Introducing Dot Demo: Uniting Hip Hop’s Past and Present in the South Bronx

A refrigerator stocked with beer and soda whirs at one end of Derek Ward's basement apartment in his grandfather's Soundview home, while thick clouds of smoke waft from an alcove repurposed as a bedroom.

This basement, dark and sparsely furnished, is where the magic happens for Ward, the 23-year-old rapper also known as Dot Demo. This is where the up-and-coming artist writes his music and designs for his street-wear label, U7tra. It's also a refuge for fellow creatives in the neighbourhood. His friends from Jahkil Culture, a small clothing label, sit silently on Ward's bed hand-painting hundreds of baseball caps to sell online.

Despite these modest surroundings, Ward may be on the brink of something big. His most recent album "Outer Body Experience"—don't question the grammar—also known as "OBE," has thousands of plays on Soundcloud, and has received coverage from several big music outlets in New York. He also has another project in the works with South Bronx hip-hop legend, Lord Finesse.

A self-described introvert, Ward is soft-spoken, mixing street-smart cool with wide-eyed naïveté. He doesn't like networking events –"I'm far from that person;" or the music industry in New York City − "it's like dog eat dog." But if his career takes off, he may have to get used to both.

"He got his own lane that he's in," said Lord Finesse, who produced some of the 1990s' biggest rap songs (including Notorious B.I.G.'s "Suicidal Thoughts"). "I see it being a big thing in a minute."

This "lane" combines a diverse range of sonic and ideological influences: Ward draws on the history of neighborhood legends like Big Pun—who grew up in Soundview Houses, the skillful jazz sampling of Detroit beat maker J Dilla, and the eccentric soul sounds of Erykah Badu, and combines it with a flow that is thoroughly new. His lyrics interweave street slang – references to girls, drugs and money – and nods to powerful afro-centric and Five Percent Nation themes.

Photo by Humza Deas from Demo's campaign with New York label BELIEF. 

"Straight out the basement, black to basics," he said on "Roberto Clemente," the album's first track. It was a call for simplicity that is backed up by the song's minimal production, which layers a discordant chime melody, 808 drums and a driving bass-line. The song's refrain, "Get that base, Roberto Clemente," a dual reference to the legendary baseball player and base, which is crack cocaine, is contrasted with an otherworldly allusion to ancient Egyptian religion and civilization. "No kings in the tomb, just gateway to god."

"Indigenous Man," the first single from OBE, also mixes drugs and religion – the gritty and the divine. It begins with a sample from "Invasion" by 1970s roots reggae musician, Burning Spear. "They took us away from Africa, with the intention to steal our culture," Burning Spear sings hauntingly, voicing a Marcus Garvey-inspired sentiment that can be felt in America as much as in Jamaica.

"I'm living like I've got the seven pillars in my trunk, loaded and drunk," Ward raps in the second verse—another cheeky double entendre. We may never know if the seven pillars he's transporting are bricks of cocaine, or the seven pillars of Islam… or both.

The track is backed by a heavy 90s boom-bap beat, which sounds eerily similar to "Shook Ones" by Queensbridge rappers Mobb Deep, layered with the bass melody from art rock musician Lou Reed's "Take a Walk on The Wild Side."

This unique mix of sounds and ideas stems from Ward's upbringing. He's a child of the 90s New York hip-hop generation. Born and raised in Soundview, he spent his early childhood living in Stevenson Commons, one of the neighbourhood's six large city housing projects where his parents had lived and met as teenagers. He went to Adlai E. Stevenson High School, where his parents, aunts and uncles attended.

Adlai Stevenson High School, which was shuttered by the Department of Education in 2009 for low test scores and graduation rates, has a rich and important history in the world of Bronx hip-hop. Afrika Bambaataa, one of the creators of the hip-hop genre, attended the school in the early 1970s. According to Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation, a series of racially charged gang fights at Adlai Stevenson led Bambaataa to form The Universal Zulu Nation, a seminal afrocentric hip-hop movement.

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Ward grew up around hip hop's other foundational ideological movement, the Five Percent Nation. Also known as the Nation of Gods And Earths, the Five Percent Nation was founded in Harlem in 1964 as an offshoot of the Nation of Islam and entered the mainstream in the 1990s, when it was adopted by many of the decade's biggest hip-hop artists. Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, The Wu-Tang Clan and Brand Nubian were all converts.

Ward's grandfather and uncles were members, and Ward gravitated towards it as a teenager. He found the teachings "empowering" and references to them are littered throughout his lyrics. Five Percent teachings are communicated orally, rather than using scripture, and involve memorizing the Nation of Islam's 120 lessons, along with a system called the Supreme Mathematics, which assigns a conceptual meaning to every number from 0 to 9. Much of hip-hop slang has roots in Five Percent teachings, including the phrases "What up, G?" and "Word is bond."

His clothing label U7tra uses a 7 in place of an L, referencing the Supreme Mathematics' symbol for God.

Ward credits his grandfather, Frank Maxey, a former Black Panther and later a dedicated Five Percenter, with informing his worldview. "My grandfather cracked the code to civilization and passed it down like a rogue mason," he raps on the track "Indigenous Man."

This influence brought both conflict and enlightenment to the family dynamic. "He's super against certain ways of teaching," Ward told me. "He's all 'fuck them people over there teaching you them lies at school. Read these books at home and educate yourself.'"

"The God left lessons on my dresser," Ghostface Killah rapped on the Wu-Tang Clan's influential song, "Can it All be So Simple," describing the way he was given the Five Percent Nation's 120 lessons. One day Ward came home from school to find that, just like the song, Maxey had left him a copy of the 120 lessons on top of his dresser.

His parents had different plans for his future. "It was like a triangle," Ward said.  His mother, who graduated from Tuskegee University, was determined that Ward stay in school, while his father, who Ward described as being involved with the Bloods gang, encouraged him to get a different kind of education altogether. "He'd be like: 'Where the fuck you going? School? Let's go over here real quick…'"

Luckily, Ward managed to navigate his way through high school despite this conflicting advice. His knowledge of these different facets of Bronx culture is what makes his music special. "At the end of it, I was really reading and getting self-educated and even then I still passed a lot," he said.

Photo by Humza Deas from Demo's campaign with New York label BELIEF. 

Recently, Ward's unique sound caught the ear of music manager Ian Schwartzman, who manages some of New York's most successful hip-hop acts—most notably, DJ Premier. "I stumbled upon him while searching on YouTube for new music," Schwartzman said. "He's unique, he's actually rapping about real topics and his music has content."

After listening to Ward's first mixtape, "Delta Theory," Schwartzman decided to introduce him to Lord Finesse. The pairing made perfect sense. Finesse, who rose to prominence as a rapper and producer the 1990s, grew up in Forest Houses in the Morrisania neighbourhood of the South Bronx. He began rapping as part of the South Bronx's "Digging In The Crates" crew in 1990, but moved into producing full-time a few years later. He often works with up-and-coming artists. On a podcast last year his friend and DJ at Hot 97 Peter Rosenberg described him as "an unofficial A&R."

Finesse, too, was impressed with Ward's original take on New York hip hop, and quickly started on some beats with him. "Working with an artist like D Demo is dope cause you get to just work with a creative mind," he said.

This old-meets-new South Bronx duo has a lot of potential, despite only being in its infancy. A seasoned mentor might be just what Ward needs. "I think we've got something special," Finesse said. "There's no gimmicks out the Bronx. It's like, either you got it or you don't."

While Finesse, who has settled in the Bronx after years of touring, still finds inspiration in the borough—"I think a lot of ideas come to me here"—Ward is itching to see the world. "I love New York, but I've been here for so long," he said.

Despite the upsides of Soundview's tight-knit community, Ward fears its trappings.  He has seen friends and family members get stuck in the neighbourhood. "We call people 'blockstitutionalized' over here," he said. "It's like you're so caught up in the area, and the corner and all that extra shit, that you never want to leave."

After his next release, he said, he wants to go to Los Angeles. But if and when he does take off, there's no doubt that he'll take a part of the Bronx with him. "I feel like I'm in New York," he said. "Even if I'm not in New York.

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