Brian Fuente is one of Jackson's most talented young musicians. I knew nothing about him before going to listen to him for a writing assignment. I liked him, then became a fan. I wish someone in the business would give him a fair shake. He's really, really good.
Brian Fuente is a happy man. On Friday, January 9th, Hal and Mal’s is hosting his CD release party. Fuente has released his first solo CD independently. The disc, entitled Sky Down Here, is a collection of pop songs that shows off his strong singer/songwriter chops. Backed by Don Morrison on guitar, Joe Partridge on drums, Gabriel Golden on bass, and with an appearance by Rufus Mapp on percussion, Fuente officially puts in a bid to join the recent musical scene dominated by John Mayer, Jason Mraz, and others of the same style.
Sky Down Here is a strong opening bid, with a few songs – “Temporary Sugar,” “Everyday,” “Against Me” – that would not be out of place on any mainstream pop radio station, and with several of a more melancholy, introspective nature – the kinds of songs appreciated both by critics and by fellow musicians. It was recorded at Terminal Recording Studio in Ridgeland and produced by both Fuente and by well-known producer Randy Everett.
Sky Down Here has already been released to the college radio stations in Mississippi. Clinton Kirby, the program manager at WUSM 88.5 in Hattiesburg, says that Fuente is receiving regular airplay on the station and requests for his music come in fairly frequently. He believes Fuente has a future in the business.
“He has the sound to go places. He has the look to go places. He has that whole John Mayer/Jeff Buckley sort of vibe,” Kirby says. “This guy’s good.”
Kirby isn’t the only one who feels that way. “We think Brian is one of the most talented young musicians around,” says Charly Abraham, the manager of Hal and Mal’s. “We’ve had a good history with him and we’re tickled that he chose to do his release party here.”
Fuente is excited about the party. “We’ll be playing live Friday with a full band: Don Morrison, Joe Partridge, Gabriel Golden, and myself. I haven’t always done that. I’m looking forward to doing it with these guys.”
He also is excited about his future plans. He has put together a touring band and is currently working on the songs for the show. He wants to start doing small tours in late February.
“I’d like to do more weekend shows, try to get a booking every weekend out of town, and just do as much as possible to get the name out,” he says. “There’s a lot of work ahead of us. You don’t just go to Seattle and sell out a house. You have to work at it.” He even knows what he wants to see happen in the near future.
“What I’d like to do is to get on as an opening act for a touring band. Everyone has to start somewhere, and that’s where I’d like to start.” Until then, they need to make a name for themselves.
“If we can prove we can fill a room, then we shouldn’t have a problem,” he says.
On Friday night, Brian and his band will attempt to do just that at Hal and Mal’s. The Sky Down Here CD will be sold onsite for $8. If you prefer to wait to buy the CD later, it will be sold at Be-Bop Records around the state, and should be in most locally owned shops in Hattiesburg, Oxford, Starkville, and Jackson within a week. It’ll also be sold online at CDBaby.com.
Brian Fuente plays Friday night. Opening for him will be Todd Rowan, who will be touring with Fuente. Performances start at 9 pm. More information can be found at www.brianfuente.com.
Abraham offers a bit of good advice: “If you haven’t heard him, you need to catch him.”
Showing posts with label music-related non-fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music-related non-fiction. Show all posts
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Cowboy Mouth
This was my most contentious piece ever. The editor of Yall loved the idea. The band loved it (and the publicist loved it, of course). My photographer colleague, Tom Beck and I met them in New Orleans, I wrote it, and we submitted our work. The photo editor kept asking Tom for different shots - the editor had no idea what he wanted, and he apparently was still in college. The editor I was dealing with had left and the publisher was running things. He decided that he wanted a Southern People and bumped this story without notice for one issue. No big deal, except that, in doing so, the band released a live album in the interim and their publicist wanted that in there now. Further troubling things was that the publisher changed his deadline for work three times, finally calling me and saying he needed a rewrite and could I do it in 10 days? I told him I could. He called me 2 days later and asked where it was. I told him I still had 8 days. He said he meant 2 days, but said 10. I sent him a rewrite, which someone reedited, and they published it. This is the version I originally submitted.
November 28th, the night after Thanksgiving. A crowd approaching one thousand men and women have come in out of the cold and filled Howlin’ Wolf, a music club in the warehouse district of New Orleans. The patrons, who have been warmed up by local punk-pop band, Gang of Creeps, and by a three-song reunion gig by The Red Rockers, generate happy, anxious excitement. They crowd the stage, awaiting Cowboy Mouth, one of the South’s favorite bands.
When the band takes the stage, an eruption of cheers that would be more at home in a stadium greets them. With little ceremony, they launch into “Light it on Fire,” a barnburner guaranteed to create a roar. It does. By the time they tear into their second number, “Disconnected,” the crowd is moving as one organic unit, almost desperate to absorb the band’s energy and return it to them tenfold. In return, Cowboy Mouth does their level best to blow the audience out the front door.
