Nashville, Tennessee—country music capitol of the world. Not the spot you'd find a well-armed rhyme-slinger hoping to make a name for himself in the fire-fight of the hip-hop industry... right? Wrong.
Meet Dee Goodz, born Donald Goode, a Music City local and Alabama A&M graduate with the Ameri-can-do attitude to make such a dream come true. Fresh off the release of his debut mixtape "College Kids & Dropouts Volume 1", he sat down with Entertainment Editor Charlie Kesslering to drop some knowledge.
Versus Magizine: What artists have influenced your style/sound? You've probably drawn comparisons to Lil' Wayne...
Dee Goodz: Ha! Wow! Wayne? Really? I take that as a huge compliment, but I just love music. I think we both share that common factor. I'm really a fan a 90's east coast hip-hop. I try to pay a tad bit of homage in my music. But if I could sum it up... I'd want Kanye's emotion, keep it 'playa' like T.I, the swagger of a Fabolous, business mind of Jay-Z, creativity of Andre 3000, and be lyrically inclined as a Lupe.
VM: How do you feel about the state of rap these days?
DG: Kinda glad the way it is. For the simple fact that, people will hopefully start doing music for the love and not for revenue. Money has saturated and killed the creativity in hip-hop. If I could I would do music even if I made no income off of it. I love it that much. Music changed my entire outlook on life.
VM: You represent College Kids and Dropouts—what's that? What's its mission?
DG: Everyone in the world is a college kid or a dropout within a sense. Either you went to school or you didn't. [It's]our own secret way of addressing the public at hand. We feel like we are on both sides of the fence—for we have the ambition and intelligence of a college student, but the laziness of a dropout, in that we don't wanna ever work for anyone without going for our dreams. Therefore, we took our lifestyle and decided to put it out for the world to see... and called it Collegekidsdropout.com.
VM: You've said that you "don't think that school gives you success, but... tells you what you want to do." What do you mean by that?
DG: School is set up for you to gain the knowledge and understanding to become a successful individual at whatever niche or major you choose. Once you gain that understanding it's when you should make into a reality. For some it takes one year, for others four years and a degree.
VM: What's the goal of this mixtape?
DG: To put the demographic of Nashville into my world. Change the game of music from less gun clap-hyped rap to real life. Not saying that the gangster or drug motivated music of our past was totally fake but, due to gentrification stories, our settings have sort of altered. I wanna be the gateway to real hip-hop within our city.
VM: Why did you bring your dream to Nashville?
DG: I'm in a sense from here. Been here since high school. I feel that the city is ready, just needs someone to act as the martyr.
VM: Does Nashville have a solid hip-hop scene? Or are you trying to build one?
DG: Yeah, it's a rap scene. I'm not knocking what's been here, just trying to put my mark in the game. I feel I have something to bring to the table. Nashville has a solid hip-hop scene.
VM: This mixtape is called "Volume 1"... what's next for CKDO?
DG: The world... Naw, just new beginnings to add to the long story of a great ending. I plan to keep pumping out the music as long as God allows, and Collegekidsdropout.com will keep delivering the flavor long as we're alive.
