"Black Daddy: The Experience" Invites Asian and Pacific Islander Dads to Talk
Q&A with artist Dame Drummer on the spiritual practice of making music, film, and performance that tells a universal truth about fatherhood
Today’s Shift the Script interview is with Dame Drummer a singer-songwriter, GRAMMY® Certified producer and award-winning filmmaker dedicated to making high-vibrational music and films that encourage, educate and inspire.
In 2022, Dame’s highly acclaimed documentary, “Black Daddy: The Movie” earned 30 awards across 25 film festivals in seven countries and four continents– including five “Best Original Film Score” awards for the soundtrack, “Black Daddy: The Sound.”
Dame is an uber-talented lyricist, vocalist and electrifying performer who has toured and collaborated with a host of artists including: 3x GRAMMY® winner Fantastic Negrito, GRAMMY® nominated Los Rakas, Martin Luther, the San Francisco Symphony and many others. His three solo albums include: “Breathe” (2013), "Loveolution" (2019), and “Aye Yai Yai” (2020). On February 5th, 2023, Dame became a GRAMMY® Certified Producer for his production work on the GRAMMY© winning album, “The Movement” by Alphabet Rockers.
In 2023, Dame was artist in APICC’s United States of Asian America Festival: Reimagining Horizons, where he presented his interdisciplinary production “Black Daddy: The Experience” at Yoshi’s in Oakland, CA. The event was standing room only. That night, audiences were immersed in moving excerpts from his film “Black Daddy: The Movie,” woven seamlessly with a live band performance of the originally scored album “Black Daddy: The Sound”.
Dame’s film and music offers audiences a deep dive into often unheard and nuanced narratives of Black fatherhood, including the pain Dame faced losing his own father while making the film. ”Black Daddy: The Experience” was accompanied by an extraordinary panel featuring fathers of Black, Pacific Islander, Asian and multiracial heritage who came together to dispel stereotypes of absenteeism and talk openly about the collective challenges of fatherhood that men of color are rising to meet.
🎥 Watch the panel discussion from APICC’s 2023 festival, featuring Dame Drummer and AANHPI panelists discussing fatherhood, identity and culture.
APICC: Hi Dame! Thanks for talking with Shift the Script. Let’s start from the beginning of your creative journey. Where did your musical inspiration come from and who were some of your influences?
DAME DRUMMER: When I was a child, I grew up in an environment where music was all around me. My grandfather was an accomplished jazz musician in Cleveland, Ohio, and his sons are accomplished musicians as well. Cleveland is so rich with music. So, Ohio was always really well represented musically when I was a kid.
I grew up listening to The Isley Brothers, Zapp and Roger, The O'Jays and The Ohio Players. We had so much great music, I could keep going forever. Hearing such influential people make music around me helped me know I was going to make music. Plus, it was so natural to me.
“My grandparents were my biggest influences and my biggest supporters...They bought me my first real professional instrument.”
DAME DRUMMER: My grandparents were my biggest influences and my biggest supporters. At 5 years old, I was tearing through the musical instruments and toys for kids. I was ripping them to shreds. So finally, my grandparents said, “this kid is serious, we need to get him some serious material”. They talked to a drum teacher. The first thing the drum teacher told them was, “get him something real, get him something he can't tear up”. They bought me my first real professional instrument.
Thats why, when it comes to my music, I'm not just doing it for me. I'm doing it for all the people who’ve influenced me, I am doing it for them. I'm doing it for my children. I'm doing it for anybody that ever said, “Go Dame!” Those are my real influences, everybody. Even the people who don't believe in me influence me because I'll rock with a chip on my shoulder. If you say I can't do it, I'm going to do everything to demonstrate that I can, and so I just use everything for inspiration.
APICC: You have a great voice, you rap, and you sing. Do you consider yourself an R&B or Hip-Hop artist?
DAME DRUMMER No, I just consider myself an artist, that's all. I'll let people put me in whatever box they need to put me in so they can have their shelving systems.
