DyMe-A-DuZiN: Brooklyn's past and future

When he was eleven, Donnovan Blocker, a black kid from Brooklyn, heard an MC utter the visionary words “these rappers come a dime a dozen”. And he thought to himself: not bad – everyone is replaceable, after all. At twenty, Blocker is now an up-and-coming hip-hop talent; as DyMe-A-DuZiN he has just released a new mixtape.

A Portrait of Donnovan doesn’t only go for your hips; in the end it gets you in the heart too. “Don’t be taken in,” he warned us: “The idea really is that my music should make my pseudonym sound as ironic as possible.” Inspired by his rap heroes of the 1990s, however, Dymez, for short, is now making a name for himself. “New Brooklyn” is a homage to his district. And, as if he has something to prove, from his Brooklyn studio he shares with us a series of clever rhymes, dancing acrobatically on a high wire between the urban ’hoods and the downtown skyscrapers: “Uh, I’m a product of Jay, Biggie and Kane / Hotter than a cart with no conditioner on a train / Saw hood niggas change, blood and crippin’ in their gangs / Into hipsters when their jeans start fittin’ to they legs.” What follows is the hip-hop history-and-future of his district. In short: he has seen it all; he respects the old guard who paved the way, but now it’s his turn.

“In the past, in New York we were all each other’s rivals. We fought our battles in a little, navel-gazing circle. I have the impression that, at least in Brooklyn, that has changed a lot over the last three years. In the end, that only distracted us from what really mattered: the music. Now we are colleagues, even friends, see? We realise that we are in the same boat and won’t get anywhere if we just try to take the wind out of each other’s sails. We are the next generation; we are the next Jay-Zs, Nas, 50 Cents, so we had better be good and relevant.” He means it. Maybe because he too had to battle, growing up in a one-parent family with a mother who preferred to see him going to church rather than listening to that infernal rap. “That wasn’t suitable for my young ears. [Laughs] Every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday she took me and my sister to church,” he recalls. “But we did listen, nevertheless, on the quiet, and when she saw that this really was my dream, she bought me a karaoke machine, so I could freestyle on my own cassettes. I still remember how some people used to laugh at me when I tried to get people to listen to them at school.”

Their laughter has died away since. “But that’s not what motivates me,” he assured us. “In the first place, rapping is therapy for me. It relaxes me, allows me to let things go. I want to make people feel that showing yourself to be vulnerable is OK.” Especially on “Father’s Day”, that brings a lump to the throat, particularly when the young guy raps, “What’s the purpose of a father? / Shiiit, I’m doing pretty good without mine.” “Yeah, that must be one of the most personal tracks from the mixtape. I felt that an honest track about my father, who was never there, would help me move on. I don’t like making stuff up. You’re better off becoming the greatest with something that is entirely your own.”

Dyme-A-Duzin 25/4, 19.30, €10, La Chocolaterie, rue Van Malderstraat 27, Molenbeek, 02-413.04.10, www.vkconcerts.be