Nostalgia is a tricky thing. Recent talk of an American dance music ‘revival’ by way of Drake’s latest and some fuss over Beyoncé biting classic Robin S belies what has long been clear if you knew where to look: fresh, innovative dance music never went away, and Black America never lost its place as the home its best producers and DJs, from AceMoMa to Ash Lauryn. Moreover, these artists tend to be more knowledgeable and supportive of dance music’s roots in funk and disco – a lineage that goes deeper than fodder for a few pop radio and club hits, but instead has long played a wider role in community-building and therapeutic release in a country perenially focused on black disenfranchisement and discrimination. Their art isn’t so much cheap-shot pastiche as a call for a better future that simultaneously pays homage to its storied past – and that makes it the perfect escapism for the struggles of the present.
Davon Bryant AKA Dreamcastmoe is a key example. Both a singer and a producer raised in the fertile musical grounds of Washington D.C., Bryant name-checks inspirations from hometown funk heroes Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway, who possessed such prodigal vocal and melodic talents that their songs of love and struggle – despite each artists’ own unfathomable personal tragedies – has long produced a unique joy that has propelled house parties for generations. Dreamcastmoe also references a love of the heavy drums and spinning dancers of Go-Go, a unique form of DC-funk focused entirely on the party and so aptly named because the rhythms just keep going and going.
Such are fitting influences for a singer who came up as a drummer and kept his obvious vocal talents to himself until his early 20s, when he finally felt comfortable enough to start recording. That one of his demos eventually fell into the hands of Andrew Morgan, the semi-mythical recluse behind the cult DC-based label Peoples Potential Unlimited, known to diggers as a key outpost for rare American funk, seems almost like fate – especially since Dreamcastmoe had once met Morgan years earlier at an obscure, unrecorded D.C. Boiler Room he describes to Clash as one of the “best parties ever.”
Since his lauded debut record on PPU, Dreamcast has gone on to release a smattering of projects of all-encompassing 80s funk, lo-fi vocal house, 90s R&B and easy-going rap, which works as well in the club as it does in the bathtub, the crib, or the car. Holding all of it together is his unmistakable voice, some funky drums, and one of those god-given gifts for spontaneous melody that blessed both Young Thug and Prince, resulting in a legit do-it-all capable of killer late-night romance jams, peak-time club bangers and goofy weekend shop car bops – in other words, he’s an artist that seriously deserves your attention. On a laid-back summer morning, ahead of his forthcoming release on Ghostly International’s new label Spectral Sound, Clash went deep with Dreamcastmoe from his front porch, touching on everything from the remarkable party that spawned his debut record, the unique influences of D.C., the importance of honesty in his music, and much more.
—
—
Dreamcast, thanks for speaking with us. Let’s start off with your influences and the city of Washington D.C., where you grew up. You’ve cited Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway as big inspirations. Was that stuff you grew up with at home? When did you first begin hearing them?
I think they are the ethos of what D.C. sounds and feels like. So even if I didn’t really hear them at home, I would have heard them on the streets. Donnie came to me through researching and growing up and loving music. I would hear certain records on the radio and I’d be like, damn, I wonder who that is. He did a lot of writing for Roberta Flack, so I heard the records that they had done together first, which were a little bit bigger – the records where he was just featuring. So then I looked him up. But Marvin Gaye is just somebody you hear in D.C. He’s such an iconic figure in D.C. culture. He represented so much for me, just watching videos of him. He was somebody who didn’t have to rap or anything, he could just be himself as a singer.
Have you always been singing and making music? Do you remember the first thing you recorded?
I started playing percussion at three, in a non-denominational church that my mother and her wife went to. It was a very open format Afro-centric church, so I learned how to play Djembe and the Congas and the drum-set. I actually didn’t really record my voice until I was in my 20s. I would try to do little things here and there on GarageBand in school, but I didn’t have a microphone, so it stayed on my laptop. But I would sing in the hallways going from class to class when I thought no one was listening. I’ll never forget, actually, one of my classmates, Alicia, came up to me later on the bus home and was like “I heard you singing. You should really sing more…” That was in my 11th grade year. After that I stopped singing in the hallways. I was like, I don’t think I want to do this anymore! Laughs. So then I would just sing in the shower – when I thought no one was listening, but that was it. I was too shy to sing elsewhere.
