D Dand Interview

I tried skateboarding when I was younger. The fear of falling stopped me before I could achieve anything beyond a simple ollie. That feeling of weightless airborne potential, where safety is suspended and irrational trust is placed on a thin plank tasked with recapturing balance was just all too much for me. I wanted to be capable, to put my hand near that fire and go towards it with reckless commitment. But I needed my legs to walk and play sports. I saw that all of that could be dangled over the edge of comfort in an instant flash. Very quickly my envy turned to eye drooling respect. Most of my friends were skateboarders and even if I couldn't participate I sought out that kind of community without competition. You wouldn't know it now but Watchung Plaza housed that organic community and allowed it to breathe. It was a space outside of the classroom where age gaps meant less and the only currency and qualification of "being down" was how you carried yourself and how you preserved that publicly private sense of anything goes. Older kids might intimate you for a dollar in order to buy a locally-famous meal of rice and sauce from the corner (the price is now $1.25, it might even be $1.50, nobody goes there now). The suburban bodega connecting the plaza's two main streets sold cigarettes and black & milds to elementary school students. Montclair presents itself as very much not Larry Clark's unforgiving New York City streets seen in Kids, but something about Watchung Plaza felt authentic in a town of contented apathy. Pyramids and Beatlampers created their local artifacts before my time and before I loitered in the gazebo but once I was turned on to their creations it became my soundtrack for navigating an exciting environment. Even to those that were there this might seem over the top or romantic but this is how it felt. I never had any older brothers or connections that made socializing easier and more familiar. The authenticity of rap music and the authenticity of these experiences went hand in hand. They informed one another and guided my understanding of how I want to move through this world. The story of these two tangential groups was always told through hear say and for my curiosity that was never enough. The quality of their art speaks for itself but the locality of the music connected with me in a personal and familiar way. In January I sat down with David Dandridge, better known as D Dand. He was the vocal half of late 2000s group Pyramids and later helped to organize the larger contemporary collective known as Beatlampers. This is a transcription of that interview and hopefully a more organized exploration of that history. 

Amani: Can we start with the Pyramids stuff? Like Blunts and 40z?

DDand: Yeah, taking it all the way back. That was almost 10 years ago. It started from John Vizzone (JV) and Brendan Morello, those two were just conspiring on this whole pyramids shit. They were into dumb ass conspiracy theories and illuminati, just as a joke though, not serious, but Pyramids came from that. John started making beats and we were just smoking weed one day and JV played some beats and I was like ‘yo this is fire ill rap on it’

Amani: It’s got the.. not like lo-fi. It just sounds so grungy, I don't even know the word for it.

DDand: It’s the most lo-fi. Mugs didn’t mix any of that and didn’t know about mastering. 

Amani: So it wasn’t intentional? 

DDand: Nah, we just didn’t know. We didn’t give a fuck either. So different, mugs were listening to music like immortal technique and all this other shit at the time and it wasn’t grungy like that but definitely had a different vibe from the clean sound of studio music.

Amani: It’s so raw, it feels like physically you’re right there.

D Dand: We just had a mic in John’s crib and his crib is like a space shuttle, so I feel like because of that the vocals sound more airy and spacey with more natural reverb

Amani: When you released it was it more for you and the homies or other people getting into it?

D Dand: Definitely just for the homies

Amani: And then Camel Clutch? Same kind of thing?

D Dand: Yeah, that’s when we had KG and shit.. No we had KG on the first… I don’t even know what the timeline really is but there wasn’t any kind of ‘we’re trying to get on.’ We just made another tape and that was that.

Amani: Right you were just making music, was that when you started rapping with volition?

D Dand: Nah me and Mark had been rapping together before that but he wanted to do his own thing with this kid Bobby and they used to make music together so it was always a separate thing, which is why I guess he wasn’t like in Pyramids per say, a lot of people think he was and they’re always like ‘yo mark remember the whole pyramids shit’ and he’s like ‘nah that wasn’t me.’

Amani: So he was around but just not in the group?

DDand: Yeah he was just chilling, it was just a friend thing you know? Homies were down, everyone loved old school rap.
Amani: Y'all were in high school then or?

DDand: Me and mark started rapping together in middle school, like sixth grade, but then we started taking it seriously in high school, freshman year.

Amani: Is that when it switched to Beatlampers?

DDand: No it switched to Beatlampers senior year, in 2010.

