs of being involved in this music industry… the good and the bad. Everything that I’m talking about, I personify it as a woman.

The album’s coming out. It has production from mostly me and a couple of tracks from my homeboy. I think people are gonna like this next album a lot. It’s a very accessible album.