Dashah

Dashah knows the moment his life changed. He was in the 6th grade; his teacher was out sick and the students wanted to let her know how much she was missed by putting on a show. Some kids wrote poems, some painted pictures and Dashah decided to write a get-well rap. He put pen to paper and soon had enough lyrics to take it to the stage- or in this case the classroom. “The other kids went crazy, “Dashah recalls.” Everyone loved it and I was up there, feeling the love and that’s when I knew. This is what I’m gonna do.”

Armed with an insightful, lyrical quickness and fervent belief in hip-hop’s power and possibility Dashah's goal is simple. He wants to remind folks why they fell in love with Hip Hop in the first place. “These days everything is processed and plotted out, “Dashah says. “It’s lost a lot of its intensity .I wanna bring it back to where it’s real again. “

The first real taste of that came in March 2007 with “F*ck Da Majors”- a mix tape that put Dashah’s tough insightful rhymes front and center.

That focus drives cuts like “Holiday.” Set to a snake charmer back beat and flavored with R&B “Holiday” is “Inspiring. Even I get the chills because it’s from such a deep place. It’s about celebrating the small things, cause they mean a lot. I treat every day like a holiday because you never know. Nobody’s promised tomorrow.”

Just as persuasive and undeniably confidence is "Undisturbed,” which Dashah explains “Represents how I feel when people try to get in the way of my success. I also hope the song is a warning to be leery of the company you keep. There’s a lot of haters who act like they’re your friends.”

Another standout is the ambitious “Inkaholic”. Anchored by 70’s funk, and deftly utilizing metaphor, “Inkaholic” breaks down the relationship between MC and pen. “It’s very emotional. Everything starts with me and my pen that I hold in my hand, that connection. The subject is symbolic but also very relatable on so many levels.”

Born in Alabama, Dashah was raised in Long Island, a long time Hip Hop Mecca. As a kid he was surrounded by music- schooled to funk by his DJ dad and rap from the fellows on the block. Dashah loved everyone from Digital Underground to Big Daddy Kane and the Native Tongues posse. In the mid 90’s D and his family (he’s the middle of 4 kids) moved further out on the Island and, coincidentally their new neighbors were the families of old school legends Rakim and Erick Sermon.

By junior high D had gone from fan to player, joining forces with local MCs. “None of us knew how to make beats. We’d freestyle over other folk’s beats because we were young dudes trying to get into the game. We must have done 100 songs just two turntables and a little mixer. Real basic.”
In high school Dashah and his boys started making homemade mix tapes and by 1997 he was in his first MC battle and then his very first show. “I was 17 and I was getting a little local buzz.” The next year D and his crew Long Island Trees came through with another tape and then just as things were heating up, Dashah went down south to spend time with his dying grandmother. “All my grandmother wanted was for me to finish school and succeed in music. After she passed, I decided to get serious because it was what she asked me to do.”

In 1999 Dashah moved back home and two years later dropped the Unexplainable First Edition: which lead to opening slots for Ja Rule, Fabolous and Naughty By Nature Even though things were going well, D decided he needed a change of scene to push his career even further. He moved to Cali in 2002, dividing his time between LA and San Diego. Money was tight but that didn’t stop Dashah from spending his last dime on a hip-hop convention. His hope? That he’d make some connections and get his music into the right hands.
He did and soon D had a manager who hooked him up with producer Chris Warrior. After two years creating hot songs Warrior introduced D to Yon Styles, a young industry vet (Black Eyed Peas) and product manager for Fuzz Artists- an indie digital label. Styles dug what he heard and offered D a deal but Dashah admits, “I wasn’t sure. It was so new but then I figured, why not?” In 2006 Dashah signed with Fuzz Artists, formed his production company Top Shelf Enterprises, and headed back to NY: ready to reaffirm his hometown’s legacy. After dropping “F*ck Da Majors” D and crew headed back to the lab where they are currently cooking up his Fuzz Artists debut.

Hip-hop is driven by the desire to make your mark and elevate the game. Ask Dashah what he wants his music to represent and he answers, “Creativity. What I do has a vibe and energy and more than anything, it’s real. When people listen to me I want them to know and feel that I poured my heart into hip hop.”