Interview: Donny Goines (12/2/09)

Donny Goines is one of the hardest working emcees in the game, and fittingly lives by the motto, “If you don’t know my name, I ain’t working hard enough.”

This hustle to make a name for himself was inspired by Jay-z’s Fade To Black movie, which he randomly decided to watch back in 2006.  Hov is a great man to model your hip hop career after!

Donny released his latest project, The Breakfast Club, as a free download in May.  This album served as the follow up to Minute After Midnight, and is the second installment of his three album trilogy.

Most recently, Donny Goines headlined a show which saw performances from J.Cole, Emilio Rojas, Rain, and Beyond Belief at New York’s Blender Theater.

After the show, Donny Goines spoke to HipHopAtLunch.com about his upcoming album, Yesterday’s Tomorrow, shared his views on Twitter, and explained why he choose to name himself after the author, Donald Goines.

I still can’t believe he organized the entire show and still had time to perform as the headliner, that’s crazy!

Connecting with fans through all possible outlets is something that Donny really tries to focus on, because as mentioned in the interview, these fans are the driving force behind his music.

Check out his stage presence as Donny ended the show on Monday night.

Donny Goines – “Bring It Forward.”

Donny Goines feels passionate about bringing New York hip hop back to  prominence.  However, instead of emulating the old sound, he wants emcees to represent the current state of New York.

He uses this track to try and unite the city with lyrics such as:

“The jeans saggin, the clean fashion with mean patterns,
The scene’s happenin, and we had it now we slackin…
I’m talking strickly to niggas in the 718,
917, 212, and not to mention upstate,
646, you know I’m reppin the place,
City been catching some z’s, hope I can get it awake.”

New York emcees need to stop worrying about bringing back past glory, and focus more on creating the “new” New York sound.  There are already a handful of NYC artists doing just that.

Donny Goines – These Times

Donny takes advantage of the slow, reflective beat on “These Times” to speak about how he’s not getting caught up in the game’s trends and fads like other emerging artists.

“Its no secret, we all know that rap sucks,
But that don’t mean I gotta rap over daft punk,
And mash up everything with live bands,
That’s just something I don’t do can you blame me…
My niggas know I aint stuck in the past,
But I aint changin up my flow to fill up buckets of cash,
Because the market’s so fickle and the budgets don’t last,
So, many can’t understand what I punch in my pad.”

Another stand out performance from Donny’s set was “Whatever It Is.”

That’s one of my favorite tracks off The Breakfast Club, and I love how he mixed in some Michael Jackson for the live performance!

Keep an eye out for the upcoming album, Yesterday’s Tomorrow, dropping in 2010.  With this project, Donny aims to combine the aspects seen in his first two albums and has the promise of being being his best work yet.

Big shout out to Rome for putting together a great photo recap of the night, including the photo used in this post!