By Melissa Moody
It is 1987 and a 12-year-old boy sits in his graffiti-covered bedroom on Bernheim Lane in Louisville. He is surrounded by his first drum machine, turntables and stereo system. Public Enemy plays on the radio as he begins writing his first songs in earnest.
Fast-forward to late fall 2005, and Dennis Smith sits in his own apartment. His studio equipment has drastically improved but he is still fervently writing songs. Only now he also owns his own label and is producing hip-hop as well as performing it.
“I’m not a business man in the least, I’m a writer and producer,” Smith said, “The label is a formality.”
That label is Frequency Records, which Smith started in 1999. He began his first label, Right Here Records, in 1993. Right Here was experimental, only an avenue into making music. With Frequency, however, Smith has realized he wants to make a career of making music. He is no longer tied down to the drudgery of the 40-hour work week.
Not to say he doesn’t work at least 40 hours a week; on his first CD, “Brain Powder,” he wrote, performed and produced all of the tracks as well as designed the cover, credits and graphic art. He was also in charge of distribution, but as Smith is ever a perfectionist, it never hit the stores.
“I wasn’t satisfied with it,” Smith said. “It was too serious. It wasn’t something you could bop around the house and clean up to. Politics influenced that record a lot, black culture, hip-hop musicians like Public Enemy and Grandmaster Flash. You have to give credence to that but you also have to be careful not to be too serious. Now I write what I feel like writing.”
If the songs featured on his upcoming release “Dennis Presents … All Water, No Dirt,” are what he feels like writing, I have to say I’m feeling it too. The beat is contagious and Smith’s strong vocals bounce rhythmically in tune with the movement on songs like “Drugz wit the Beat,” dedicated to “all the real pen and pad holders.”
Reminiscent of his early musical influences, Smith follows closely in the footsteps of Rza of the Wu-Tang Klan in both production and lyrical style, amply filling those shoes. With a crisp, concise vocal delivery set over complexly layered instrumentation, Smith has produced an album assertive and confident in its delivery. A part of the underground hip-hop scene in Louisville by his own admission, he is set, if the music is any indication, to achieve significant acclaim with his upcoming album.
“You have to sound a certain way to be on MTV, cater to record and radio executives,” Smith said. “Originality is not promoted by major labels. Record companies know that if they plug something enough people will eventually buy it.” The commercialization of hip-hop and rap music is rampant and the rise to fame can be quick but the fall can be even quicker. It’s a quandary, according to Smith, “a dance with the devil type of situation.”
“The good thing about the commercialization is that rap is ingrained in culture today, it’s everywhere, not just in African-American culture,” Smith said. “Back in the ’70s and ’80s, people didn’t like it and didn’t want to hear it, and now they can’t help but listen.” The change in public taste has allowed many hip-hop musicians to sign to six-figure deals with major labels, but Smith said that’s not the type of satisfaction he’s seeking.
“To be able to get up, go into my studio and write music is all I need,” Smith said. “All the material things don’t help you make good music.”
Being a part of a small record label has its advantages – it gives you the opportunity to touch people, Smith said, and with the Internet the audience is only getting bigger and bigger. Commercialization is a major part of the reason so much of mainstream rap and hip-hop sounds the same.
“In the beginning of hip-hop music, if someone came out with something sounding exactly like what another artist had already done, they got dissed,” Smith said.
Today it’s in the duplication, but as part of a small label, Smith can get direct experience with his audience, and he is able to experiment to find out what works. Not only that, but as a producer for his own label, he is completely in control of his music, artistically and otherwise, which allows him the freedom to cultivate originality and depth in his art.
“The apex of a good song is when it is something that I like and something the listener can sing along to,” Smith said. “Above all else, the duty is to the art.”
