Hip-hop's fresh voice

Dave Ghetto's gritty, grown-up themes are earning a wider audience - and putting his home town, Camden, on rap's map.

By Rob Watson

Inquirer Staff Writer

Camden residents know what they're up against. The nation's "most dangerous" city, the stepchild of New Jersey - labels like that put an automatic strike against those who emerge from the impoverished town.

One might think a hip-hop artist rising out of such a shadow would resemble those coming from other devastated urban areas, like late '80s gangsta rap from Compton, or Master P's No Limit family out of New Orleans in the '90s.

Longtime rapper Dave Reynolds, a.k.a. Dave Ghetto, brushed aside any of those notions when his solo debut, Love Life?, hit stores in November.

It's been hailed by some of rap's leading talents as one of the best independent hip-hop releases of 2005, and has gotten props from Web sites like allhiphop.com and undergroundhiphop.com and magazines like XXL, Source and URB.

Not gangsta but no less authentic, Love Life? is packed with lessons of the street wrapped in different flavors, from the R&B stylings of "Coming Up" to the classic boom-bap kick of "That's That Joint," featuring guest stars from Cee-Lo Green to Philly's own Baby Blak.

For fans of the socially conscious hip-hop of Mos Def, the attraction is instant, another refutation of the idea that all hood-based players of the rap game score in only one way.

Strolling down the streets of his hood, off Pine and Broadway, past boarded-up houses and empty lots, the rapper sees a world of friends and family caught up in a struggle to survive, which he captured in "Coming Up."

I know, times are getting tight

Looks like the streets might be the thing that sends you on your way.

I know, exactly how you feel, but we gonna keep it real

Your life is the price, you gonna pay.

"It was inspired by me losing somebody in particular to the streets - my cousin Damon was murdered in '00. Look, down this road, my man Kev was killed by cops two years earlier," says Ghetto, who's 28. "That song is like me talking to them. The story is the same all over in cities in this country, not just Camden. I just wanted to say that there is a better way."

Yet he still has trouble shaking the stereotypes about the city he loves.

"When I go on tour and tell people I am from Camden they have kinds of smart things to say because of what they heard, not what they've seen," he says. "Look, I think Burger King has the best fries but I wouldn't have known that if I didn't go buy a Whopper. There hasn't been a well-known crew from this area since the Krown Rulers did 'Kick the Ball,' " he says, of the late-'80s rap duo. "We going to do something about that."

In addition to making the album, his Camden-based rap crew, Nutthouse, has opened a production company called Break Bread Projects, right across the street from where he grew up. There, up-and-coming Camden artists like Poesh Wonder and Rusty James are waiting in the wings to help put their city on the hip-hop map.

"You can hone your skills here but there really aren't any resources here for local artists. Everyone heads over to Philly to record or perform," Ghetto says. "We put it here in the hood, so we can be a part of all this, good or bad."

If Dave Ghetto were just starting out, one might think differently of his aspirations. But his time seems way overdue. He was a regular performer at Old City's short-lived hip-hop mecca, Footworks. He has toured with the Roots, worked with rappers the Mountain Brothers, and appeared on Mystic's Grammy-nominated 2001 album, Cuts for Luck and Scars for Freedom.

DJ, musician, poet and Footworks co-owner Rich Medina saw Ghetto's potential back when MCs would flock to his shop.

"Dave is my man from back in the Footwork Illadelph days," says Medina. "I always thought Dave was mad nice on the mic, and I knew that once he got a real shot at making some noise on a national level that he would shine."

So why hasn't the average hip-hop head jumped on board?

"Dave is a very laid-back guy," says DJ Ultraviolet, a founder of Philly's Ladies Love Hip Hop, a group that promotes female hip-hop, and an employee at Cue Records on South Fourth Street. She says Dave Ghetto's lack of notoriety comes down to... well... the fact he's not a "notorious" rapper.

"Most hip-hop these days is too 'smoked out' or 'rah-rah,' " she says. "He's an adult when everyone else wants to be a kid. The man already has kids. Every time someone comes in Cue for something that's popping I suggest Dave. His lyrics have always been dope and the beats are just banging. "

She's right - Love Life? has no songs dedicated to weed, bulletproof vests, or whatever brand of steel is coming out of trunks these days.

Quite the contrary. On the Love Life? track "Hey Young World Pt. II," Ghetto spreads around the responsibility of raising youth: "If it takes a village to raise them then I guess we're to blame if the seeds can't read but know the Ten Crack [Cocaine] Commandments."

"Cats don't have no kind of father figures - in fact, there is a kid around here who has no family," he says, reflecting on the inspirations for that song. "He walks around the street with a picture of his sister to show that he got relatives."

Sometimes even a stable household can't hold it all together. Ghetto dropped out of high school when he was 16.

"I just stopped going in '93. It was me being a knucklehead, hanging out, traveling to see my brothers at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. They are all five to six years older than me. I thought I was a man, like them, when really I wasn't."

He adds, "It's funny, I hung out there so much that they finally convinced me to go there, and I wound up being the only one [of us] to graduate."

Not only to graduate, but to go on and get his master's in urban studies there. The combination of book and street smarts have served him well. Dave works as a program director for Big Brothers Big Sisters, and is also involved in Amachi, a faith-based mentoring program with Wilson Goode for children whose parents are incarcerated.

Not only is it a way to reach the youth by another means, but it keeps the cash flowing.

"Independent hip-hop don't really pay like that. I had to do something - I have two daughters now and bills need to get paid," Ghetto says. "I just had to take my daughter to the emergency room. Ain't no health benefits in rap, man. Those things are just more of the adult stuff that makes its way into my music."

For all of his accomplishments inside and outside the studio, there isn't a bigger fan than his mother, Kristine Reynolds. Pulling out her son's records, in much the same way other parents pull out baby pictures, she remembers the first time she heard him rap.

"I didn't know anything about rapping back then, but I remember when he was about 12 or 13, he and his friends sitting on the steps rhyming, 'It's cold outside and I got my rhymes on,' " recalls Reynolds, who recently retired from Cooper Medical Center, where she was a medical administrator. "And it just went from there."

Reynolds kept an open mind about her son's aspirations. Besides, she couldn't really fight it, considering the reminders around the house of her son's talents.

"He used to write on everything," he mother says. Eventually, I even had to start putting [away] important mail because I would come home and his thoughts would be scribbled all over it."

Though she's her son's No. 1 fan, that hasn't translated into a front-row seat, ever.

"I have never been to one of my son's shows. He isn't speaking to me, he's speaking to his peers and I realize that. I do listen on the computer, though. That really blows my mind. I type in his name and it's everywhere," Reynolds says. "No, I think the first time my son will see me in the seats is when he gets his award at the Grammys."

While his mother waits for that day, Ghetto is at work on a new album. He's got six songs already. Meantime, he's still hoping that Love Life? will break out. If not, things won't change. This veteran of the music business will keep saying what's in his heart and relaying stories found in the soul of his city.

"We'll keep our regular jobs and raise our families. We'll keep watching the streets that're watching us and life will go on," Ghetto says. "That's why the album is called... Love Life?... It's about appreciating what you do have, despite what you don't have.