By Black Dog Bone
You’ve been doing music for a long time, I think from when you were maybe 12 or 13, but at that time it was all in the streets. You make a tape you sell it, you make a CD you sell it in the streets. But now everything has changed and a lot of the people from that time they like the other way because they had more control and they didn’t have to wait for the money. How do you feel about it?
Well it could go both ways. When you’re more in the streets you’re more personable, you’re face to face. With any kind of business it’s better to be face to face now we got Zoom meetings, we have everything is digital or video conferences and stuff, but when things were more face to face and more like right in front of one another, I think we had more energy, more feeling, you get to see the person instead of just having that screen in front of you. It’s a filter, everybody has filters on, you really don’t get to see the person as who they are. It’s like they are wearing make up without wearing make up. So back in the 90’s and early 2000’s when you had physical copies, when people were selling out of the trunks, people made a lot of money doing all that. You could sell 100,000 copies and make a million dollars. Now a 100,000 plays doesn’t get you as much. But then you have the overnight sensations. You get one banger, you get one slapper and it blows up and you can be famous on all the social medias. The Instagrams, the TikToks and you get your Spotify and you get over 10 million plays, you’re winning. I feel as if it can go both ways. I’m not against either way, we always adjust and move on with the times. I liked it before because I was there, and I’m here now so I’m enjoying the time now as well.
So do you feel like people are making more money now or more money before?
Well you see a lot of people right now making a lot of money. There’s people that are getting a lot of money are very abundant and just from one song. They are extremely successful from just songs from TikTok or Instagram or whatever. If you are a creator there is even people that don’t even make music and are just creating content and are in million, billion dollar homes just from that. It’s a lot of people out there that gets a lot of money from it.
What do you use most? Instagram? TikTok?
I’m more on Instagram. I started on TikTok, a lot of things with like more people that I personally know I’m on Facebook as well still you know. I’ve been here since MySpace so we bring it back to the MySpace days and Soundcloud and stuff where it was first starting. Right now I’m adjusting more to the TikTok and the Instagram.
So you grew up in the Fillmore? When you were growing up, what was going on in the Fillmore in San Francisco?
I grew up in the era when you know Cougnut and Cellski and IMP and Cachunk, shout out to all the old school, Get Low Playaz, Seff tha Gaffla, San Quinn, D-Moes, Kilo, I could go on just in my area, just in the Fillmoe was the GLP’s and all that, but like the whole city was rockin’ back then. So I came up on that. It fueled me to see all the independent hustlers out there that made it independently in the street out the trunk you know. And then we could go across the Bay to the Too Short’s to the Luniz, Delinquents, E-40, Mac Dre, Reek Daddy, Mac Mall, all of them you know that’s my era from when I was coming up as a youngster.
What really inspired you to go and rap? Because it was going on all around you or what?
Well you know music has always been in my history. My uncle was a musician, I was always in the studio with him. He played back up bass for Tower of Power and did stuff with El Debarge and all these other artists from back then. So that soul music and that funk is really what was in me from when I was a baby. From like three years old I was always with him or in his studio and vibing out with them as a baby and not even consciously knowing the stuff feeding into me. Now that I do music I can feel that that stuff is coming out more.
What was the first project you ever did?
Well it started out you know I am DLK to the core, Dirty Little Kids, started out as Dumb Little Kids. We used to just get two radios and press record and go back and forth when I was like ten and my older ones was 14 or 15, we would record just together just to have stuff to slap as we drive around or whatever. We’d have our own stuff. On a more higher level we started DLK Enterprise and I believe that was in 2005 or 2006 maybe a little earlier. We started putting out Dirty J founded it and I was out there helping him throughout the whole way. We started putting out the guys that we grew up on that we thought and felt were hot. So we grabbed Telly Mac, San Quinn, Mac Mall, Reek Daddy all the ones that influenced us you know.
So DLK was putting out all that stuff?
Yeah we were putting all those out. Then me and Dirty J came out with our first official album, my first official album and his as well, My Medication is the Cash. We had everyone I just named on that album as well.
And those songs are still available?
Oh yeah you can go to Spotify and anyplace you type in V-Town or DLK Enterprises you type in Dirty J you know everything you can just Google it and whatever platform you listen to, Spotify, iTunes, all of them you can find us.
So Dirty J is a little older than you. And DLK was you and Dirty J and who else?
Jus Q was there and did a whole lot for us and a whole lot for DLK, but like for the DLK it was like you know, there’s six of us. We have Dirty J, Jus Qu, Playa A, Mac Al, myself, and then my little brother he was in it. We had Redd, we could go on. There’s a bunch of us core youngsters that were with us in the DLK upbringing.
So while you were doing it what kind of things do you remember? What are some highlights that happened in the music or in the streets?
We don’t really speak on it, that was a past life we was out there doing our thing and were trying to find our way and we found our way and are here now.
First you were in Fillmore and then you guys started moving here and there. When did that happen?
So around when I was 13 or 14 a couple of my friends moved out across the Bay from San Francisco so we started venturing out to different towns and cities where they lived and started making our mark in other cities and what not. I believe that was like I said like 1995, 95 or what not.