Standing front and center, Fred LeBlanc, the Mouth’s lead singer and drummer, pounds the skins and exhorts the fans to cheer, to jump, to take part in the show. The front man and chief cheerleader, he builds energy both on and off the stage with his ferocious drum work, his vocals, and his interaction with the crowd. He brings them into the show, refusing to let them be passive witnesses to the performance. There are no passive witnesses.
“They make sure you leave a show feeling better than when you arrived,” says fan Ginger Winstead. “It’s a catharsis. They won’t let you leave unhappy.”
This tall order might break a lesser band. Cowboy Mouth – LeBlanc, guitarists John Thomas Griffith and Paul Sanchez, and bassist Mary LaSang – play between 150 and 200 shows every year, to an estimated one to one-and-a-half million people. But these folks are not a normal band. They thrive on the road, playing venues of any size, from small intimate gatherings to festival concerts of 50,000 or more.
“It’s all the same,” LeBlanc says. “The same energy, whether you’re playing to a big crowd in a big space or a small crowd in a small room. It’s just what we put out. People respond to it.”
People respond to them. Alternately standing over and sitting at his drum riser, LeBlanc becomes the on-stage focal point for the band’s activity. A cheerful Everyman off stage, LeBlanc becomes a larger than life force of nature onstage, whipping the audience into frenzy with the fervor of a tent revival.
Griffith provides raw guitar power in the blues-punk style, preferring a playful stage presence to the trite angry guitarist image. He is also the band’s primary keyboardist, effortlessly switching instruments and never disturbing his ever-present cowboy hat.
Sanchez plays versatile guitar, switching from lead to rhythm to acoustic with nary a beat. He is the stylish Mouth man, with an aura of quiet, Crescent City cool that creates a counterpoint to LeBlanc’s intensity. Sanchez addresses the crowd frequently and easily, poking fun at himself and his band mates.
Prowling the stage is LaSang, seemingly unable to remain still. She brings a dash of fearlessness and sass to the band, without becoming the token female. She is a bass picker, creating a fat-bottomed sound to the music that gives her band mates more room to play. She smiles broadly – and often – clearly happy with where she is now.
Occasionally dismissed as a “frat boy” band, Cowboy Mouth is more of a bouncy blues-rock project, melded with a sheen of Clash-era punk, an occasionally raunchy sense of humor, and an overwhelming sense of Southern style. All four are gifted musicians, able to play various instruments. Everyone sings and everyone writes music.
Cowboy Mouth came into being almost by accident. The three men were all veterans of the New Orleans music scene. LeBlanc and Sanchez were in a band together before LeBlanc joined legendary swamp rockers Dash Rip Rock. Griffith fronted The Red Rockers, the political punkers who rode to fame on the strength of “China,” a huge single of the early ‘80’s. Griffith and Sanchez both suffered dead-end solo careers. Sanchez grew so frustrated with the music business that he left it altogether for a few years to work in the movie industry.
In 1990, LeBlanc called Sanchez and told him he had a solo record deal and invited him to join him on the album.
“[I] quit my job on the movie, came home, we drove three days to a studio in Wisconsin, and his A&R guy flew in and said, ‘I’m sorry, Fred. I got fired and you got dropped.’ Fred looked at me and went, ‘Sorry, dude. I hope you can get your job back.’”
He didn’t. Instead, they decided to put together another band.
“We rehearsed for two or three months and we stunk. We were lousy,” LeBlanc says. “It was me, him, and a bass player. We tried, tried, and tried, but we stunk.”
Eventually, they recruited Griffith, who was working in a whole foods store in New Orleans. It made all the difference.
“From the first song we played together, it was magic,” says LeBlanc. “We went from stinking really, really bad to being really, really good in the space of three seconds.”
“I know when we all finished, I can honestly say, we all three…looked at each other.” Griffith taps his chest. “I can feel it right now, like I just want to take a big old deep breath. I definitely went, ‘this is going to rock. This is going to be fun.’”
Together, the three formed Cowboy Mouth with bassist Paul Clement. Over the years, the band has Spinal Tapped their way through a series of bassists; including Steve Walters and Rob Savoy. Savoy, a six-year veteran of the band, left amicably after Mardis Gras in 2003. After his departure, the band sought a fresh sound and found it with Mary LaSang, from the band Dingo 8. She was the first bassist to audition.
“When Mary joined, she added fire,” LeBlanc says. “She’s got a great attitude, a great spirit. She’s a wonderful player. She’s game for anything. She doesn’t have that hesitation that sometimes guys will have on stage, because they’re trying to look cool.”
LaSang suddenly found herself as a member of one of the hardest-touring bands in the country. “The biggest thing for me was – and still is – is that I’ve never been away from home, traveling so much, on a bus.” But it has its pluses as well. “I’ve never been able to play music full time, without having a day job. That’s a really wonderful thing.”