But really, I don't think that a person can really put me in a box, because just when they think they got me in a box, I'm doing something different. As an artist, I would consider myself a master creator.
“I don't think that a person can really put me in a box, because just when they think they got me in a box, I'm doing something different.”
APICC: How did the relationship between you and the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center form?
DAME DRUMMER: In 2022-2023, I was working on a film called, “Black Daddy: The Movie” and an accompanying project “Black Daddy: The Experience”. These were both innovative documentary film and music performances that were really about looking at a mored nuanced experience of Black fatherhood through sound and music and also having important conversations about those identities with my family and community.
“The topic of fatherhood and breaking stereotypes about fathers of color was something that some of my brothers from the Asian Pacific Islander community stood in solidarity with me on. I felt like we had a lot to connect about and teach each other about fatherhood and culture. ”
DAME DRUMMER: The topic of fatherhood and breaking stereotypes about fathers of color was something that some of my brothers from the Asian Pacific Islander community stood in solidarity with me on. I felt like we had a lot to connect about and teach each other about fatherhood and culture. So, I applied for a grant with APICC to explore and talk about those intersections with a wider audience who could connect with what I was creating.
I was actually awarded one! APICC supported me with $3,000 to put on the production of “Black Daddy: The Experience” which debuted in Oakland on June 5th, 2023, at a sold-out audience at Yoshi’s. It was really beautiful and had a really deep impact on the people, they loved it.
“We talked about being present for our children as fathers, keeping the next generations safe, and how our cultures and stories about fatherhood really connect us together.”
As part of “Black Daddy: The Experience”, which was featured in the 2023 United States of Asian America Festival, I got to work with APICC’s Artistic Director Melanie Elvena to put on a panel about cross-cultural solidarity amongst fathers. The panelists were all Black and Asian Pacific Islander Dads. These were mostly folks I know personally, who have children like me and we got to have a really powerful conversation that connected our cultures and identity to the experience of being a parent. We talked about what it takes to show up for our children as fathers, keeping the next generations safe, and how cultural stories about fathers both connect us together and need to be rewritten.
“People in my audience should know that I am pro Black, and I also stand in solidarity with other communities.”
DAME DRUMMER: This relationship with APICC has continued to develop and has connected my music and message to different communities. To me, I think that it's a good partnership because people in my audience should know that I am pro Black, and I also stand in solidarity with other communities.
APICC: A lot of your work breaks away from traditional ways of thinking about race, gender and identity. Have you gotten any backlash for that?
DAME DRUMMER: Oh yeah, I get plenty. But the backlash I received lets me know that I'm alive and lets me know that I'm doing the right thing. I'm ruffling feathers because if it didn't mean anything, it wouldn't bother anybody.
It also shows you where we're at in this country still, because we still are tiptoeing around the ramifications and repercussions following all the harm that’s been done to Black people in this country. In songs like “Get What You Gave” I'm doing nothing but recanting history and asking, hey, “What if the shoe was on the other foot”, so to speak.
“I'm ruffling feathers because if it didn't mean anything, it wouldn't bother anybody.”
DAME DRUMMER: This song, “Get What You Gave,” actually supersedes race and racism. If the tables were turned and you were gonna get what you gave, you can apply that to anything.
Black men, if you were going to get what you gave, would you treat your brother that way? Teachers, would you treat your student that way? Sister, would you treat that woman that way, or your mama or daddy, or your uncles or your babies, the homeless person, the gay person, the trans person… if you were going to get what you gave would you still give it?
I'm unapologetic in my music and unafraid, so I'll continue making music like that. But at some point, I also wish there will come a time where I don't have to make music like that.
APICC: Tell us more about your creative process lately.
DAME DRUMMER: My process is divine. I don't have a 1, 2, 3 or A-Z process. I am very much led by the Spirit, and it comes in waves. When it comes, I know that I need to grab it. So, I stop what I'm doing when it comes, and I just follow the spirit and it doesn't matter what I'm doing. I grab it because I know that it's coming, and I know it's going to be good, and I know that if I give my attention to it, it'll be great!
