Greedmont Park

Fashionably Late/The Invitation: Donnis Interview

Thursday, June 3, 2010 by Team Greedmont | 3 Comments; | Category: Interview, Music, Rap

Weak, spineless, fresh meat for the taking are images that usually come to mind when the word freshman is brought up. All eyes are upon them.Their careers are a long winding hallway, on one side, haters, face-to-face they dub themselves ‘fam’, congratulating you on your successes and the new lambo, but behind your back, they become your greatest oppressors, claiming that latest single was wacktastic, the tour wasn’t grand enough; it was more like a viewing, and the video for that ‘shitty’ single that was just released: cliche. And don’t even dwell on the possibility that the other side is any better, between the burning groupies, stolen chains (oh yes I did), and fears of too much success (don’t want to get labeled as being a part of the illuminati), the rap game has become a puppetry. But to play devil’s advocate, the money has too much become the motive. Lil Wayne won three Grammy’s before he officially stated “the money is the motive.” Artist nowadays come out with a mixtape, save up for a Louis Vuitton wallet, and their egos are on superdrive, and at that speed you’ve got to choose one out of two options, slow the fuck down do some serious hustling, get signed to a label or do nothing and if you’re lucky one of the singles off the mixtape will get some kind of hype and you get placed in the one-hit wonder category.

Donnis however, doesn’t fit in to any of these categories and it is so refreshing. Just a year ago, Greedmont had sat down with the humble yet motivated Atlanta native and was raving over the Snack Pack series, collaborations with 10 Deep and Karmaloop, but our conversation with the artist this past week had moved on to even greater matters such as the debut album, bidding wars between major record labels and Donnis’s take on the ups and downs that come with the industry.

He’s cocky, but not in the bad kind of way. In an industry where new artist pop up everyday, you have to be confident with your talent, there has to be something that makes you distinct, and you’ve got to break rules to get attention. Kanye West and Jay-Z have told us to kiss their whole assholes numerous time but yet their albums always go platinum, because we can’t resist their crude charm. We got to talking to Donnis about the XXL list and the different contenders that Donnis had to share the spotlight with, but he was indifferent, “I am the strongest.” He said simply, but he wasn’t quick to bring down the others in his class either. When we dared to ask him which of the artist who had made the XXL list showed the least potential, he was even quicker to correct us stating, “I don’t think that anyone is the weakest. We were all chosen for a reason. Everybody has their own strengths.”

He’s driven. While most artist are content in mailing out issues of the cover to their family and bringing it up video after video after video after video, Donnis has moved on to bigger and better things. His Fashionably Late mixtape and EP, the mixtape presented by Clinton Sparks and the EP via Atlantic Records, are scheduled to drop June 22. As if that wasn’t enough, Donnis in collaboration with Dj Holiday and DJ infamous recently came out with The Invitation mixtape.Why so many mixtapes, albums and EP’s? “To reach different fan bases,” Donnis told us. Being listed as a freshman is an honor, but as we all know out of the ten that are listed not all will make to sophomore, or even veteran status. Let’s take last years list for example: B.O.B, Kid Cudi, Walle, Curren$y, but whatever happened to Ace Hood, Cory Gunz, Blu, Mickey Factz? “I’m working my way up the ranks,” Donnis told us, “I’m now on to the path of doing bigger and better things. I’m young in the game, I’m learning. Just as a basketball player learns suicide and drills everyday to get better, I study music. It’s by playing and watching people that you learn.” And he has been learning a lot. If you listen to “Clermont Lounge” and then the recently released, Needlz produced and Rihanna sampled “Yup” it is quite evident that Donnis has grown a lot lyrically. When we asked if he had noticed the growth, he agreed, “100%, I hear the growth.” Having grown not only lyrically but also emotionally, fans and haters are going to be in for a treat when the upcoming Fashionaly Late Mixtape/EP is released. “Fashionably Late has a darker sound, it’s very introspective. It’s a lot of different than Diary of an ATL Brave. It’s about myself, me in this moment. From going to no record deal to a record deal. It’s showing my vision of what is going on around me,” he continued, “It’s about life and where I’m at working on the album, meeting some girls, not being able to spend time with my family. It’s 100% different. It’s about entering the industry and seeing the ups and down.”

To close the interview we asked Donnis about his upcoming debut album which is tentatively titled, “Past Visions of The future”. He assured us that he will definitely be using Needlz, “Needlz, that’s my brother he believes in my craft and I in his. I know how to attack a record and he knows what instrument to tape into.” Concerning collaborations with different artist on the album, we were told to expect: “Alot of big features, [there are] three that I have in mind.” Fool’s Gold is family to Donnis and when we asked about some of the artists from the label that he would collaborate with, Kid Sister and A-Trak were named.

We see big things in the future for Donnis. Like we’ve said time and time again about Donnis, the hard work is paying off. He is finally getting the attention he deserves .