DAMEON
For D's photoshoot, he asked FYPC to meet at an underground studio tucked between the 10 freeway and Washington Blvd (East). We tried our best to create a set of photographs that really capture D's wisdom as one of our most experienced featured artists and community members---Edward Castro, our Creative Director, shared that this was one of his favorite photoshoots because it was the first time he entered a professional recording studio.
D was just 12 years old when he first hopped on a stage and performed. He was a student at Washington Middle School in Pasadena. The moment he grabbed the mic, he knew he was meant to be there. He was doing what moved him most.
D went by the name RULA. “R – U – LA enough to mess with us?” D chuckles and reminisces on the good old days.
He continued to pursue music but switched up the setting. He performed at cyphers—a gathering of rappers and beatboxers making music together. It was a lot of freestyling. D earned his respect through years of cypher sessions. “Cyphers are the essence of Hip-Hop. We feed off each other’s energy.” After years of being the music game and earning his badges at his cypher sessions, at the age of 21 he added Mista to the mix, it was now Mista Rula to all his friends and foes in the cypher: he had earned it.
He continued to perform at cyphers and really focused on freestyling, both inside and outside of cypher sessions. This was one of the first pieces to his healing process. “You feel like crap when you’re in the streets. You have no worth, no value. People appreciated me in the cypher. I knew this was just the start.” ​​​​​​​​​
"This was the golden era of Hip-Hop, I was molded by the forefathers---these were all my teachers. They educated me on the game of music and helped me zone out of my own problems."
- D
During his time at the Sycamore’s group home, a staff member named Derrick Johnson changed everything for D. He introduced D to big name acts in the world of music. The music Derrick shared molded and influenced his music process. Some of these artists included Mobb Deep, Run DMC, Slick Rick, and Doug E. Fresh.
Derrick saw something special in D. His writing, his flow, he saw his talent and passion for music. “You should do it! Go after music!” D used this as fuel to pursue his passion for music. Someone believed in him. “I’m going in. That was all I needed at the time.” This came off the heels of his father promising him he would be dead or in jail by the age of 18. These thoughts floated in D’s head until he met people who really believed in him. People like Derrick. “To have somebody who doesn’t have the responsibility to give a shit but does anyway, to have that person encourage me to pursue music – I needed it.”
The mountains of overwhelming feelings and highs that D experienced when creating music was something else—it is really all powerful. “In foster care, you’re not trying to tell everybody your story, you stay to yourself, but on stage and when I was in my zone, it wasn’t about being in foster care. It was about being an MC. This is heaven right here.”
When D hops on stage, or taps in on cyphers, he blocks everything out. "It wasn’t just about forgetting everything else going on, but healing in the process.” He noticed these healing properties right away. He let it all out in the form of rhymes, jokes, sounds. It was his best outlet. When he opened his mouth, feelings he didn’t know where there inside of him, started to surface. It wasn't always pretty, his process reminding him of the tough times, but with enough trust in the music—it always brought him back to the warm moments he never wants to forget.
​
When D was living in the Sycamore residency, there were a total of 35 young boys sharing a space. “It got very chaotic with so many people and energy floating around. I found my peace after lights out.” Every night, only a few lights remained on. Under one of those lights lay D. He was breaking the rules but he wasn’t hurting anyone. In fact, he was healing. On one particular night, a residency staff member found D's light on in the middle of the night, only to find D writing away. The staff member smiled and whispered: “Do your thing.” Nights when the rest of the world slept, was the only time D could really escape the chaos. He would lay in bed and just zone out from all the troubles going on around him. “I could just write and be at peace. This was my escape.” D would spend his nights writing away and didn’t close his eyes until he was happy with what he wrote. “I wasn’t writing anything life changing but the feeling and act of putting pen to pad was everything.”
​
D "turned" his writing into an "art practice" when he began writing poetry, using it as a space to dive deeper into his emotions. He wrote a lot of poetry and found it had a more profound effect in helping reach his peace. As a foster youth trying to make sense of his parents telling him they no longer wanted him, poetry was the tool to help him cope with his feelings of abandonment.
As he got older, D realized poetry and rap combined was a way to really lean into the struggle. Into his struggle. He dipped into it and used it. “As I got older, I noticed how messed up the system was. I gotta do something to change the things happening in foster care.” And so, he wrote about it. He wrote about it for those who needed it. He was healing as he let it out and wanted others to feel the same effects.
D is a wordsmith combatting all forms of control placed on the foster youth identity through his sharp pen skills. Poetry, rap, and even screenwriting—he sees our identities as something to be re-written, literally. Through his writing, D built a film Trials and Tribulations, using the medium of picture storytelling to highlight his struggles in foster care, while emphasizing the most meaningful moments he experienced while in the system. It's all a true reflection of D's goal to not only highlight the foster youth identity, but display it in all of its glory.