LeBlanc says the rest of the band gets a bonus from LaSang being a member: “It’s fun to see what we’ve experienced for a while, by someone who is completely new.”
Sanchez agrees. “She really kicked us in the butt and reminded how fun it is to play rock and roll for a living.”
Cowboy Mouth is currently touring in support of Uh-Oh, their eighth album, and their first with Bay Area-based 33rd Street Records. The record is arguably the band’s most radio-friendly release yet, meshing their robust stage-ready style with a modern rock edge that elicits comparisons to the Foo Fighters and Barenaked Ladies.
“Can’t Stay Here,” written and sung by Griffith, adds a distinct Southern California feel to a bluesy lament. “Invincible,” a driving Sanchez/Griffith number with Sanchez on vocals, harkens back to mid-‘80’s pop rock as performed by the Foo Fighters. “Disconnected,” the current radio single, manages to turn the feeling of alienation into a jumpy, upbeat number.
“You are, to a certain extent, responsible for what you put out there,” LeBlanc says. “You can’t translate the experience for your audience all the time, but you can do your best to put out something that’s constructive, instead of destructive.”
“With Cowboy Mouth, we consciously made a decision to try to do something positive initially. We weren’t sure how we were going to do it, but we knew we didn’t want to be a regular negative band.”
“We never discussed how to do it,” Sanchez says. “We never conceptualized the band. We just got out there and went, ‘duh,’ and it was good. As long as we keep doing that, I think we’ll keep being good.”
“I’ve never seen a band who puts more heart and soul into their music,” says Andrea Blum, who flew from Detroit to see the show. “Their live shows are like no other. You have to take part…and be thankful to be alive.”
Cowboy Mouth roars through a twenty-two-song set of new cuts and the classics: “Everybody Loves Jill,” “Hurricane Party,” “Jenny Says.” When they finally leave the stage, they – and the audience – are exhausted, sweaty, and feeling on top of the world. The tumult of cheers and applause remains long after they have gone.
“I always try to remember that feeling when we first started playing,” LeBlanc says. “We’ve been fortunate to have this thing last as long as it has. I still try to play with that give-it-everything-now, because one day when I’m sixty or seventy, I just want to say, ‘I had a ball. I played in one of the best bands in the world and gave it everything.’”
November 28th, the night after Thanksgiving. A crowd approaching one thousand men and women have come in out of the cold and filled Howlin’ Wolf, a music club in the warehouse district of New Orleans. The patrons, who have been warmed up by local punk-pop band, Gang of Creeps, and by a three-song reunion gig by The Red Rockers, generate happy, anxious excitement. They crowd the stage, awaiting Cowboy Mouth, one of the South’s favorite bands.
When the band takes the stage, an eruption of cheers that would be more at home in a stadium greets them. With little ceremony, they launch into “Light it on Fire,” a barnburner guaranteed to create a roar. It does. By the time they tear into their second number, “Disconnected,” the crowd is moving as one organic unit, almost desperate to absorb the band’s energy and return it to them tenfold. In return, Cowboy Mouth does their level best to blow the audience out the front door.
Standing front and center, Fred LeBlanc, the Mouth’s lead singer and drummer, pounds the skins and exhorts the fans to cheer, to jump, to take part in the show. The front man and chief cheerleader, he builds energy both on and off the stage with his ferocious drum work, his vocals, and his interaction with the crowd. He brings them into the show, refusing to let them be passive witnesses to the performance. There are no passive witnesses.
“They make sure you leave a show feeling better than when you arrived,” says fan Ginger Winstead. “It’s a catharsis. They won’t let you leave unhappy.”
This tall order might break a lesser band. Cowboy Mouth – LeBlanc, guitarists John Thomas Griffith and Paul Sanchez, and bassist Mary LaSang – play between 150 and 200 shows every year, to an estimated one to one-and-a-half million people. But these folks are not a normal band. They thrive on the road, playing venues of any size, from small intimate gatherings to festival concerts of 50,000 or more.
“It’s all the same,” LeBlanc says. “The same energy, whether you’re playing to a big crowd in a big space or a small crowd in a small room. It’s just what we put out. People respond to it.”
People respond to them. Alternately standing over and sitting at his drum riser, LeBlanc becomes the on-stage focal point for the band’s activity. A cheerful Everyman off stage, LeBlanc becomes a larger than life force of nature onstage, whipping the audience into frenzy with the fervor of a tent revival.
Griffith provides raw guitar power in the blues-punk style, preferring a playful stage presence to the trite angry guitarist image. He is also the band’s primary keyboardist, effortlessly switching instruments and never disturbing his ever-present cowboy hat.
Sanchez plays versatile guitar, switching from lead to rhythm to acoustic with nary a beat. He is the stylish Mouth man, with an aura of quiet, Crescent City cool that creates a counterpoint to LeBlanc’s intensity. Sanchez addresses the crowd frequently and easily, poking fun at himself and his band mates.
