by RAF KATIGBAK

A conversation with Dave Shayman, aka Disco D, is like one of his early ghettotech mixtapes—dirty, raw, fast and full of surprises. “I’ve been hated on for my entire fuckin’ career, I still get hated on,” enthuses Shayman. “Lil’ kids on these hip hop message boards going, ‘Disco D has a tranny Brazilian girlfriend,’ and ‘He’s a fuckin’ Jewish faggot’ and all this—I don’t care! Fuck you, I make the best beats like, kiss my ass, so what.”

While outspoken in person, Shayman’s track record speaks louder than any punk-ass 13-year-old with Internet access ever could. At 17, he became one of the youngest Michigan DJs to champion the hyperactive regional hybrid known as ghettotech, culminating in his A Night at the Booty Bar Vol. 1 mix on Tommy Boy. His early ghettotech productions and connects later helped pave the way for his getting a beat on 50 Cent’s platinum-selling album The Massacre (on “Ski Mask Way”). Since then, he’s been blowing up something fierce. Now, splitting his time between Brazil and Brooklyn, Shayman is adding the up-and-coming baile funk sound to his repertoire. The Mirror caught up with Shayman at his home in Brooklyn to talk beats, Brazil and working with Britney’s babydaddy.

Mirror: Did you grow up in Detroit, or more outside the city?

Disco D: Are you kidding? Definitely outside the city. The city’s crazy, man. I grew up in Ann Arbour, a college town. It’s far enough away to have a cool, calm upbringing, but close enough to have a mad diverse racial and musical mix, access to Detroit radios and clubs, know what I’m sayin’?

M: Did that affect your street cred in Detroit? I know you caught flack from DJs like Godfather and Assault when you started.

DD: Godfather ain’t from the city either, man! He’s fuckin’ from the northern suburbs, I’m from the western side—what’s the difference?! All I gotta say to that is, yeah, I caught flack, but those guys are all my boys now—c’mon, they’re all my boys. I’ve done just as much for that music as they did. They’re haters, man

M: I gotta ask you about Kevin Federline—you’re producing five tracks on his new album, you’re catching a lot of heat for that online.

DD: I don’t give a fuck. I went to the University of Michigan, got a bachelor’s in business marketing and corporate strategy, you know? It’s all about number of impressions, man. When I reply to keep those threads going, and let people think I care, it’s just to keep it at the top of the page. It’s all fucking marketing, dude. I have a guaranteed five songs on that album, that’s gonna be worth so much money, dude. Not only that, some of his shit’s really good. He’s working with Game now, all the Black Wall Street dudes, he’s got mad co-signs gong on, you guys don’t know anything about Federline. Federline is the ultimate pimp, he’s the number-one pimp in the world. Anyone that talks shit about him is just fuckin’ jealous, ’cause look, he fuckin’ split with his girl that was two months pregnant with his kid, to fuckin’ go off on tour with Britney Spears, made her fall in love with him, fuckin’ like, made her propose to him, video-taped the whole damn thing, got her to pay for the engagement ring, got married, sold the damn tape with her to MTV, made 30 per cent of the money, and got her pregnant. He’s the most talked-about man in the paparazzi. So dude, that dude is absolutely brilliant. Whether he can rap or not, you gotta respect that dude.

Funky and fearless

M: You cover a lot of territory in the studio—baile funk, ghettotech, hip hop. Is it hard to switch up production styles sometimes?

DD: It’s the same shit, but infused with a different regional sound. It all stems from Miami bass, really. So being the fact that I don’t consider myself Brazilian, but [rambles on in Portuguese]. You understand Portuguese?

M: Ummmm... no.

DD: You see what I’m saying, though? It’s the same shit, now that I live there. For me, it’s no stress to do a song like “Ski Mask Way” ’cause I was living in a grimy-ass basement with no natural light, and rats chewing holes in the ceiling and shit. It wasn’t a stretch, emotionally. Of course, now I’m living in a pimp-ass sixth-floor place. Then there’s the baile funk stuff ’cause, fuck, you know, I just spent two weeks running around the favelas in Rio, shooting two music videos and an EPK documentary, with more fuckin’ machine guns and grenades than I seen in my fuckin’ life.

M: Sounds pretty safe.

DD: At this point, I’m already so down with these guys [rambles on in Portuguese again]. Dude, two of the biggest funk artists made a song about me called “Gringo Luoco,” about how I go into the hood with no bulletproofing and everyone respects me. Shit, I ran around Detroit since I was 15, I ran around Kingston. I mean, dude, I’m bipolar, I tried to commit suicide twice, like, I’m not scared of anything, know what I’m sayin’? I don’t give a fuck, dude—to me, life’s a big video game.

With Masterbeater and Hatchmatik at Kop Shop on Friday, March 10, 10 p.m., $10

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