A Banner Year

Bryan Doyle

David Banner (center) accepts the Jackson Music Awards for International and Hip-Hop Entertainer of the Year at his CD release party at the Be-Bop Record Shop.

by Bryan Doyle
July 30, 2008

It’s been five years since Jackson rapper David Banner released his first major label record, “Mississippi: The Album.” Now an international superstar, he has dropped four hit albums along with more than 50 pounds from his stocky frame since then. Yet with all his success, he’s earned a number of detractors.

The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone and Paste Magazine all panned Banner for his latest album, the chart-climbing “Greatest Story Ever Told.” The primary complaint? David Banner emits two personas: the socially conscious street-poet speaking out against hip-hop’s hypocrisies and the rapper propagating them. The Jackson Free Press caught up with Banner for his thoughts on his new album, success and these conflicting messages.

You had your CD release party July 15 at Be-Bop Records in West Jackson. How did that go?
Well, pleasing Mississippi is like pleasing your father—you can gain success from the whole wide world, but if you don’t gain respect from your father, your soul isn’t complete. For me to come back and pack the place and give business back to the city, it means a lot.

Pick three tracks that define “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”
“Get Like Me”: Because that’s where I want to go: the ability to get money, the ability to attract people, the ability to get people of all ages together. Little kids love this song. Old ladies love this song. Old gangstas in the hood love this song. It brings people together. And that’s the heart of everything I do.

“B.A.N”: It’s a hood song, but it’s very political. Basically the message is, “Why should all these gangbangers fight each other when they could pool their resources and do something positive?” But it’s disguised as a hood song. It’s like hiding the medicine inside a piece of candy.

“Faith”: That is actually my life story. I never heard a song that sums up a career up to this point like that one. I know this album is a classic hip-hop album. You might have an album that’s a better rap album, but I can’t think of a rapper that can evoke emotions like “Hold On” or “Cadillac on 22s Part 2” and still be political like “B.A.N.” or “So Long.” The album is what the kids want, but also what they need.

That’s probably the biggest complaint about the album: the lack of a central core message. How do you respond to that?
Well, the title of the album is “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” No story ever has the same kind of consistency. No story stays the same. Think about the story of your day. You reach peaks and valleys so quickly, just like my album.

If all my tracks were the same, (the critics) would complain about that, too. They’d say it was too political or too serious. My album was meant to be a story. It would be tragic to focus on one side when you’re going through all emotions.

In an e-mail responding to a critical review in The Rolling Stone, you told the magazine that rougher tracks like “9mm” and “Shawty Say” were “the Playboy covers for the Bible inside.” Do you see a problem with that comparison?
At the end of the day, I’m still an artist. When all of the smoke passes, that’s who I am. Of course I want to help the community, and I do, but at the end of the day, it’s all about selling records. You can get emotional. You can make (slow ballads like) “Cadillac on 22s” my whole album, but it won’t sell. (Critics) don’t think about the artist’s life and that we’re here to sell records. They don’t recognize the hypocrisy in the audience. People say what they want, but at the end of the day, people want a song they can dance to.

Isn’t that like having your cake and eating it, too? Searching for political cred on a pop record?
Look, with the type of music I do—good or bad—you can talk sh*t, but if people don’t think you’ve been through what they been through, they won’t listen. People know my past and my history, so people trust me. I got to continue to relate to them and then do what I do to give back.

How much longer do you plan on staying in the music business?
I would much rather be acting. My only wish is with whatever I do, it’ll be creative. In my music, we don’t allow our artists to grow or to make mistakes. The way for you to stay 25 is to die at 25. In urban music we don’t allow our people to grow. I’m seeing the same in movies. What do we allow black people to be? Thugs, killers, the usual. But if we want to see a change, we have to create our own lanes to get to where we want to be.

 
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posted by Walt on 07/31/08 at 02:43 PM