Prowling the stage is LaSang, seemingly unable to remain still. She brings a dash of fearlessness and sass to the band, without becoming the token female. She is a bass picker, creating a fat-bottomed sound to the music that gives her band mates more room to play. She smiles broadly – and often – clearly happy with where she is now.
Occasionally dismissed as a “frat boy” band, Cowboy Mouth is more of a bouncy blues-rock project, melded with a sheen of Clash-era punk, an occasionally raunchy sense of humor, and an overwhelming sense of Southern style. All four are gifted musicians, able to play various instruments. Everyone sings and everyone writes music.
Cowboy Mouth came into being almost by accident. The three men were all veterans of the New Orleans music scene. LeBlanc and Sanchez were in a band together before LeBlanc joined legendary swamp rockers Dash Rip Rock. Griffith fronted The Red Rockers, the political punkers who rode to fame on the strength of “China,” a huge single of the early ‘80’s. Griffith and Sanchez both suffered dead-end solo careers. Sanchez grew so frustrated with the music business that he left it altogether for a few years to work in the movie industry.
In 1990, LeBlanc called Sanchez and told him he had a solo record deal and invited him to join him on the album.
“[I] quit my job on the movie, came home, we drove three days to a studio in Wisconsin, and his A&R guy flew in and said, ‘I’m sorry, Fred. I got fired and you got dropped.’ Fred looked at me and went, ‘Sorry, dude. I hope you can get your job back.’”
He didn’t. Instead, they decided to put together another band.
“We rehearsed for two or three months and we stunk. We were lousy,” LeBlanc says. “It was me, him, and a bass player. We tried, tried, and tried, but we stunk.”
Eventually, they recruited Griffith, who was working in a whole foods store in New Orleans. It made all the difference.
“From the first song we played together, it was magic,” says LeBlanc. “We went from stinking really, really bad to being really, really good in the space of three seconds.”
“I know when we all finished, I can honestly say, we all three…looked at each other.” Griffith taps his chest. “I can feel it right now, like I just want to take a big old deep breath. I definitely went, ‘this is going to rock. This is going to be fun.’”
Together, the three formed Cowboy Mouth with bassist Paul Clement. Over the years, the band has Spinal Tapped their way through a series of bassists; including Steve Walters and Rob Savoy. Savoy, a six-year veteran of the band, left amicably after Mardis Gras in 2003. After his departure, the band sought a fresh sound and found it with Mary LaSang, from the band Dingo 8. She was the first bassist to audition.
“When Mary joined, she added fire,” LeBlanc says. “She’s got a great attitude, a great spirit. She’s a wonderful player. She’s game for anything. She doesn’t have that hesitation that sometimes guys will have on stage, because they’re trying to look cool.”
LaSang suddenly found herself as a member of one of the hardest-touring bands in the country. “The biggest thing for me was – and still is – is that I’ve never been away from home, traveling so much, on a bus.” But it has its pluses as well. “I’ve never been able to play music full time, without having a day job. That’s a really wonderful thing.”
LeBlanc says the rest of the band gets a bonus from LaSang being a member: “It’s fun to see what we’ve experienced for a while, by someone who is completely new.”
Sanchez agrees. “She really kicked us in the butt and reminded how fun it is to play rock and roll for a living.”
Cowboy Mouth is currently touring in support of Uh-Oh, their eighth album, and their first with Bay Area-based 33rd Street Records. The record is arguably the band’s most radio-friendly release yet, meshing their robust stage-ready style with a modern rock edge that elicits comparisons to the Foo Fighters and Barenaked Ladies.
“Can’t Stay Here,” written and sung by Griffith, adds a distinct Southern California feel to a bluesy lament. “Invincible,” a driving Sanchez/Griffith number with Sanchez on vocals, harkens back to mid-‘80’s pop rock as performed by the Foo Fighters. “Disconnected,” the current radio single, manages to turn the feeling of alienation into a jumpy, upbeat number.
“You are, to a certain extent, responsible for what you put out there,” LeBlanc says. “You can’t translate the experience for your audience all the time, but you can do your best to put out something that’s constructive, instead of destructive.”
“With Cowboy Mouth, we consciously made a decision to try to do something positive initially. We weren’t sure how we were going to do it, but we knew we didn’t want to be a regular negative band.”
“We never discussed how to do it,” Sanchez says. “We never conceptualized the band. We just got out there and went, ‘duh,’ and it was good. As long as we keep doing that, I think we’ll keep being good.”
“I’ve never seen a band who puts more heart and soul into their music,” says Andrea Blum, who flew from Detroit to see the show. “Their live shows are like no other. You have to take part…and be thankful to be alive.”