Amani: Why did Pyramids end?

DDand: I think its because we had made so much shit and just didn’t have a plan for it, and I don’t know if we planned to have a plan for it. So it became kind of like ‘what are we doing?’

Amani: And so for Beatlampers did y'all work with JV for the production? Because it sounds pretty different.

DDand: No thats when JV stopped producing really, he stopped making hip hop music, he was in a bunch of bands and stayed doing other weird shit with music but for hip hop he was done. He was nice though, he is nice, he still can make some shit. All that jazzy stuff that he was making I wish I made a lot of that shit.

Amani: It sounds so crazy its the best. So how did Beatlampers come together then?

DDand: We had, I don’t know if you know about Antonio Gale, he just came up with the name on some dumb skeeted shit and he started reppin it because he wrote, he would do drawings and write beatlampers and kind of just went around with it. He was making beat tapes and so it became kind of like the resurgence, because we never stopped making music but we realized we could widen the umbrella for homies to be under.

Amani: Yeah I didn’t know him but I know what happened. Was the original crew what it is now?

DDand: Yeah, so JV.. I mean he’s not in it but he’s an original. It’s weird, homies have very weird roles. Nobody knows what their role is. It’s not organized in the slightest. JV, Brendan, Mark and I don’t know how Grits and Cole got into Beatlampers. Mark is Grits’ cousin so I remember he started coming around in like 2011 but there was no induction. Cole had a mic and mugs started going to Cole’s house in 2011/2012 and laying tracks there. So it was just like ‘yo were in this.’

Amani: And then y’all opened for Mobb Deep right?

DDand: Yeah, that shit was crazy. I thought about that the other day. I wish I had said more to Prodigy. That was dope, there was never any planning, we didn’t have any management or anything

Amani: So then how did that come up?

DDand: GDP was playing that show too and he was just like ‘we need more people. get on, sell more tickets, blah blah blah’ so we were like ‘alright lets do it’

Amani: Did you meet Havoc and Prodigy?

DDand: Not really, Brendan got a record signed by them and we got to dap them up but it wasn’t like some backroom stuff. 

Amani: That was in Montclair or?

DDand: Teaneck.. It was pretty crazy, have you seen Mobb live?

Amani: Nah I never got to see that

DDand: Its crazy to think that’s even a thing, I don’t know. Hip hop is history at this point.

Amani: It’s some different shit now

DDand: But yeah, Beatlampers is very much the most organic shit, there’s no timeline for how shit popped off up to this point, it kind of just happened. I think if we want to do something more we’ll have to organize ourselves but I don’t know, with work and everything, life happens.

Amani: Music-wise, no reason you guys shouldn’t have blown up over say, Pro Era. You’re nicer then Joey, by a lot.

DDand: I appreciate that. I feel like a lot of it comes down to where you’re at and whose backing you, not in a bad way but it is what it is. It’s crazy, I did some shit to a bunch of J Dilla beats and then heard the 1999 tape and was like ‘ah what the fuck.’ 

Amani: Damn I never even put that together! Thats true!

DDand: I was so sick, mine had come out right before that. We had just played a show with Capital Steez too, the week before he passed…. Are you bouta go to Coachella this year or any festivals like that?

Amani: Yeah I’ve been to Coachella a few years ago. I really hated it. It’s ass, I’ve been to a lot of them and its the worst one by far. I definitely wouldn’t go back there. You know south by (southwest)? Thats the best one.

DDand: You ever go to any shows thats not hip hop?
Amani: Yeah I’ve been trying to, most of the stuff I started listening to thats not hip hop the mugs are either not working anymore or dead you know? like old jazz. So it’s kind of hard.

DDand: You fuck with jazz?

Amani: Yeah I read the Miles Davis autobiography over the summer and that shit is the best book I’ve ever read. He tells it how it is.

DDand: I have to peep, I’ve heard theres some crazy stories in there. Expanding your music taste is a hard thing to do, it was hard for me to do, I thought I would never bump anything except Kool G Rap.

Amani: I don’t know why G Rap doesn’t get the same props as Nas and all of them. I went to the Welmont show he played with The Juice Crew. Kane was there too.

DDand: Damn thats right, I’m so mad I didn’t see that, thats crazy.

Amani: Do you ever notice if or how mugs are influenced by Beatlampers and all of that?

