New Orleans rapper Dee-1, whose real name is David Augustine Jr, is not your average hip hop star.
Unholy Alliance: How African-American Stars & Big Alcohol Exploit Black People
Dee-1 is outstanding in different ways.
On the IOGT International Global Voices blog portal, there’s a great story about how African-American super stars are exploiting the black community through collaborating with and endorsing of alcohol brands.
Dee-1 however, is not one of them and chose to walk a different path – socially more conscious and wholesome.
Augustine has described that path in his anthem “3’s Up”:
Be real, be righteous, be relevant.”
Some of Augustine’s lines read like this:
Eating wack rappers alive, I’m the hip hop piranha
And when I say wack, I don’t mean your rhymes wack
I mean your content sucks, I can’t co-sign that…”
Augustine first started rapping in college and decided to make it a career after experiencing how much influence hip-hop stars had over the students he taught after graduating from college. Dee-1 has released a blockbuster track that became an anthem for the student loan crisis in the United States. And Dee-1 features other wholesome videos on his YouTube channel, including “Why I have never drunk alcohol.”
Augustine says of the hip-hop industry, per MarketWatch:
We need some more balance.”
He has started a conversation about youth’s relation to alcohol, through telling his own story in a personal video message on YouTube. And he invites for comments and stories from viewers.