Cowboy Mouth roars through a twenty-two-song set of new cuts and the classics: “Everybody Loves Jill,” “Hurricane Party,” “Jenny Says.” When they finally leave the stage, they – and the audience – are exhausted, sweaty, and feeling on top of the world. The tumult of cheers and applause remains long after they have gone.
“I always try to remember that feeling when we first started playing,” LeBlanc says. “We’ve been fortunate to have this thing last as long as it has. I still try to play with that give-it-everything-now, because one day when I’m sixty or seventy, I just want to say, ‘I had a ball. I played in one of the best bands in the world and gave it everything.’”
Interview with David Banner (Producer, Rapper, Actor)
This interview was arguably the one I was best known for - and one of Planet Weekly's most memorable. Banner's record company linked their websites to our website, resulting in hundreds of comments from people who had no idea who we were. This being Mississippi, we also had a few disgruntled caucasians who lambasted us (me) for wasting paper & pixels on a 'guy who just makes stupid noises over thumps and calls it music.' The fact is, David Banner is one of the most intelligent people I've ever met, in any capacity, and one of the best interviews ever. He says what he means and he says it well. He couches it in language that his audience will listen, though, and anyone who doesn't get that is the one with the intelligence issue. I also found him to be direct, generous, and talented.
David Banner is not the average rapper. He is a producer who has worked with Snoop Dogg, Nelly, Trick Daddy, Busta Rhymes, and Nappy Roots. He is a local boy who began his career with Crooked Lettaz, one of the casualties of Tommy Boy Records.
He takes his name from the Hulk’s alter ego, the man who said, “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
He is a smart man, an educated non-intellectual who was the president of the Student Government Association at Southern University.
He is a man who combines production skill, an air of casual violence, and an inquisitive, thoughtful nature to create a style of Southern music that meshes hardcore rap, political soul, and a sort of frantic fire-and-brimstone street gospel. He puts his sex and violence on display, be he is not quite able to hide his reflective intelligence behind it.
In 2003, Banner signed with Universal Records and released Mississippi: The Album. It debuted at Number 3 on the Billboard 200 chart and at Number 1 on the R&B/hip hop chart. It was named one of Rolling Stone’s 50 best albums of 2003. The Source magazine gave it 4 out of possible 5. Notoriously picky Spin magazine awarded it a grade of B+.
“Like a Pimp,” Banner’s debut major-label single, was a house rocking, rump shaking anthem to strip clubs. It was a nasty piece of crunk, a slice of the Dirty South, and the song that kicked off the high-octane, if brain dead, 2 Fast 2 Furious.
Banner followed up with “Cadillac on 22’s,” probably the most reflective rap song since “Gangsta’s Paradise.” Wrapping questions about the existence of hell and the difficulty of always doing God’s will around an acoustic riff, Banner created a thoughtful lament to the bling-bling lifestyle.
Seven months after that release, Universal released MTA2: Baptized in Dirty Water to more good reviews.
In less than a year, Banner has gone from being a well-respected producer to a well-known rapper. He has brought Mississippi into the spotlight, and aggressively promotes his home state at every opportunity.
We met David Banner at Schimmel’s. He arrived exactly on time and offered to sit as long as we needed for the interview and photo shoot.
PLANET WEEKLY: How has the reaction been to MTA2: Baptized in Dirty Water?
DAVID BANNER: Great. I’ve been hearing it’s a better album, but until it sells more than the first one, I’m going with the first one. [laughs] I want to do Eminem numbers. I want to do 50 Cent numbers. I don’t think they’re so much better than me. I want to compete with Outkast. If I sold 9 million albums, I still would know I could do better.
PW: The first single from your new album is “Crank it Up.” How’s it that doing?
DB: It’s doing good. It’s been a little bit hard, because I released the second album a little too quick. It’s been hard because it’s so different from “Like a Pimp.” It’s very different musically.
PW: Speaking of different, tell us about “Cadillac on 22’s.” This was not a single that people were expecting.
DB: [laughs] It’s crazy. That was the song that all the kids in the hood were playing in the first place. They weren’t even playing “Like a Pimp” here. It was my favorite song, but you have to gauge by what the streets want.
“Cadillac on 22’s” was a letter to God. It was laid upon me that it was time, because no one else was doing music like that. At the time I just thought the world needed it, right then. To be honest with you, I think it was the best decision I’d ever made in my life.
But a program director told me that “Cadillac on 22’s” was the biggest drop-off of the last five years. He said that was a hit song, but it wasn’t pushed to the level it needed. But if that song had touched the masses the way it was supposed to, it would have flown. As a whole, it wasn’t accepted. But the crazy thing was – and this is what I don’t understand – is that every place that did play it, it was number one.
“Cadillac on 22’s” was the song most requested by white people on urban stations. White people would listen to the station, but not call in…until “Cadillac on 22’s.”
I think at the time it really changed perceptions about Southern music.
PW: What sort of perceptions?
