EVENT: Davey D. – How one man can change my perspective and make me think about my past!

I am not interested in American Politics but at the same time there is no way that I will not follow the main events and know more about the president, vice president and how politics change in United States. I am international student and my adventure in Macalester and US will be not more than 4- 5 years but I know more about what is going on in the country than many of the around 300 million people living in Continental US. My story does influence that – I have been raised in a country where we were using my countries currency, American dollars and Deutsche marks. After year 2000, we switched to mainly using the new Euro Currency – the Euro. Using the dollars make you to feel entitled knowing more about the number one military superpower in the world and to know more about the culture and political decisions.
Looking ten years ago, my sister decided to attend American high school and I did follow her 2 years later. This is based not only on the influence of the American culture across the Atlantic but mainly because we wanted to become more knowledgeable and to study in the fancy universities that we were seeing in media. Learning and discussing American literature and history, I was exposed to MTV and other media. I don’t mean only Backstreet Boys and Take That, but I mean DMX and 2PAC that were being very cool. Many friends seeing all these ladies men on the screen decided to wear their clothes. Maybe all of us didn’t want to read more about the history of Hip-Hop culture, about the Graphiti, break dancing and the clothing that came from the prohibition of having a belt in jail. Watching MTV you learn a lot, not only about the men’s “Dream world” but what is cool. Growing up and meeting the American Hip-Hop culture and ideas was more like exploration that made me think very negative about the representation and story plots of the artists.
This is maybe why I was enthusiastic when we went to the RNC and we had the chance of meeting Davey D. His story made me think in a different way for the hip-hop and our discussions from class took another level. He emphasized how does radio stations are driven by money incentives and how their goal is to play certain amount of time a song and what are the tricks to make the song more popular. It appeared that labels are successful in their choice and they can make a certain song very popular using the radio stations. My perspective was changed as I figured out that the radio station is trying to shape people’s music taste and not only but the radio itself is very influential. So whenever I hear 20 times per day Kid Rock’s “Summertime” song and the melody stuck in my head, it is not always that people love the song but it is about how much money the label company has given to the radio in order to play the song. In the last year I haven’t listen as much radio because of my music library that has expanded a lot in the last 8years and of course because of the less time I spent in a car and the influence of YouTube. There are many factors that can substitute the traditional radio and I have figured out that most of the time the commercial on the radio are just ridiculous. Davey D knows that many people would listen to his radio station but at the same time he understands the importance of other ways to approach people. Davey D has been selected to be in the top 10 most influential people in the country when it comes to dealing with Hip-Hop and politics[1] voted by The Source Magazine. At the same time he does not focus only on the radio approach but he does use his FNV Newsletter to reach more than 100 thousand people which explains a lot about his importance. As he said on the RNC convention, it is a lot of responsibility as when he says to people that they should go somewhere or join an event, people follow him and trust him.
Where is the Hip-Hop in everything that I mentioned? As we discussed in class, Hip- Hop is a way to express yourself, to show who you are. There is something magical in talking on the microphone, you feel that your voice is stronger, you start believing more in yourself. According to Davey D, Hip-Hop is a way to express your ideas and to reach other people by creating music. New Hip-Hop is not only for gangs and killings but about salaries, equal opportunities and politics. World changes fast and Davey D realizes that as we can follow his career starting in 1977 in Bronx and continuing in working for different radios, co-founding coalition and founding a radio station.
Davey D. told us a lot about how radios work and that everything is focused on money. I was very angry hearing the story about a radio DJ that got fired after he got beaten up by one of the hip-hop “stars”. The radio proved Davey’s point that money is everything in this business.
I am happy that I was able to see the Hip-Hop culture in a different light and to think about how my stereotype about Hip-Hop culture is wrong. At the same time knowing more about how radios work made me think more about trusting more my music library and listening less radio while in the car. Thanks to the iPod my options for DJ’ing are almost unlimited.
[1] http://www.daveyd.com/whoisdaveyd.html

Here I am including the first 2PAC song I heard that represents the best the men's dream world. The video seems blurry as you are in a dream and I do believe that the director had these emphasize as well.