By DEVON SHERIDAN

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

Dayne Carter, FCRH ’16, released his second mixtape earlier this month before finishing up midterms. (Photo courtesy of Dayne Carter)

On any typical night here in the Belmont neighborhood, rap music bounces off crowded brick apartment walls, cracked concrete sidewalks and pockmarked streets. Situated in the area, the Bronx Zoo and New York Botanical Garden sit quiet and green, but, for the most part, the neighborhood shares characteristics similar to its other Bronx neighborhood counterparts; it is loud, diverse and urban.

But, Belmont has one unique characteristic: it is also a college town. On Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, college kids flood the college bars, which are run by local Bronx residents who are savvy enough to cash in on student’s errant spending habits. On weekday mornings, off-campus Fordham students and local kids, most of which live near the poverty line, share the same experience begrudging the walk to class.

One of the funniest nuances of the Belmont neighborhood is that on any given night, it is impossible to tell who is responsible for recklessly blasting rap music. Is the music coming from a college party in a backyard? Or is it the theme music for a couple of middle-aged guys working on their cars while their pit-bulls look on? Is it both?

At the crossroad of this funny, quasi-symbiotic culture of college life and hip hop life, Dayne Carter, FCRH ’15, cruises down both avenues. He is both a junior at Fordham studying communications and an aspiring rapper.  In college, balancing both school work and a musical hobby is hard enough, but Carter, who shares a surname with another New York rapper, Shawn Carter, better known as Jay Z, has recently found the extra time to record a new mixtape titled “All In.”

“I was working on that project for about six months and wrote and recorded all of it in my dorm room,” Carter said. “I met up with Denzel [my producer] and was able to re-record most of it in various studios throughout the city.”

Hotnewhiphop.com released the new mixtape, Carter’s second. As for gaining traction as a student rapper in the Fordham community, Carter finds that the atmosphere facilitates his craft.

“I think Fordham is great location for an aspiring musician,” Carter said. “New York is one of the best places to be and living right outside the heart of the city, there are so many opportunities.”

Carter frequently performs at house parties, but more recently, he has had the opportunity to lend his talents to organized events. He played at a few ASILI club shows and the Relay for Life run earlier this year. Further, “Fordham Mornings,” part of the Fordham News Network, which frequently hosts Fordham musical acts, recently invited Carter to perform on Channel 10.                                  “I plan on performing a lot more this school year and expanding my fan base by doing shows in the city,” Carter said.

As mentioned above, Carter is part of a huge group of college kids who love rap and hip-hop. In the last decade, hip-hop and rap’s stock in pop culture steadily rose and has continued to rise in merit and popularity. Rappers like Kanye West, who spend a lot of energy critiquing socio-cultural issues, have found favor among a wide spectrum of black and white cultures concerned with the arts and society in general. West frequently uses his own successes and failures as a way to analyze American capitalism and culture. Generally, rap music deals with the struggle for meaning and power that face Americans. Naturally, college students, a group of people concerned with all of the above, fall in this category.

Then again, when it comes to rap’s popularity among college students maybe it is even simpler than an appeal for social criticism. Take California rapper Kendrick Lamar, for example, whose 2012 album Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City found huge favor with mainstream music critics and whose single “Swimming Pools,” a song about drinking, could be heard at any bar or basement party in the last few months. Thematically and lyrically, “Swimming Pools” is an intricate song. With the hook that goes “Stand up/Drink/Sit down/Drink,” one can easily misconstrue it as a glorification of excessiveness. Yet, “Swimming Pools” is not a happy song. In the verse lyrics, Kendrick’s conscious battles itself over his penchant for heavy drinking. Regardless of whether one was born in the Hamptons or Compton, this generation of 20-year-olds, bombarded by excessiveness on TV and the Internet, wrestles with this sentiment.

To a degree, it is surprising that there are only a select number of successful rappers with the same background as Dayne Carter. Most rappers are not 20-year-olds who love rap but also strive towards completing a successful college career. Most rappers try to make it big because rapping is their only option for a secure and successful financial future. But, is not that narrative pretty much the same model that college kids these days are following when they choose a school?

While his path to this point has been unique, Carter, like all music fanatics, studies the careers of other rappers and in their backgrounds he finds similarities to which he can relate. The best example of a rapper with a past similar to Carter’s is found in the career arc of 28-year-old rapper J. Cole, who went to St. John’s University graduating cum laude.

“I admire him a lot because of the path he took to become successful,” Carter said. “He used New York City as a platform to promote his music and devoted much of his free time into creating it.  It’s really cool to see him in the prime of his career striving, when only a few years ago, he was in a similar situation I’m in.  I find his music very relatable and appreciate the content in his songs.”

Just because Carter is a rapper, a type of musician severely outnumbered by the token indie/acoustic bands prevalent at primarily white universities, does not mean he does not share the same goal as every other musician or band on campus. Primarily, Carter is focused on spreading his name. All In can be found on hotnewhiphop.com, the link for which is posted on Carter’s Facebook page (go ahead and give it a ‘like’ while you are there). Carter and his team, which consists of Mike Puntillo, GSB ’15, and Ryan Orent, have also produced music videos, which are on YouTube.

As for  Carter’s near future plans?

“My top goal is to be able to perform for the student body on the main stage during spring weekend,” said Carter.

You heard it here first, CAB, let go of the Ghost Face Killer debacle. It is in the past, now bring back rap.

Categories: Arts & Entertainment