Ever since i can remember I’ve been attempting to make music . I’ve spent countless hours trying to write songs and learning how to play a handful of instruments. However it wasn’t until i was around the age of 13 the idea of actually recording and completing a track became realistic. I was given Fl studio to mess about with on the computer. I never read up on any of the tutorials or was given a direction to head in i just sat there and had fun. It did take a long time to get anywhere on it, after all i was only doing it for fun - knocking out trance beats made with the standard FL samples with boring kick snare drum patterns.
Mean while my taste in music was always adapting. Growing up with plenty of different artists being played in the house from ZZ top, to Run DMC. I started buying my own CD’s as I became interested in rappers such as Dr Dre and Eminem and bands such as Linkin Park and Blinc 182. It wasn’t until around the age of 14 I started to take a deep interest in underground Hip Hop. I slowly found out about more rappers via the internet and realised the scene was much bigger than I had ever imagined. I found new rappers everyday as I downloaded more and more. The internet was probably the soul reason I began rapping. I quickly found sites where people who liked hip hop would discuss and even produce some of there own stuff. They would post up threads showing what they had wrote, from topicals to disses and even battles. I soon became part of it all and quickly became hooked to hip hop, poetry and battling. I was living under an online alias that was gaining a strange respect on the internet that my school mates hadn’t even heard of. At this point barely anyone in the real world new I wrote songs. Until I started to see people were not just posting in text - they were uploading there songs to the internet for everyone to hear. I realised it wasn’t anywhere near impossible to record songs at home and I was determined to start doing so myself. Luckily with the help of my dad I already had enough musical equipment to get recording on the computer. I learnt about certain software and got recording a soon as possible. I posted up my songs on the site and received shockingly good feedback (the songs were terrible). The problem was I was trapped in this strange non existent world and I had only heard rappers from the US. I only knew of one way to rap over a beat and that was how the Americans did it and I knew my voice and style was completely copied and false. On the other hand I knew I had certain qualities not many n00b emcees start off with and I was determined to get better.
It was alongside this time that my knowledge of FL studio came in handy big time. I started making hip hop beats, strictly 70 to 95 bpm. I was finally reading tutorials learning more about how to use my own samples and I quickly started making beats the same way all the legendary producers have done so, by sampling. 90% of these beats went to waste and I rarely used my own material but it was another element of hip and I enjoyed it so much. It still plays a big part in what I do even though it has always kind of played the third wheel.
I had more passion for music than ever, and I quickly elevated my rap style, leaving text battles behind me. I began showing my friends my songs and got in touch with people with the same interests from the UK. A few generous hip hop heads passed my name around to beat makers and such. I got talking to more and more people who showed me what kind of hip hop the UK was creating. I started to understand it and relate to the emcees a lot more, I had new influences and I became much more natural on the mic bringing out my own accent. I was finally getting somewhere. I was still very young and receiving more and more positive feedback each day. I started doing tracks with producers such as digital movement and my tracks were often played on conspiracy radio giving me a massive confidence boost. I was taking it more seriously, my bedroom studio quality was quickly becoming better and better. I was making plenty of tracks and in the space of a year I gathered together enough tracks to post two mix tapes on the internet.
Ive never been the loud mouth emcee most rappers are expected to be. Always modist and shy when people talk to me about it in real life. However when I started hanging around with locals who were interested in the same sort of music they quickly found out that I made music and my secret was almost poored out in the open. It was from then on I actually became an emcee properly, in the real world. My internet alias Danz became a name I would use to title my tracks with and it caught on. Whether I like it or not. I started rapping on the streets with groups of people and other emcees entertaining a small crowd. I was getting more confident - trying to push my tracks out to as many people as possible.
Around this time I started talking to Mitch hill (Nervs) at my old school in Tunbridge wells. He was a younger emcee but I heard his potential when he first showed me his lyrics. Before long he was round my house featuring on tracks and dropping his content. One of our songs ‘ Feel good Inc’ was pushed around both of our areas giving us a lot more coverage and hype, so I feel my reputation ( however big or great it is haha) owes a big thank you to that song and Mitch.
The final part of the story, leading to this present day is single handily based on the genre known as ‘grime’ which I have despised for nearly all my life. My love for deep lyricism and thoughtful beats led me to hate on the simple similes and repetitive rhyme schemes I heard so much on channel u. But eventually I found artists I liked. I started to understand what the hype and swagger was all about and how difficult it was to become a decent grime emcee. Hip Hop was almost becoming boring and I was constantly looking for new artists within the grime scene. I became interested in artists such as JME, ghetto, saskilla, nbf and many more.
My music changed completely as I started experimenting with different grime style’s making beats and writing lyrics. TO this day I’m still perfecting it and don’t get me wrong, my love for hip hop never died and I will continue to make it and hopefully merge the two genres in time. Nothing can stop from doing this, this is my hobby. My style will continue to change but the passion for making music never changes.
Thanks to all the people who have boosted my confidence, and to the people who didn’t cut me down when they should of. Thanks to those still supporting me in a huge way and to my ex girlfriends for helping me realised who is real and who is not, and for the inspiration for my new mixtape. I havnt even began to do this thing to my full potential. Im still growing more confident and learning more about music. The next step is taking this to the stage and pushing the name further in the real world.
Thanks for reading my biography, sorry for the essay. I got bored.
