Food for your thoughts: Davey D

Davey D


Davey D is a Hip-Hop historian, journalist, deejay, and community activist. Originally from NYC Davey D moved to Oakland where he was instrumental in helping lay out the prototype for the often copied all hip hop and r&b format stations like NYC's Hot97. Davey D is a graduate of UC Berkeley and has been putting his journalism skills to use for the San Jose Mercury News. Davey D also hosts a weekly Hip Hop/Political TV talk show on Oakland's Soul Beat television. You may have seen him featured in documentaries, magazines, newspapers, videos and TV news shows like; Rap City, Rhapsody, CNN's Talk Back Live, ABC's Nightline, BET Television, VH1 Television, Soul Beat TV, KRON TV, KTVU TV, Bay TV, KPIX TV, KBHK TV, The Tavis Smiley Show, 2Pac'sThug Angel documentary, Straight From The Streets documentary, Oakland Tribune, USA Today, The San Francisco Chronicle, Vibe Magazine, Stress Magazine and the list goes on. You may not have even known it was him because you have become accustomed to seeing his famous caricature icon, instead of his real face. Recently he laid off the humble trip and allowed The Source Magazine to feature him as being one of the Top 10 most Influential people in the country when it comes to dealing with Hip Hop and politics.

Extraits d’interview menée par Bruce Banter pour http://www.playahata.com/pages/interviews/ sur des sujets comme ses méthodes de travail, son site, la censure,

Banter: In the new millennium there are a lot of websites pushing out material and news for the hip-hop faithful. Some of them doing an excellent job. Do you ever feel like the hip-hop Internet market place is as saturated as the industry?
Davey D: No because it's not about competition and I don't think you can really change the dynamics of a person by your website. Certain people are looking for specific things only, they browse for certain things, depending on who they are. Where they are at as a person. My boys at Allhiphop.com are doing a good job attracting a faithful market and there are others but its about everybody doing their best to reflect the culture and that can work for everybody.
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Banter: Outside of the Internet and personal contacts, how else do you get information on hip-hop? Do you subscribe to magazines, if so what are they and what magazines do you read?
Davey D: NOT really, a lot of magazines come to me and usually once a month I get a call from one of them because they are trying to get a hold on to somebody.
Banter: They reach you via the radio or via email?
Davey D: Usually email.
Banter: What about your radio audience?
Davey D: That's kind of separate, Personally I never even plug my site when I am on the air. I don't ever want a conflict of interest. I don't use my site to focus on me. I make connections by doing ground work. Ground work is important. Many people don't realize that. The importance of it, it's like a DJ never going to the record store to make the contact. At the height of the dot.com expansion when everybody was surfing and on the net. I was still doing grunt work. By that I mean going to meet people. Going to the under ground hip hop spots. Making the face to face contact even if that means I am driving a few miles to do it.
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Banter: Tell us about Oct. 1, 2001. Recently Jeff Chang reported in is his (Can't Stop Won't Stop) newsletter that Clear Channel radio station said they downsized you because your ratings were down but most of us strongly believe it was because of your anti-war posture. You had invited on rapper Boots Riley from The Coup and Congresswoman Barbara Lee who were both extremely controversial at the time. Station KMEL said you had an estimated 562,000 listeners in Fall of 2001, how many did you have in fall of 2000? You never seem to discuss your position on this whole controversy?
Davey D: It was never a ratings thing, it was a suspicious dismissal I can say that much I never coached Barbara Lee into saying this or that and I always had on a guest with an opposing viewpoint. so when it happened so abruptly things surprised me after 11 years .. I went home home dazed.
Banter: What do you think is the case for your dismissal and would you ever work for them again - when I say "them" I am talking about Clear Channel?
Davey D: Well, I can only say it was suspicious. As far as working for "them" again. It would depend on factors ex. My Goal Vs their goal - but I wouldn't work back @ KMEL. To think that after 11 years of service that its just over no good bye, just bye. However, I would work at a Clear Channel owned station again./
Banter: Now that the Emmis Broadcasting and Clear Channel corporate type stations have taken over radio, due to their ownership of thousands of stations in American cities. It seems that many local artist can't get their music played on air even in their respective areas or regions. This has really hurt California based rappers. In your opinion is there such thing as a national type of "playlist"?
Davey D: The stations don't list their play-list on the websites anymore but they used to. The evidence used to be there. In Detroit and Chicago you had the stuff surface first. All the rappers who get played are coming from the same labels like Arista, etc. Yes there is a play-list but it is hard to now prove that there exist a "national play-list".
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Banter: I travel a lot and I notice all the stations have been consolidated, they all sound the same all over. On any given night in any given city the biggest stations are all playing the same thing. I am personally convinced of a national play-list. It seems like the only difference is the shock jock type of personality that all of them are moving to. In Philly, NY and L.A. they all play the same tracks by the same artist 50-Cent, J -Lo, Eminem, Ashanti, Ja-Rule, LL Cool J, and P. Diddy, etc tracks that are playing across the country. Maybe the south is an exception ..but are the radio stations locking artist out, starving them?
Davey D: I know of groups that sell out shows, 3,000 seat venues but get no acclaim can't get any radio play. I don't know what the justification for holding the artist back is .. I can't understand how that helps anybody. If you are not on a major label it doesn't matter how nice you are?