Hip Hop, Soccer, A Music Video and the Boston Youth; A Story About How One Thing Led to Another
Check this one out.
About a year ago Vessel founder Mike Silva was volunteering as a soccer instructor at Boston SCORES, a nonprofit that provides after school soccer and enrichment programs for kids in grades K-12. That’s how Mike met Dwayne Simmons, a.k.a Dagha, a hip-hop artist with 6 albums to his name, and also the Director of Strategic Initiatives for Boston SCORES. Dwayne’s responsible for the middle school program used across the SCORES’ network of 14 affiliates in the U.S. and Canada.
One sector of the program centers on poetry and Mike offered to shoot a promo video to raise awareness about an upcoming performance the poetry students would be giving. While running around with his camera, Mike ended up sitting in on one of Dwayne’s mentoring sessions.
“Dwayne and I got to talking about music videos and that’s when I learned about his music,” Mike recalled. “It was reminiscent of the 90s hip hop I grew up on. I was instantly a huge fan and daydreaming of collaborating with Dwayne on a video.”
Soon that dream manifested into a Vessel-produced music video for Dagha’s track Check Me Out, the intro track to his forthcoming album. “Dwayne was incredibly trusting and down to let me run wild with the concept,” Mike said. Inspired by a dream Mike had, plus the divisive 2020 political landscape, and the underfunded Boston public school system that Mike and Dwayne witness through the kids they work with at Boston SCORES, Mike envisioned a feel that would be dystopian, futuristic, and psychedelic. “I wanted to create something surreal that thematically represents the fear and anxiety of tyrannical rule, and make it symbolic of the sense of helplessness and the control that authority, society, and our ego have on us. With that said, I also wanted a fun, playful vibe that people could bob their heads to.”
Mike wrote a treatment that explored a narrative through the eyes of an adolescent student as his attention drifts from a tele-casted teacher to his own memories from the past, to dreams of the present. Dwayne quickly greenlit the idea and soon it was go time. Without backing from a record label or a major budget, Vessel utilized local resources and turned production into a community event, employing friends to crew, borrowing equipment from rental houses, and collecting donations here and there.
Early on in the collaboration, Mike and Dwayne knew they wanted this project to include philanthropic angles that would have longevity beyond just a video. They decided to direct 25% of proceeds raised for the video into Boston SCORES, and also to create an experimental film and arts based pilot program for inner city youth. “We wanted to do something bigger that could empower kids and give them hands-on experience into the world of film, music, and fashion design. We wanted to bring them opportunities to learn about craft and potential career avenues that they might not otherwise get.” The program will intersect arts, education, and social service, coming full circle to the interests and causes that first united Mike and Dwayne. The program kicks off this September at the Greater Egleston Community High School.
It’s kind of cool to take a bird’s eye view of a layered project like this one, to trace the links that connected a taste for Common’s Resurrection and Nas’ Illmatic to a D1 college soccer career, to a desire to uplift the local Boston community, a chance encounter with an underappreciated and very talented artist, and then well, the next steps are still being written.
