Monday afternoons arent really renowned for flossing, especially when you have to go to work. But laying back between takes on a couch in lower Manhattans Beat Box studios, South Bronx MC Daytona is crispy in a baby blue cashmere sweater, boxfresh Adidas with baby blue laces skipping every other hole and a sideways hat with camouflage trefoils in the exact matching hue. I do fly, uptown hip-hopwhere people look at you like, Yo, I wanna be that kid, he says. A lot of New York, they like, Im the hardest, Im the toughest. I want to bring it back to when everybody was having fun. Everybody from the streets, we all experienced the same kind of thingsbut Big Daddy Kane and Slick Rick were wearing three-piece suits.On a recent mixtape with DJ L, Daytona is even more explicit with his fashion adviceI see yall on DVDs looking dirty. Step your fits up, nigga! What you know bout Tom Pink?! But Daytona doesnt need to rap his shopping lists to stand out from the crowd. His debut single All Dem is a mesmerizing blend of hip-hop and dancehall, featuring a chanted chorus from the late Bogle (Im West Indian, Im AntiguanIve been going to dancehall clubs since I was 12, he says) alongside preternaturally confident, cocky lyricisms. His voice is nasal but never pinched, and so nimble that he half-sings throwaway lines like What up my duuuuuuude? almost as if by accident. When that flow pops up again on the tipsy On The Corner and turns the McDonalds Ba da, ba ba ba jingle into a killer punchline, you realize its not a mistake. When the flow is abstracted even further on Church Clothesa guitar-riffed Miami Bass banger you might expect from Andre 3000 or Eminem Show-era Marshall Mathersit becomes clear that Daytona doesnt intend to stand out so much as blow into a different orbit entirely.A&Rs would hear [Church Clothes] and be like, This song is crazy, but wheres your groundworkyou cant just go to superstar status overnight, he says. But influential radio and club DJ Cipha Sounds saw the vision and promptly signed him up. Since then, theyve been carefully leaking music to make sure Daytonas style doesnt go over peoples heads, while getting major spins for All Dem on Hot 97 and securing high-profile opening gigs for the likes of Rick Ross and Chris Brown. Yet even without a powerful DJ in his corner, you get the impression Daytona would still get by on swagger alone. On another mixtape interlude, he declares, Im the only nigga out who can go to Xbar, get my dimelo loco on with my Latin niggas, on Sunday go to Speed with my street corner niggas, then on Monday go to Butter and chill with Lindsay Lohan and Mary Kate and Ashley. Yocatch up to me!Fly Or Die
Daytona changes the style up
By Nick BaratPosted in Music | 07/19/2006
I edited my profile with Dayton Pause... !
Generate your own contact table!