​​D does not write to the sound of music. He can hear the beat in his head when he’s writing. “I know the count and what it’s going to be like. I go on my own and zone out when writing.” He does this with the intention of focusing on what he’s writing with as little influence from the outside world as possible. He focuses on what’s inside. On what really needs to come out: “Music isn’t a distraction, but the guy who created the beat on his own time had his own process. He created the beat on his own time. I don’t think he had music or anything playing on the outside. I need that same alone time to write. It is my responsibility to put meaning to it.”
​
D has been surrounded by his same trusted crew for 25 years now! All of his teammates bring something different to the mix, but always working together to make their ideas come true. Inside their crew is a place where everyone can be themselves. They have the freedom and space to initiate their own ideas. “Crew is everything. They are my foster brothers at these sessions. I live and die by my crew, my cats.”
D is always open to sharing his music. People have been interested in bringing him aboard on their tracks, labels, and studio sessions. There’s been instances where producers even tried to get D without the rest of the crew. D laughed in their faces when it happened. “Ha! Well they ain’t getting me then. That’s my family.” D is always looking out for his crew. “It’s always them first. As long as they shine, I’ll be good.” It's D's selflessness that makes him stand out from the others that the creative economy implodes—when everyone is fighting one another for an opportunity, D uses his platform to make sure everyone wins.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
D was hired at LAUSD 18 years ago and is still excited to go to work every day. It doesn’t feel like work to him, he really enjoys it. His kickoff at LAUSD also inspired him to take his writing to new places. “I always saw myself as one of the kids and that’s how I connected. The best way to evoke change is to think in a way that encompasses each other’s experiences as one. Whatever you’re going through, I’m going through.” There was a substitute who saw how well D worked with kids and needed to know his secret. How did he do it!? His story left the substitute beyond impressed. She was touched by D’s past and how beautiful his presence was. “You need to make a movie!”
At 30 years old he didn’t think much of it, but when someone tells him he can do something, he goes all in. Sometimes all it takes is someone believing in him.
He then got his hands on a burnt CD that held a copy of Final Draft. He had 21 days to write the screenplay, and after the 21 days, the CD would no longer work. He wrote his first ever screenplay in 17 days. 110 pages. “It was a horrible draft but I got it all out. That’s all that mattered.”
“I shared it at Journey House and Jerry, who worked at Journey House during those years, connected me with his stepson John who was a writer for The Streets of San Francisco, and 90210. He schooled me through email and phone calls. He taught me everything.”
D had the fire and burn to write and was told countless times he could write. He had the hard part down. All that was left to do was learn the structure and formatting of a script. “Once I heard that, it was over. I was quick with turning out scripts.”
Broken Bridges, the name of his film at the time, went through the ringer – multiple table reads, different directors hands, they all loved it, but the movie industry is filled with some bad apples, looking to extract from D's story. “They tried to auction my story for a dollar! Is my life only worth a dollar to you!?” 17 years later, with his constant push to keep his story, his—the 110 page script finally became a film, Trials and Tribulations. It has been played at various festivals across the country: Los Angeles, Harlem, Texas, and Atlanta. ​
Outside of his creative work, D's love for his children is his priority. “My kids are my greatest gift and to see them blossom is surreal. It’s rare to have the blessings I have, the gems I have. They inspire everything. My decision to go back to school, make films, whatever it might be, they are the cause of it. They are my biggest band-aid to life. Everything I went through will always be with me but I think about it less with them around.” This love and attention for his children and music have naturally blended with one another, almost like it runs in their veins.
At just two years old, his son was beat boxing to Vapors by Biz Markie in his car seat. His son might catch the bug to create because he loves music just as much as his dad does. His daughter also likes to write, but D applies no pressure! He wants them to find and pursue what they enjoy at their own pace. Whether it be music or anything else, "I am going to be here to support them and do my part in breaking generational cycles of trauma."
D will never let go of the music he grew up with but he cannot ignore today’s top artists. His son is the gauge to this era’s hip hop. “I know things are changing and although I will always be fueled by the artists I grew up with, I respect his ear and respect the hustle of today’s artists.” Some artists from today he can rock with are J Cole and Kendrick Lamar—D naturally gravitated towards their storytelling skills and the larger messages you'll find in their layered raps.
“Music is not an instant gratification industry. You must put in the work and be patient,” D speaks this with his soul. He has been working at becoming better at his craft and knows it takes work to get to where one wants to be—he has no end date on his creativity. “There was a time I was young and homeless, I would find anything I could write on. It was almost always a brown bag or a loose leaf paper. Anything worked...Ideally, we all want the best but as I look back on it, I’m blessed. I’m blessed to have survived my family’s negligence and the heat from the streets. We are only going up.”