A lot of people that you grew up with and you looked up to became part of the DLK. A lot of labels have disappeared but DLK is still going on.
Yeah and I’m proud of that. Dirty J put in a lot of work. I was always there picking up the artists and getting them to the studio. I ran the studio, I recorded everybody, I made beats, and I was the engineer and I produced, I mixed, I mastered, I did a lot of the stuff there. So when things kind of slowed down for the Bay I felt like DLK stepped in and kind of like stitched the wound back and made everybody come and get more active. We brought back that 1990’s feel. That real ‘90’s Mob kind of feel. That Frisco, that Oakland, that Vallejo, you know the Pittsburgh, EPA, we tried to like get that feeling back and I think it rejuvinated a lot of different labels to get more active in the music industry.
You and DLK have a lot of product out.
I would say thousands of songs, yes. All over and every single one of them you could find them online.
As far as DLK you were one of the main producers with the artists right?
Yeah, we had a lot of different producers but I definitely put my mark in there as the in house producer. I produced a lot of My Medicine is the Cash and I did work on a lot of other albums as well but we worked with a lot of other producers as well.
So what have you been up to lately? I feel like you have been going in different directions when I hear your new stuff.
I’m all music but like I say I grow, I don’t stay in the same place, I move, I keep my one foot in front of the other and I keep moving, I keep pushing. I’m a seeker. I’m always looking for positive, good energy that is within me and without. Everything is what’s in yourself and everything is here. They say you want to reach out to something like that but no no no, everything is within you. So I have been doing a lot of soul searching and spiritual guidance for my higher self and with my guides you know. And it’s been reflecting more into my music that I do now. I still have a lot that I haven’t let out yet that I will put out. But now I put out more, everything has always been positive but grimy, but now it’s more like aligned positivity, like a higher self alignment type of stuff.
So you might keep going back and forth to the old?
Well no because I’m always going forward but I do have songs that I’m gonna still put out that I prerecorded.
So DLK is still going on together?
Well yeah, you know there’s still albums coming out. We still put music out. Dirty J is always helping other people out, putting their stuff out. We are still active for sure.
What are you working right now?
Right now, I ventured out and music has always been the heart you know so I’m always gonna have a place for music in my heart but I’ve opened up a couple other businesses and I’ve been focusing on those businesses and those businesses have been able to provide not just for me but for my employees and not even my employees, my co-workers, so I focus on that to be able to have the abundance so I can have the peace and ease of a life that I can have not only for myself but for people around me and for things like that. Then I always come down whenever I have a long day I get in the studio and I make some beats or I record a song.
So you probably do music all the time?
Yeah whenever I get the chance I do some music and even when I’m not doing music the music flows through me. Everything is rhythm. Everything is a rhythm within my life so I always try to keep on tempo.
Around here San Francisco had a sound, and you could tell the music that was from San Francisco and then Oakland had their sound and Vallejo had their sound, Freemont had their song and I was just wondering, has that sound changed drastically from that time to this time?
Oh most definitely. It could go on even further. You would know the difference between a Bay Area artist from San Francisco, or Oakland, or East Palo Alto, Richmond, Sacramento, all these different areas had their own flow, style or what not and then you go even to the east coast they had they own style. You go down to Texas and they had they own style even right next to Texas, New Orleans had they own style. Everyone everywhere had their own style, but now I mean you still got fools that sound different, but it’s all, everything like, I can’t really pinpoint if I hear somebodys music I can’t pinpoint where they are from no more.
It’s all become one.
Even like you could go across the waters internationally they all sound like everything sound. The same.
What I liked about that time was like the south had a real interesting sound. You’d go to the midwest and it’s another sound. Detroit, Kansas, but now it’s like because of the internet people aren’t focused on listening to their people.
I think that has a big to do with like how back in the day before we had the internet everybody didn’t have access to everybodys local artists, but now everyone is connected to the local scene throughout and it all just kind of like came out with what it is now you know.
I like the old times when everyone had their own identity.
Yeah it’s like everybody kind of like molded into one figure instead of staying on their own path and it’s like everyone’s identity is like, you’re not in your own identity you’re in someone elses identity I guess you could say. I’m not trying to step on nobodies toes but it’s true.
When you were in Fillmore, did you think that this change was going to happen? Like how everything moved to the internet?
I’ve always, you know, I’ve always known that it could happen because the internet has been out since probably like the 60’s right? There is technology and there is stuff that whoever has it, they have technology that we wouldn’t even think is out right now. So I always knew that technology was gonna blow up. You watch the Jetsons and shit and they in flying cars and electric cars back then, and now they have electric cars and people talking on the phone like Mission Impossible where they had the watches where you could talk on the watch with somebody and now we got that right? I always knew it was going to grow into something like that. God forbid, I watch Total Recall and Terminator and now with AI you don’t even know what’s gonna happen.
We don’t really even know whats going to happen in a few years.
Yeah cuz music is definitely gonna change and you know everything changes quickly now and it is what it is.
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