“My process is divine. I don't have a 1, 2, 3 or A-Z process. I am very much led by the Spirit, and it comes in waves. When it comes, I know that I need to grab it.”
Oftentimes, when I try to force things it doesn’t feel the same. I have so many musical creations that I've forced and sat down like, “OK, I'm gonna make something today”. And it's just like, nah, it isn't right, and nothing ever comes of it. But the things that the spirit gives me it feels right. I’ll make music when I hear that voice that says do this and I'm always pleased with the outcome every time.
I can massively create with other people. When I go to other situations where there are other people involved and create on the fly, I can always contribute something that's super beneficial to the project. But, when I’m getting my own creative downloads, things that Dame Drummer is supposed to say, that's a totally different process. It's like I received these downloads and they come every week. And when I get it, it's like, OK, this is it.
APICC: What are the longstanding lessons you’ve gained through your creative work?
DAME DRUMMER: Just allowing it to happen. That's a real form of creativity. I've got 30 plus years in the game of music and I'm still learning. I’m learning to trust the process and that it doesn't have to be perfect.
When I get my music to a place where I like it, it gives me a feeling where I'm proud of what I did. I'm learning to get there, and then let it go at that point. Instead of thinking, “How can I get it better,” or “What award-winning engineer can I get it to, so they can put whatever it is they think it’s supposed to sound like on it,” it's like: “No, I've acquired a lot of skills in music, production, composing, recording, and mixing. So I can get it from my head to you without any middleman.”
DAME DRUMMER: A lot of songs of mine like were recorded, mixed, and mastered fully by me. ”Simply Beautiful” for example didn't touch anybody else. It went straight from me to you. That's what I like, that's what I've been learning, and I would say in the last two of my creations, it's just getting into a place where you love it and letting it go.
APICC: What do you recommend for another person who wants to get into the music industry?
DAME DRUMMER: First of all, let it be known: I am married to this craft and it is a very fickle and competitive industry!
If you really want to stand above the rest, you have to do something extraordinary to stand out and to really make a name for yourself. You really need to keep pushing yourself to innovate your craft, keep making music, and don’t ever stop at closed doors. People might try to nickel and dime you and you will struggle in the process. But, when you love something so much, and you are committed to becoming a master creator, people will support you.
“When you love something so much, and you are committed to becoming a master creator, people will support you.”
I’ve worked at bridging my passions for film, music and live performance into a new style of docu-musical that pushed boundaries on documentary films about fatherhood, and about Black men at large. It was awarded 30 awards across 25 film festivals in seven countries and four continents– including five “Best Original Film Score” awards for the soundtrack, “Black Daddy: The Sound.”
I’m continuing that innovation with new projects in the coming years. Going on tour with Fantastic Negrito. Building more collaborations to share my music in new ways. This has been such a journey for me, and I know other artists will find their own way to make their dreams happen in the music industry too.
APICC: What do you want the world to know about your music?
DAME DRUMMER: For those that don’t know me or my sound yet, my music is not what you would expect to hear and it’s not on the radio every single day. It’s kind of counterculture to what we know right now and what the machine is feeding us.
If you really want an enriching experience, take your time, spend some time with my music, and with the lyrics and message. My music is not just words, and they are not just from me. They're spiritual downloads. So really pay attention to the spirit of the music that I have out there.
“My music is not just words, and they are not just from me. They're spiritual downloads. So really pay attention to the spirit of the music that I have out there.”
It may not be a sound you’re used to, but give it a chance, spend some time with it, and I really believe that the music will touch you in some way.
Thanks for reading Shift the Script! Follow Dame on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook for upcoming shows, music and productions.
Visit www.apiculturalcenter.org for more info about past and upcoming annual Festivals and events presented by APICC, and follow us on Instagram @apicc_sf