DB: Our psyches have been affected. America still looks at the South the same way the leaders of the Civil War looked at the South. People still think you can look out the window right here and see the Klan walking. They look at Mississippi Burning and that’s what they think of Mississippi today. I know there’re a lot of adverse things that happened in Mississippi, but that was in the past.
PW: Those kinds of adverse things still happen.
DB: It may be things are still happening on some levels, but it’s not the way that people have it in their heads. You know, we still have problems, but the thing I’ve learned from traveling is that it’s no worse here than it is in Boston.
PW: There’s a contest involved with the new album. What is the “Crank it Up” contest?
DB: I had the opportunity to give away $50,000. There are five gold tickets in the first 350,000 [Baptized] albums. If you get a gold ticket, you get a $10,000 scholarship. If you have gone to college already, or if you just choose that college is not for you, you can pass it along to somebody else, family, friends. It’ll be given to the school in someone’s name.
I was homeless two separate times in my life. Not because I wanted to be, but because that was path I chose. The first time I got out was education. The second time was music. I want to open up the same opportunities I had. Soon I’ll fade away. Soon the competition will fade away, but for the person who gains that college education, that’s something that will affect his life, and the lives of his family for a long time.
PW: What is your academic status now?
DB: I’m a semester and a thesis away from a Masters Degree.
PW: In what?
DB: Education. My goal was always to come back and be a teacher. Now I always thought in my heart that I was going to make a lot of money some way. But the thing was, I always wanted to come back and teach kids.
PW: What was your first degree?
DB: Business, at Southern University in Baton Rouge. I think that’s the greatest establishment on the face of the Earth.
PW: You did post-grad work at the University of Maryland.
DB: I was in an accelerated Master’s program.
PW: That’s not what people tend to think of when they think rap music.
DB: That’s the biggest blessing. If a policeman pulls over a young black man in baggy shorts, maybe he’ll think before harassing him.
I was living out on Lakeland, in one of those $700 apartments, selling my CDs out of my trunk. Do you know I got pulled over at least twice a week, going home? No speeding, nothing. I remember one time I got mad and asked, “Why the fuck do you guys keep pulling me over?”
He says, “Because you came down this street two times in one hour.” I told him, “I stay here! You want me to go home and stay for two hours, just to make you happy? Fuck that!”
PW: Do you still live in Mississippi?
DB: I live on the tour bus. But Jackson, Mississippi is home.
PW: No plans on relocating any time soon?
DB: I may end up moving to L.A. for a while, just because I’m about to start acting.
PW: What kind of acting do you want to do?
DB: I want to be an action hero.
PW: Back to the music. Duets are common in the rap world. Would you do a duet with Mariah Carey?
DB: Oh, hell, yes! I’m trying to do a song right now with Justin Timberlake. I am trying to cross over. That is the point. “Like a Pimp” was a nasty-ass street song and Thank You Lord for it. But it went pop. The only way something goes pop is for popular culture to embrace it. It doesn’t matter what the music is. If popular culture embraces it, it’s pop.
PW: You’ve said that you think violent music has a place.
DB: In a lot of communities, the white kids can’t skateboard. We can’t hang out in front of clubs. If we walk in Northpark [Mall] with more than three people, we’re a gang. Kids don’t have ways to vent. They’ve cut back on the school programs, the after-school programs, the band, the football team, and stuff like that.
To be honest with you, music is what kept me from being violent. If I could get that aggression out by going to the club and throwing a couple elbows, that would get me through the day.
There are people who are so gullible to be controlled by music. Those are the same people, that if you took the music out of the equation, they’d only put violent movies in. You take the movies out, and they’ll put soap operas in. If you have that level of weakness in you, something is going to substitute for that. You’re only using music as your excuse to do what you really want to do.
PW: Isn’t this a bleak outlook?
DB: We have been so trained and socialized to deal with this right here [points to skin] when there is something so much bigger going on. It’s really about the elite and the not elite. It’s about who has, who wants, and who wants everything.
If you want to see how the world is, look at the Wild Kingdom. Look at how animals act in the wilderness. That’s really how society is, but since we’re humans, it’s a little prettier.
One thing that America does to its leaders is to either talk about them like dogs or make them so squeaky clean that a kid doesn’t think it’s attainable for him. People need to know that Malcolm X was a pimp. People need to know Martin Luther King was a womanizer. People need to know that so they can see they can make mistakes in their life and still be someone. It’s about doing what’s right. But America gets you into all these other side issues.
The issue is, “Did you do what was right when it was time?”
PW: Thank you. You’re a big Mississippi supporter. But have you had support from Mississippi?
DB: Oh, yeah. Most everyone. Most. Do you know I was in the New York Times before I was in the Clarion-Ledger? They did a whole story on “Cadillac on 22’s.” Do you know how hard it is for anybody – not just a rapper, but any musician – to get a story in the New York fucking Times? I was there before I was in the Clarion-Ledger. That crushed me. At the time, I didn’t need to be in the Clarion-Ledger, but it meant the world to me, because to the older black people, the Clarion-Ledger is the news.
