DaVinci Turf Politickin: Full Interview Audio (22:54)

Words: nando
Published: March 19, 2010

Throughout the many transitions in his time as an artist, DaVinci aka Infamous J. Davinci has always maintained the unique artistry that made him stand out from the rest. Now with his debut release out to the masses, DaVinci talks about his beginnings, community, and his ultimate masterpiece, The Mona Lisa.

Baycentrik: Let's get into your history. Most bay fans know how you came into the game, but let's let the new fans know when you started really getting noticed and so on.

DaVinci: I always fucked around with rap as a hobby but 2002 I sat back and was like let me go ahead and try to jump in this thing 100%. At that time Big Rich had a label, he was just starting 3 Story Muzik. He was putting together the label, and people don't even know that was the first label I was really fuckin with.  At that time it was ran by Devo and Big Rich, that was in 02, when Bayside Distribution was just about to be nonexistent. Everybody know what happened with that situation, Bayside ended up going under. Everybody ended up going they separate ways as far as the music.

I just went in the lab ever since then up until 2003-04 just really sharpening my tool. I did a couple of mixtapes that didn't really go too far, they went around the corner and back. It wasn't until 2005 when I dropped The Street Release. I was trying to get everywhere with that It was like 10 songs on that thing and I was just pushing that everywhere. My real official release wasn't until 2007 and that was Butter and Gunz. The feedback I was getting on that was big. It got a lot digital movement off iTunes. I started getting a little bit more mobile with it, started taking it down south, east coast, midwest.

The response was good, at that time I was like okay I'm gonna keep the Butter and Gunz series going. At that time it was 2006, 2007 I believe Rich already had his deal. San Quinn had a situation with SMC and was like man come on tour with me. So I got on tour with Quinn, The Rock: Pressure Makes Diamonds tour. We with Quinn, Tech N9ne, Xzibit just to name a few. Everybody had heard about that tour, that was a success. At that time it was about 2008. Quinn had a couple of situations on the table but I just took it upon myself. You know how Quinn be, he take one nigga under his wing, but he don't ever wanna steer niggas careers or bind them with paper work or nothing like that.

So I had the freedom to do my own thing creatively. At that point I just really sat back and was like okay I know what direction I wanna take my music. I was young at the time, I dropped my first mixtape at 19, 20. But at that time, I'm 25, I'm thinking okay I know exactly what I wanna do with my career now. At that point I dropped Butter and Gunz 2, and I was in the studio working, a couple of producers I worked with on Butter and Gunz 1 and just a lot of mixtapes I was working on at the time, had really been keeping in contact. One was out in LA, another one of my business partners that came in and made Thorobred which is my label, that I represent. They was out east and another one was in Atlanta. They was out there pumping my music, putting my music in the ears of the people that needed to hear it, simultaneously as I'm doing it out here. At that time they like okay, its about 2008, 2009, we been doing this shit like 6-7 years let's bring everything together, bring all the pieces to the puzzle and try to get together. We got all the resources we needed as far as building our in house production team.

At this step it came together as Sweetbreads Creative Collective. That's the people who are behind this project I'm pushing right now, The Day The Turf Stood Still. That consists of in house web designers, publicists, producers, rappers, DJs. Basically everything that runs a label, we got under one roof. The game is fucked up right now, everybody look at everybody like they need them. Producers think they need to pay a rapper to get on a song, rappers think they need to come out of pocket and pay a producer to make a hit.

"I feel like it's up to us, the people who helped build our communities ...in San Francisco… to hold on to the culture that we do got left."

People be forgetting that the reason you initially started working with musicians is cause yall respect each other's craft first! Yall fans of each other. I'm fans of the producers I work with, or else I wouldn't be working with them.

Baycentrik: Certain people have too much pride.

DaVinci: Exactly, people got too much pride. So Sweetbread Creative Collective is a whole bunch humble dudes who love what they do. Everytime I sit down and rap they tell me how they wanted to come together and do the album. They broke it down to me like that. At the time I was trying to get a song on the radio. I was thinking that that was the best way to get on! At the time, back in 06. But I was making the type of music I'm making now in 06. That's when the hyphy shit was poppin. Niggas was looking at me like nigga you better go in there and make you a hyphy song! This shit ain't finna rock right now for real though. You can hear my music it ain't never really tried to conform to what was hot at the time. I just tried to go in there and do what all I can do. Back to the present, with this album The Day The Turf Stood Still, all that we did in the past really led up to right now.