So did you really think of yourself as a drummer back then?
Yeah, I always thought of myself as both a percussionist and a producer. I’ve loved making beats since the eighth grade when I first got my hands on a laptop. I would cut up samples on VirtualDJ without having any turntables or anything. And I would just get so excited about making my own tracks. One of my first inspirations was DJ AM, who was in that crazy plane crash with Travis Barker. I remember seeing his Attention Deficit mixes on MySpace, in like 2006, where he would play 10 seconds of a song and then cut the lyrics into another track where it was mixed perfectly. It was like TikTok but in 2000-fucking-5. I thought that was sick, that this dude was thinking about music so differently, thinking about how the words could jump in from one track to another. I remember he would jump from a Run DMC track into Dolly Parton because the lyrics aligned perfectly.
What was your first encounter with dance music?
It was all around me growing up. Before I was born my mom worked at one of the biggest gay clubs on the East Coast, called Tracks. They actually blew it up to build a baseball stadium about 15 years ago. But it was the spot, dude. It had a volleyball court and a Jacuzzi and all that. It was amazing. So my mother loved house music, you know? I was growing up in a gay household and it was all around me. My mother will wake up on Sundays and will just be rockin’ it, and we would go to cookouts where DJs would be playing it. So house music is in my blood for sure.
—
—
I heard that you first met the Beautiful Swimmers guys (whose production is actually on this new record) and Andrew Morgan from Peoples Potential Unlimited, who released your debut record, at a Boiler Room show? Is that true?
Yeah. That’s a story that a lot of people outside of D.C. don’t know, actually. This was early, like back when the Boiler Room was really, really hot. Not to say they’re not hot now, you know – they’re still pumping. But this was when everybody in every city – all they cared about was being in a Boiler Room.
At that point, my whole life pretty much revolved around videography and photography, like I used to do some photography for the Washington Post and so on… And I got a last minute call where someone asked if I can be a second hand assistant for a Boiler Room production, basically to hold the camera man’s gear. But this party, man… This party was one of the f*cking sickest parties. It was inside a D.C. row house, which isn’t a huge space. And I got there on time and the first set was like a completely analogue set, but it felt like a sunset, because everything was orange; the room was orange. I don’t want to give you the idea of a noise set because it was definitely kicking. But it had all the gear on the table. And that started the night off. That set was amazing.
And following that was Andrew Morgan, right? And Andrew does not usually f*cking DJ for anyone. People offer him tens of thousands of dollars to tour. But he just doesn’t like it. No one even knows who he is. Honestly. They just know him through email. But at the time, I didn’t know that, right? I just thought it was some white dude that was DJing real quiet. He was playing these super rare records but like eating half a bologna sandwich at the same time. That’s who he is.
I actually found out years later that someone set the heat to like 90 degrees in the house, so everyone was sweating the entire night. It was just a sweaty f*cking mess. And once the Beautiful Swimmers came on, it was packed. It had to be about 100 people in that house, and probably like 50 more standing outside. And on top of the heat being at 90 degrees, somebody had the oven on the entire night!
It was my first time really seeing that music being played in an interracial space. I had never really been to a club where I could see people from all over really f*cking with house music. That was such a moment for me, meeting people that I probably would never have met, because they would have never come to my hood and partied the way that we partied. It opened up so many doors.
But the thing is the cameraman never showed up. The entire party went by and people were looking at me like I was supposed to be recording this shit. I’m like, no, the Boiler Room guy has all the gear! That moment started a lot of shit for us in D.C., so it’s unfortunate it was never recorded. But that’s ok, it’s a good story and I’m not sure a camera could’ve handled the heat.
—
—
Why do you think Washington D.C. in particular has produced such unique and influential music scenes, from hardcore punk to Go-Go? Were you conscious of those scenes coming up?