You know, even if I become dead broke, nobody can take away what I did last year. I was on the cover of The Source. Rolling Stone had me as the number four album in the whole of last year. Nobody can take that from me.
I see people walking around with “Mississippi” on their shirts now. I see it in Atlanta. I see it in the clubs. I only wanted for it to be documented, so when my kids do research on their father, they’ll have something to be proud of.
PW: Do you have kids?
DB: Not yet.
PW: Thank you.
David Banner is not the average rapper. He is a producer who has worked with Snoop Dogg, Nelly, Trick Daddy, Busta Rhymes, and Nappy Roots. He is a local boy who began his career with Crooked Lettaz, one of the casualties of Tommy Boy Records.
He takes his name from the Hulk’s alter ego, the man who said, “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
He is a smart man, an educated non-intellectual who was the president of the Student Government Association at Southern University.
He is a man who combines production skill, an air of casual violence, and an inquisitive, thoughtful nature to create a style of Southern music that meshes hardcore rap, political soul, and a sort of frantic fire-and-brimstone street gospel. He puts his sex and violence on display, be he is not quite able to hide his reflective intelligence behind it.
In 2003, Banner signed with Universal Records and released Mississippi: The Album. It debuted at Number 3 on the Billboard 200 chart and at Number 1 on the R&B/hip hop chart. It was named one of Rolling Stone’s 50 best albums of 2003. The Source magazine gave it 4 out of possible 5. Notoriously picky Spin magazine awarded it a grade of B+.
“Like a Pimp,” Banner’s debut major-label single, was a house rocking, rump shaking anthem to strip clubs. It was a nasty piece of crunk, a slice of the Dirty South, and the song that kicked off the high-octane, if brain dead, 2 Fast 2 Furious.
Banner followed up with “Cadillac on 22’s,” probably the most reflective rap song since “Gangsta’s Paradise.” Wrapping questions about the existence of hell and the difficulty of always doing God’s will around an acoustic riff, Banner created a thoughtful lament to the bling-bling lifestyle.
Seven months after that release, Universal released MTA2: Baptized in Dirty Water to more good reviews.
In less than a year, Banner has gone from being a well-respected producer to a well-known rapper. He has brought Mississippi into the spotlight, and aggressively promotes his home state at every opportunity.
We met David Banner at Schimmel’s. He arrived exactly on time and offered to sit as long as we needed for the interview and photo shoot.
PLANET WEEKLY: How has the reaction been to MTA2: Baptized in Dirty Water?
DAVID BANNER: Great. I’ve been hearing it’s a better album, but until it sells more than the first one, I’m going with the first one. [laughs] I want to do Eminem numbers. I want to do 50 Cent numbers. I don’t think they’re so much better than me. I want to compete with Outkast. If I sold 9 million albums, I still would know I could do better.
PW: The first single from your new album is “Crank it Up.” How’s it that doing?
DB: It’s doing good. It’s been a little bit hard, because I released the second album a little too quick. It’s been hard because it’s so different from “Like a Pimp.” It’s very different musically.
PW: Speaking of different, tell us about “Cadillac on 22’s.” This was not a single that people were expecting.
DB: [laughs] It’s crazy. That was the song that all the kids in the hood were playing in the first place. They weren’t even playing “Like a Pimp” here. It was my favorite song, but you have to gauge by what the streets want.
“Cadillac on 22’s” was a letter to God. It was laid upon me that it was time, because no one else was doing music like that. At the time I just thought the world needed it, right then. To be honest with you, I think it was the best decision I’d ever made in my life.
But a program director told me that “Cadillac on 22’s” was the biggest drop-off of the last five years. He said that was a hit song, but it wasn’t pushed to the level it needed. But if that song had touched the masses the way it was supposed to, it would have flown. As a whole, it wasn’t accepted. But the crazy thing was – and this is what I don’t understand – is that every place that did play it, it was number one.
“Cadillac on 22’s” was the song most requested by white people on urban stations. White people would listen to the station, but not call in…until “Cadillac on 22’s.”
I think at the time it really changed perceptions about Southern music.
PW: What sort of perceptions?
DB: Our psyches have been affected. America still looks at the South the same way the leaders of the Civil War looked at the South. People still think you can look out the window right here and see the Klan walking. They look at Mississippi Burning and that’s what they think of Mississippi today. I know there’re a lot of adverse things that happened in Mississippi, but that was in the past.
PW: Those kinds of adverse things still happen.
DB: It may be things are still happening on some levels, but it’s not the way that people have it in their heads. You know, we still have problems, but the thing I’ve learned from traveling is that it’s no worse here than it is in Boston.
PW: There’s a contest involved with the new album. What is the “Crank it Up” contest?