Baycentrik: You started off with Thorobred, and now your album finally releases on Sweatbreads Creative Collective. At that time  you released about 3-4 underground street albums all the while hyping the release of The Mona Lisa. What happened to that project?

DaVinci: That project is still coming. That's a project, to be honest, me and Sweetbreads sat down talked about what the theme of this album was gonna be. I thought about making this album The Mona Lisa but after thinking about the strategy we was doing, giving the people the option to buy or if they wanna download it for free. It was an executive decision that we gonna reserve The Mona Lisa as the album that we charge people for. That's coming next, that's gonna be my worldwide debut. This one is leading up to it, it's a great album, but The Mona Lisa, that gotta be on some masterpiece production level on a whole other galaxy type shit. It's still coming though, people expect that to be my next project.

Baycentrik: Your album is out for sale digitally but available for free download as well. Why did you decide on this sales model?

DaVinci: Well realistically we look around and be like everybody doing bad right now, Hip Hop in sales is at an all time low. I'm a new artist, people know about me in the bay but realistically, globally, we thinking worldwide. Worldwide I'm a new artist. People don't know me from a can of paint. We like okay realistically we can't put the album out and let them listen to it and think they gonna buy it. So even if we get 100,000 to buy it, if we give it out for free, we'll get maybe even 2 million people to get it. The whole goal is just to get on people's computers and iPods right now. We understand that the sales ain't really gonna come from CDs on my first album. It's really not. It's just easier to give it away for free. We'd rather have more people have it for free, than half the people have it and pay for it.

Baycentrik: And it makes sense, cause a lot of people give away mixtapes for free and it doesn't really represent themselves as an artist, because they're using other people's beats. This is Davinci, this is what you're gonna hear when you get the final, real album The Mona Lisa.

DaVinci: Exactly. At the end of the day we just want people to hear the music. Genuinely we just want you to hear it, and get your feedback and really build a community amongst those who fuck with our music. That's the whole goal without his project. That's why we based it on a community oriented album, it's all real, raw shit. We just need to give people the opportunity to listen to it. We want to be able to get to the youth. The young cats, they downloading shit for free, they ain't got not credit cards to buy shit off iTunes like that all the time. The 12, 13 year old they on Limewire, we want them to have easy access to it too, that's another reason why we giving it away for free

Baycentrik: Or mom or dad might not wanna give them the credit card to use.

DaVinci: Yeah you feel me. That's like a little parental lock in they eyes.

Baycentrik: So they're like fuck it I'll find this free. It makes sense.

DaVinci: Exactly.

Baycentrik: This might be a tough one but what is your favorite stand out track on the album? If you could pick one song to represent yourself as an artist from this album, what's your favorite?

DaVinci: Man that's the toughest question I could answer. I would probably have to say What You Finna Do. I'm gonna have to go with that one just cause that shit been on my mind since the early 90s you feel me? I know you too, you from the Mission…

Baycentrik: Yup I see the same thing...

DaVinci: Same thing happen in the Mission, same thing happen in Potrero Hill, Oakland, everywhere! I just know it meant a lot to me, the message I was trying to get across. I know people who could relate to it, it meant a lot to them too. I'm gonna have to go with that one.

Baycentrik: The album has a conscious theme to it, you touch on the gentrification in San Francisco, specifically Fillmore. Why did you choose this as your overall theme for The Day The Turf Stood Still? Is it because it affected you directly and so many of those around you?

DaVinci: Yeah definitely. It's not necessarily always a bad thing. I'm not complaining, I'm still here. All my family's still here. At the same time, I feel a lot of niggas suffering, I see niggas do shit out of desperation because of this. When your territory is all you got left and it's shrinking every year by half the population, you gonna make some calls out of desperation. That's just human nature, you can watch the Animal Planet channel and they do the same thing in the jungle, real talk. After I did that song, it was the first song I did for the album, I was like this gotta be the theme for the album. I don't talk about gentrification on the whole record, but that song is how I came up with the title.

Baycentrik: The visuals you came with, the music video is nice too.


DaVinci: Yeah right on bruh. That video is my boy Marcus, he part of Sweetbreads Creative Collective too. I didn't mention it but we got people who do video editing and filming too. Shoutout to Marcus Ubungen, he worked with Taj Mahal for a while. He fuckin with us, he out in LA, he shot the video for Ben, and that will probably be out first week of April.

Baycentrik: Ben, that's the song about money, your big brother Ben.