Well a lot of the white guys in the dance scene in D.C. actually started in punk. And on the black side, we were all listening to Go-Go music growing up. I’m sure that the Beautiful Swimmers guys knew about Go-Go but I doubt that they were going to Go-Go parties. Because those are in the hood and they’re sweaty there is a lot of sh*t going on. It’s not a place to go to if you don’t know somebody there, because D.C. for awhile in the late 80s and early 90s was f*cking dangerous. Like it was the murder capital of the world, you know? So the Go-Go scene was crazy, but it was beautiful. That’s where I learned my love for percussion. That’s where I first heard drumming, in those types of spaces… I think it’s what makes our music bounce the way that it bounces and why the drums are so prevalent and heavy. I think that’s why house music is so alive here. We love that four to the floor sh*t.
Let’s talk a bit about your process. Listening to your music, and particularly your vocals, I’m always impressed that they sound like you’re just ad-libbing off the cuff, and they feel so beautifully uncomplicated, like you just wrote them in the car or something. How do you come up with those melodies?
Thanks, yeah. I think it comes from me listening to a lot of Go-Go because most of the vocals in Go-Go are pretty sparse; they’re much more laid back. And it also comes from Donnie and Marvin. One of my early inspirations was seeing Marvin Gaye on YouTube in a video of him on a couch, just singing. When I saw that video, I realised – Oh, I don’t have to be like Chris Brown, or the Weeknd, you know, I can do whatever I want.
Because, while I can definitely sing like a Jodeci or a Ginuwine, I’m much more fascinated by being able to really set the mood in the room like a jazz club, and using my voice as one instrument and not the whole face of the music. I want to be able to set up a space. And another part of that is that every time I sing stuff live I want it to be different, and hit a line that no one’s heard on the record yet. Like in ‘L Foot, Right’ – that’s a very basic vocal on the record. But when I sing it live, I’m freestyling a lot more. And so it creates a different sort of enjoyable space for people, sort of like you said – like riding in a car.
—
—
What’s your process for writing lyrics like?
I’m still a pen and pad type of person – I don’t write on my phone. But really a lot of the lyrics that I have are off the cuff, it’s just what I’m hearing at the moment, you know, while I’m cooking up, working on the music, it’ll sort of just come to me. ‘Liquid Deep’ was actually a freestyle. It was made on this block right here! You know, I must have been feeling really good – I was definitely a little drunk. All my lyrics are very much a response to the moment, to how I’m feeling at that time.
—
—
Do you make music with a particular context or mood in mind? I’ve noticed you like to inject humour into your lyrics and videos, and I’m curious how you integrate that into your art.
It’s music for wherever people are in their life. I hate to simplify it to that point, but I’m not using an algorithm, you know; I’m not trying to come up with a phrasing that people really like, like “what’s the hot wording right now? How do I make this a thing?”
It’s really meant for people who just are going through shit and are living their life, and the wide spectrum of moments that they might have. There are days where people are feeling good, they might’ve just hung out with their friends. But then the next day, they might get some bad news. Or a family member might pass or, you know, they might have lost a job, or maybe they might meet the love of their life.
So if I keep the music honest and true to who I am, then I can reflect those moments because I’m a human too and people will respond to it. There’s not always a ton of fluidity in my projects – everything doesn’t sound the same. But that’s because my life is like a wave of emotions, with ups and downs, and one day I might not always feel like being at 126 BPM, or whatever – my mood just won’t be there. I can’t fake that, but it means my music will always reflect where I’m at.
Do you think that’s why your music tends to be so varied?
I think people are trained to believe that everything needs to have a cohesive flow. But the world around us does not treat us like that – life shakes us, you know, and I think my music tries to reflect that in an honest way. Comedy is a part of it as well, since it keeps me from going crazy. You know – we all need a good laugh, so we don’t have to realise how f*cking crazy this world is. That’s what comedy is. And comedians are like, the most depressed people in the world. They like to laugh because they have to. Now I’m not gonna say my music is funny, because I do take it seriously. But I also realised that comedy is a part of people being observant.
And I think that’s why we need it, because in this world there’s so much fake shit out there. Stuff that’s just literally made to sell and that’s it. So I’m on this label for a year, Ghostly, and they’ve given me the opportunity to just be myself and reflect and do my thing. They like me as a person – they trust me to put out music that I feel good about, just how I want to do it, and so I’m really excited about that.
—
‘Sound Is Like Water’ is out now.
Words: Louis Torracinta