DB: I had the opportunity to give away $50,000. There are five gold tickets in the first 350,000 [Baptized] albums. If you get a gold ticket, you get a $10,000 scholarship. If you have gone to college already, or if you just choose that college is not for you, you can pass it along to somebody else, family, friends. It’ll be given to the school in someone’s name.
I was homeless two separate times in my life. Not because I wanted to be, but because that was path I chose. The first time I got out was education. The second time was music. I want to open up the same opportunities I had. Soon I’ll fade away. Soon the competition will fade away, but for the person who gains that college education, that’s something that will affect his life, and the lives of his family for a long time.
PW: What is your academic status now?
DB: I’m a semester and a thesis away from a Masters Degree.
PW: In what?
DB: Education. My goal was always to come back and be a teacher. Now I always thought in my heart that I was going to make a lot of money some way. But the thing was, I always wanted to come back and teach kids.
PW: What was your first degree?
DB: Business, at Southern University in Baton Rouge. I think that’s the greatest establishment on the face of the Earth.
PW: You did post-grad work at the University of Maryland.
DB: I was in an accelerated Master’s program.
PW: That’s not what people tend to think of when they think rap music.
DB: That’s the biggest blessing. If a policeman pulls over a young black man in baggy shorts, maybe he’ll think before harassing him.
I was living out on Lakeland, in one of those $700 apartments, selling my CDs out of my trunk. Do you know I got pulled over at least twice a week, going home? No speeding, nothing. I remember one time I got mad and asked, “Why the fuck do you guys keep pulling me over?”
He says, “Because you came down this street two times in one hour.” I told him, “I stay here! You want me to go home and stay for two hours, just to make you happy? Fuck that!”
PW: Do you still live in Mississippi?
DB: I live on the tour bus. But Jackson, Mississippi is home.
PW: No plans on relocating any time soon?
DB: I may end up moving to L.A. for a while, just because I’m about to start acting.
PW: What kind of acting do you want to do?
DB: I want to be an action hero.
PW: Back to the music. Duets are common in the rap world. Would you do a duet with Mariah Carey?
DB: Oh, hell, yes! I’m trying to do a song right now with Justin Timberlake. I am trying to cross over. That is the point. “Like a Pimp” was a nasty-ass street song and Thank You Lord for it. But it went pop. The only way something goes pop is for popular culture to embrace it. It doesn’t matter what the music is. If popular culture embraces it, it’s pop.
PW: You’ve said that you think violent music has a place.
DB: In a lot of communities, the white kids can’t skateboard. We can’t hang out in front of clubs. If we walk in Northpark [Mall] with more than three people, we’re a gang. Kids don’t have ways to vent. They’ve cut back on the school programs, the after-school programs, the band, the football team, and stuff like that.
To be honest with you, music is what kept me from being violent. If I could get that aggression out by going to the club and throwing a couple elbows, that would get me through the day.
There are people who are so gullible to be controlled by music. Those are the same people, that if you took the music out of the equation, they’d only put violent movies in. You take the movies out, and they’ll put soap operas in. If you have that level of weakness in you, something is going to substitute for that. You’re only using music as your excuse to do what you really want to do.
PW: Isn’t this a bleak outlook?
DB: We have been so trained and socialized to deal with this right here [points to skin] when there is something so much bigger going on. It’s really about the elite and the not elite. It’s about who has, who wants, and who wants everything.
If you want to see how the world is, look at the Wild Kingdom. Look at how animals act in the wilderness. That’s really how society is, but since we’re humans, it’s a little prettier.
One thing that America does to its leaders is to either talk about them like dogs or make them so squeaky clean that a kid doesn’t think it’s attainable for him. People need to know that Malcolm X was a pimp. People need to know Martin Luther King was a womanizer. People need to know that so they can see they can make mistakes in their life and still be someone. It’s about doing what’s right. But America gets you into all these other side issues.
The issue is, “Did you do what was right when it was time?”
PW: Thank you. You’re a big Mississippi supporter. But have you had support from Mississippi?
DB: Oh, yeah. Most everyone. Most. Do you know I was in the New York Times before I was in the Clarion-Ledger? They did a whole story on “Cadillac on 22’s.” Do you know how hard it is for anybody – not just a rapper, but any musician – to get a story in the New York fucking Times? I was there before I was in the Clarion-Ledger. That crushed me. At the time, I didn’t need to be in the Clarion-Ledger, but it meant the world to me, because to the older black people, the Clarion-Ledger is the news.
You know, even if I become dead broke, nobody can take away what I did last year. I was on the cover of The Source. Rolling Stone had me as the number four album in the whole of last year. Nobody can take that from me.
I see people walking around with “Mississippi” on their shirts now. I see it in Atlanta. I see it in the clubs. I only wanted for it to be documented, so when my kids do research on their father, they’ll have something to be proud of.
PW: Do you have kids?
DB: Not yet.
PW: Thank you.
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