DaVinci: Right. For those who ain't heard it it's #6 on the album. That song is produced by Big D, South San Francisco, shout out to Big D.

Baycentrik: He did a lot of old Done Deal stuff.

DaVinci: Yeah! A lot of people don't know, Big D is a real dope ass producer. He a real humble dude, so a lot of people don't really know too much about his catalog. He jumped off 16s Wit Me for Ya Boy. He whipped that thing up. He had some vocals on Quinn's album, Mob Figaz, too, just too name a few local cats he works with. He got about 4-5 songs on this album too, Big D part of the movement too, shout out to Big D.

Baycentrik: You also have your in-house production team Drums n Ammo.

DaVinci: Drums n Ammo that's the production team. consists of Ammbush, he out of Oakland, Al Jieh and 6Fingers. They came together and they really get down, they go all the way in with the beats. They sample, they play shit, they bring it alive, they go crazy. You gonna hear a lot of that on the next album too.

Baycentrik: What do you see the landscape of San Francisco being like in 10 years? Or 5 years even.

DaVinci: 5 years. So 2015? The landscape of San Francisco, they definitely gonna start building more high rises and condos. Skyscraper condos and shit like that for the dot com boom cause it's finna get ridiculous, it's finna keep going in the direction that it's been going in. Honestly where there's a will there's a way. I feel like it's up to us, the people who helped build our communities, our family oriented communities in San Francisco. It's

"I try to keep [my style] raw, I try to keep it universal. They fuck with hip-hop everywhere."

up to us to hold on to the culture that we do got left. As far as Hip Hop, as far as the Carnavals, even the Chinese New years, if we don't keep it poppin, if we don't keep this rap shit poppin in San Francisco, this shit is gonna be obsolete. Non existent. People like me, Sweetbreads, and every other rapper or people in San Francisco that's doing hip hop music, I feel confident that this shit gonna be around for a while.

Baycentrik: Your album doesn't sound like the typical bay area album, it can't be boxed into any genre. But as you being an artist from and in the bay area, what do you feel about the current scene right now?

DaVinci: Man to be honest right now I'm loving it. I'm hearing some real crazy music coming out of the bay. You know how it is. I like how them Livewire niggas is doing out of Oakland, they really holding onto Oakland. That's what you supposed to do! If you watch they videos and listen to they music, they embody Oakland! That's what you supposed to do as an artist, represent where you from. What I try to do, I try to embody San Francisco as much as I can through my lyrics, through my style. I like a lot of the cats that's really doing they own thing. It's easy if you hear a song on the radio, you hear an autotune song, everybody wanna run to the studio and do an autotune song. That type of shit is wack. That's the reason why the radio don't be fuckin with niggas. Everytime one cat from out here got success on the radio with one type of song, then it's a whole awful lot of stains doing the same shit! As long as you doing your own thing out here, you really sharpening your tool, perfecting your craft, then I like it. It don't matter if your style is unorthodox or whatever, if it's good then it's good. I try to keep mine raw, I try to keep it universal. They fuck with hip-hop everywhere. All these sub-generes to hip hop are tight too, but it's kind of local to be honest. You restricting yourself. You go to Japan on some hyphy shit, they might look at you like what the fuck is going on. Some places they fuck with it, but you never know though. I like to stick to the formula I been working with since I was young.

It's been working for me. So I like it, I like the direction of that it's going in. For a while, 5 years ago it was getting real wack, but right now, 2010 it's going back in the direction of where it was back in the early, mid 90s. Just to make a comparison. But with a new age feel to it. I like it, I like the shit that's going on right now.

Baycentrik: I think were exiting that identity crisis, people are finding their own sounds. So are there any last words you would like to end it off with?

DaVinci: Man yeah, last words. If you ain't heard the album The Day The Turf Stood Still it's at www.swtbrds.com/davinci. You gotta go check that out. We giving he option to where you can download it for free, just great ass music, if I was you I would buy it because it's worth every penny. I understand niggas ain't got no dough, if you a young nigga you ain't got no credit card, you can't pay for it like that. Go ahead, download it and pay for it when you can. You talking to Davinci now, so I would advise you pay for it if you like it so we can continue to keep doing this. We really can't give out free albums forever. Go to the website and check it out.

Baycentrik: Yea or they can click the flash ad, you're on baycentrik.com now just go up to the top of the page and you can check it out.

DaVinci: Yeah you on baycentrik.com right now, it's a big flash ad, click on that and nando make sure you got it.