S. Samuel
Southern rapper David Banner recently opened up about swaying away from only focusing on hip-hop music and placing time and energy into other business ventures.
According to Banner, there once was a time when he contemplated quitting music.
“This has actually been the best year of my life,” Banner said in an interview. “Nobody really gave me a hand, played my records or helped me after I had done all the stuff that I did and it was really hard for me. [2005’s Hurricane] Katrina was my recession. At one point, I was willing to give it all up. God forced me to find other ways of being successful. I said I would never be in that situation again, where music was the only thing, [where] rapping was the only thing that I was doing.” (Billboard)
Last year, Banner talked about the rap game losing strength in its overall message and making quality music.
“People don’t even mix and master records anymore,” Banner said in a blog post. “They don’t care about the quality of music anymore and it’s turning it into sh*t and it’s our fault. All these blog sites and magazines are doing the same thing with the bullsh*t politics. The media ain’t sh*t, they only care about screwing each other. It ain’t about how good you can rap anymore. Dope beats? What happened to that? Now it’s all about what features a rapper is going to have or who he’s having sex with. But we allowed it to happen and it’s our fault. Don’t blame it on no regions or anybody. Blame it on yourself for not liking better music, the magazines and blogs need to put out better information.” (VIBE)
In May 2010, Banner hit up SOHH to discuss being hired to make an NBA Playoffs Gatorade commercial.
“It’s not an alternate sound,” Banner told SOHH about his soul-inspired commercial score. “I’ve always used live guitars, I’ve always used soul music. And that’s what I want people to know about our generation, period. Even though we’re gonna be talking about evolution, I want to talk about our generation still having soul, that there’s people still influenced by our mothers and our fathers — the truth is, Gatorade is evolving as a product and that’s something that is very important and was important to them…They wanted to make a statement and this does.” (SOHH)
Last December, the rapper’s Death of a Popstar joint album landed on the sales chart.
Rapper David Banner and producer 9th Wonder’s Death of a Pop Star also premiered on the sales chart this week at No. 184. After one week, the duo’s new album has sold 7,300 records. (SOHH Sales Wrap)
Check out a recent David Banner interview below:
