Short Dean: Takin’ Kids to School

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Short Dean: Takin’ Kids to School
Is hip hop’s G.O.A.T. right here in Daytona?
2006-01-02
Article Written by: Bryan Munson

The rapper, or emcee, as was the position’s official title long ago, is supposed to be many things. At or near the top of that “to-be” list reside traits like charisma, skill and legitimacy, traits that the emcee must retain and continually sharpen if he or she wishes to remain on top (the Ebonic translation reads he better stay fresh, dope and/or real if he’s tryin' to be paid). But if every rapper worth a damn possesses at the very least this important trifecta, what then makes the rapper a candidate for the title vacated by the retirement of hip hop’s self-proclaimed “best rapper alive” (Jay-Z), the oft-debated G.O.A.T., or Greatest of All-Time?

Well for one, it’s a passion for performance and the written word, a solemn dedication to the craft of emceeing where the performer brings life to the poetry and transforms the human voice from a modern version of an African chant into an instrument. Additionally, it’s an innate ability to relate, either by experience or a God-given natural instinct that allows separation from bias and truth. And it’s probably saying what needs to be said in a way that is the definition of original: (adj) existing first or before other people or things; completely new, and so not copied or derived from something else.

Yet if you think about it, everything is derived from somewhere, and hip hop is no different – it is the urban culture’s reaction to the American experience; it’s what is said that defines excellence. Within the culture of hip hop, much is seen and heard, but more goes unseen and washes away before ever being heard from again. But it is there that Daytona’s own Antonio Caston, better known as Short Dean, wishes to distinguish himself.

At five foot four, Dean is a bit unassuming. His baggy, but crisp looking clothes hide a frame that in high school benched upwards of 300 pounds and helped him win a state wrestling championship. His smoke-strained and southern twanged vocals explode on record, lending a raspy quality to lines that switch from braggadocios pomp and tales of sex to hints of remorse and betterment. His ambivalence and swagger belie eyes that will swing across the room lazily and suddenly light up when talking about the government’s wrongdoings. So: could those qualities be the blueprint for hip hop’s G.O.A.T.?

“I feel I’m one of the best lyricists out there,” Dean says, almost yelling as he leans on a bar stool inside Earwaves Recording. It’s a rather cold night, and the door to the outside is open as co-owner and proprietor Ray Grimard comes and goes, measuring and marking soundproof tiles for the studio’s second vocal booth he’s assembling. Engineer and co-owner Gil Dubois is sitting at the boards mixing one of Dean’s latest tracks for his upcoming album.

“And I think my music speaks for itself. If you put the Top 10 out there, I think I’d be on that list, people just ain’t heard me yet. When I come to the shows and perform, it’s the truth. When people hear me say stuff about my days gangbangin’, it’s the truth. I lived it. Any time I’m rhyming is me bringing life experiences or cinematic interpretations of life experiences to light.”

But wait. Did he just say gangbanging? Isn’t that a little too cliché to be original? Perhaps, but many now consider the white rapper from Detroit to be the greatest of all time; noting that while living in rough neighborhoods, he was never in a gang. But just about every other emcee that graces hip hop’s Who’s Who list was either down or in some way associated with gang life, from Tupac Shakur to the Notorious B.I.G. to Run DMC. The streets have a way of taking America’s urban youth at any given time, sometimes rolling them around a bit and allowing them to walk away with a newfound lease on life while other times it offers nothing more than a jail term or a six-foot plunge into the ground.

So how does one go from the age of seven and rapping with his sister to the hard-knock life?

“We called it jumpin’ off the porch,” Dean says. “When I was 13 and living in Iowa, me and my cousin joined gangs. I was middle-class and staying with my grandmother, not in the projects, none of that. But I wanted to see what the streets had to offer. It was a young black man’s experience in the mid-west. If you lived in a hood where there was a gang, you either joined them, were cool with them or were terrorized by them. I was in GD Folks. It’s a national gang, so wherever I moved after that, Colorado, St. Louis, I was good.”

As the after-school special would go, the young black man does his dirt, sees the light and turns his life around, right? Well, to a degree. It wasn’t an easy process, and the fundamentals involved usually go over the heads of those who haven’t lived it, Dean says.

“With my gang, there was development and knowledge. It’s not just the things you see on TV. There were opportunities that were offered to me that had to be grasped in order to be effective. For me, the big one was the Five P’s: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. It becomes an aspect of who you are and short dean that’s why I chose to better my life right now. I look at myself as a role model to the other youngsters that are going through the same stuff I went through. They don’t look up to businessmen or doctors.”

Well, why not?

“They can’t relate to them. If you’re poor and you’ve been poor all your life, how do you relate to a Jaguar and a suit? You can’t. The education has to start at some level, at every level. For things to change it has to take a concerted effort by the parents, in education, in our way of life and from inside the person. I think the parents play the most important role.”

What makes Dean sound like every other hip hop cliché is what he believes separates him from most of what is heard by the mainstream audience today: authenticity, for one, because most claim to have it but don’t; and additionally, in light of a widely known problem, he consistently offers thoughts towards a solution. It’s a unique (perhaps an original?) paradox that could potentially vault Dean upwards and past millions of names on an ever-growing list of Real Slim Shady’s.

For today’s youth, names like Spice 1, Smif 'N Wesson, Boot Camp Klik and NWA are passed off as nothing more than rumors and has-beens. But in Dean’s era, these names were street disciples, street prophets – visionaries that had their peers and the generation after them wanting to do it the same or better. And it also had future hip hop generations learning from them. Critics are quick to point out that the good guy-gone bad-come-back-role-model is a worn-out storyline that the industry has seen too many times before. Because really, who’s to say that the speaker is the real deal and believes/lives his words? Dean concedes that point, and points to the bottom-line as the problem: money.

“When I hear a beat, I write to what it’s telling me,” he says. “If it’s slow, has some strings, something that sounds real heartfelt, that’s what I’m gonna do. I have a song called “Lord, I Apologize” that’s one of my favorite pieces. Those are the songs I like best because they’re all real. They’re more Antonio, than Short Dean. But I like to see people party and have fun, too, so a lot of the time, the beats I rock and the lyrics that end up on them are more cinematic, like I was saying before. I’ll hear something that reminds me of Scarface, so I’ll drop a verse with that in mind.

“The thing I think people forget, though, is that hip hop’s most important function is that it works as an informational tool. It lets people know what’s going on in the streets, even if it’s over exaggerated. The over exaggeration is good, because it helps the artist feed their families and make money, which is, of course, the bottom line. I can’t hate them for that.

“But it’s the people like Eminem, Nas, Snoop and Outkast that are the artists I really get down with because I think they’re most real about the culture and what they represent. I like 50 Cent’s music, but I don’t like his message. The repetitiveness of it gets to be too much. I grew up listening to Too $hort, and he’s real repetitive, but with 50, I don’t know. He makes a lot of money but it’s not reality. The violence, the claims… things of that nature. At some point you gotta diversify yourself as an artist.”

But isn’t that all the cinematic type of stuff to keep his name in people’s mouth and their money flowing into his pockets? It’s a complex paradox where lines are often blurred but not blurred enough. Dean talks of making records that reflect both sides of life: the fantasy of excess littered with personal truths, and the personal truths littered without the excess of fantasy. It’s there that, again, he wants to assert his difference from the rest.

“I want to be the next great black leader after Malcolm X and Martin Luther King,” he says emphatically, his eyes swinging away from the mix on the computer screen, suddenly burning as he puts down his Mountain Dew. “The music is only the gateway, an outlet to reach the people I want to reach. I’ve got all sorts of plans for what I want to do with my life beyond music.

“Right now, I’m getting my degree in accounting at DBCC. I do masonry work to support my music. I have always loved school, regardless of how many streets I ran. I don’t know where I’ll be a year from now, but I know it will be forward. And the same goes for my plans outside of music. I want to get involved in charities, informational and uplifting community sessions with community leaders and be in a position to tell the truth. A lot of people don’t know the truth about themselves, other people, the government and other things that happened in the past that affect us today and things that will go on to affect our future.

“Take for instance Kanye West. He’s making good music, it doesn’t all sound the same, and he’s creative. But people hear the comments he made about George Bush and get mad. It’s how Kanye feels, so let him speak. We might not like it, but we also don’t have to listen to it. I want to be in that position one day. You listen to Bush talk on a regular basis and his whole speech doesn’t make sense. Metaphors and similes instead of what the real issue is. Kanye, like myself, is living the black man’s experience. People don’t like to hear things like that, but it’s the truth.”

Unassuming no longer, and without question impassioned, Dean emphatically marches over to the screen to check out Dubois’ progress. He sits down in the chair, leans back and listens. A beat from his producer of choice Randy Cruz bumps through two sets of speakers and Dean’s smooth, raspy delivery glides over the beat. While he’d more than likely enjoy a beer, the leftover Dew is drained and set down as he compliments Dubois on the sound of the project.

short dean As everyone heads out of the studio for the night, several things have been made clear – another claim to hip hop’s sacred throne has been lobbied, opinions have been aired and the studio is left smelling of intensity. It’s an electric smell; intensity is, mixed together with the scent of new wood, paint, sweat, beer, cologne and re-circulated air. It’s more a residue than a feeling in an artist. And while many questions remain, there are no questions left about Short Dean’s character or convictions. As emphatically as he makes his points, he will shake your hand or affirm he likes something with a polite, playful and cocky “Yes, surr.” His attention shifts precisely where he means it to, everything calculated and focused. It is that decisiveness that often defines successful people, and what separates them from a long line of others that might be equally talented and driven to excel.

But will it be enough for this rising Daytona star to convince the masses that his story is worth being heard? They’ll have to check the music, and more importantly, the man to find out. Because for the artist, that is exactly what hip hop is all about: a reaction looking for someone else to communicate with in order to find peace.

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Short Dean: Takin’ Kids to School