DDand: No not really, I don’t really pay attention to it like that. I feel like mugs are too young to give a fuck about that shit, maybe when I’m old and looking back. I try not to, because its like we haven’t really done anything, in the grand scheme. Maybe, maybe… maybe one day I’ll feel some sort of… I don’t know, but not right now.

Amani: I feel like locally there’s totally a grand scheme of whats going on you know? Wherever you’re from, I guess with the magazine for now that would be point. Everyone always wants to talk about nationally and like, the biggest of the big, but in the small pockets of wherever, different towns, is where you’re gonna find something unique at this point.

DDand: Yeah, where somethings going on.

Amani: You ever listened to Tennis Boys?

DDand: Yeah I fuck with that shit heavy. That shits great. Sounds so good, I’m like how are these mugs doing it? I saw a snapchat of him (Irie) in a hot dog suit. 

Amani: Yeah he was wearing that last night at the meatlocker.

DDand: He’s good at skating too, I didn’t expect that. You don’t skate do you? Amani: Nah, I was always the one where all my friends skate but I would be the one that never skated. I couldn’t do it.

DDand: You saved yourself a lot of pain and scarring. 

Amani: I lived on Jacob’s street when he built the half pipe so that was when I was trying to get into it because mad people were over there.

DDand: Word I probably saw you on some young buck shit. Those were the days. That shits old I think its gone

Amani: Yeah they took it down

DDand: Shit like that has me feeling old as fuck. It’s just like, I don’t know whats good, i don’t know how committed I actually am to making music at this point, at least as a career, but i’d love to just do it, you know? I’d love to be in a position where I could just live life, chill, work, whatever, thats the ideal. 

Amani: Thats the thing about music, its a life long thing.

DDand: Life is a marathon and you gotta not burn yourself out of the whole thing too fast. I feel like I’ve kind of done that, with rapping at least, I fuck with producing heavy, but mugs can only do so much on that front. I read some tweet like ‘this is the year of the producer’ but still, its not like that for producers.

Amani: A lot has been done, at a certain point its like ‘whats the point?’

DDand: Absolutely, I feel like I’ve made all the shit I wanna make. Amani: I feel that, you make what you want to make and then if you know you don’t have it to be 100% like you were before then whats the point? Then you’ve gotta step away, leave it untouched.

DDand: Honestly I’ve wasted mad time being in a weird space feeling like ‘you should be somewhere but you’re not’ The gap widening and closing is all determined on how you react and what you do with that feeling of ‘oh I'm not really good enough to do this’ It’s all about how you capitalize and I feel like I wasted mad time thinking ‘Oh I wasn’t good enough to do this so i couldn’t do that.’ If I could be anybody I’d be Kaytranada. That dude has it made. He just makes fire beats and all types of fire mixes, and you just don’t have to say shit. You got people that’ll support you for what you want to do. Thats the goal, thats the business model. If you find a lane like that its possible.

Amani: Now a days everything is so visible, anything thats underground *snaps* then its not anymore.

DDand: I feel you, the gray area disappeared. I feel like that has to do with labels right?

Amani: The technology shift too, now a days like, Blunts and 40z, that would never get made because you’d just be on logic.

DDand: He made that on logic! 

Amani: For real? Thats crazy, but the materials would be different then what you’d use now?

DDand: I guess, I don’t know. I feel like John would make whatever he was gonna make. But it is crazy, now it takes so little to actually blow.

Amani: That shit ever make you feel disappointed? Like the way people consume it in general, like ‘ah this stupid shit is blowing up’

DDand: A little bit, its hard not to feel some sort of way about that but at the end of the day people will listen to what they want to listen to. Music is a love hate relationship. As soon as you add dreams its all do-able, everything is still do-able. I feel like I’m talking like a washed ass dude but the world moves hella quick, especially with music, sometimes I don’t feel like I’m making the shit thats necessarily popping, like sonically, but it has to hit somewhere, you’ve gotta drop something and its got to land somewhere you know?

Amani: I feel you on that. Did you always know how to produce?

DDand: I didn’t know how to when Pyramids was a thing but I started making beats in 2013/2014, so pretty recent.

Amani: Right now you’re working on a cassette?

DDand: Yeah I’m trying to make two sides twenty minutes each just straight beats. I’ll try to do it more then once. If Nick’s got the connect for fat beats and if that shit can get in there, then I can die happy honestly

Cop D Dand’s beat tape Valleys right here