You Create Your World

April 14, 2014 9:04 PM

Murder Dog Magazine has served as the voice of underground hip hop for over twenty years, printing unfiltered interviews with up-and-coming artists from regional scenes on their way to national prominence. The magazine's founder and editor, the Sri Lankan immigrant Black Dog Bone, shares the improbable story of how a boy from the jungle championed the voice of inner city youth in the U.S.
posted by chrchr (1 comment total)

Great story and totally counterintuitive to the mainstream "inner city youth" dogma of racism and poverty holding you back. Obviously the guy has a load of talent and he was lucky enough to meet some nice people along the way who helped him out, but he totally bootstrapped his own success - like a lot of the artists he features in his magazine. Talent, hard work, taking chances, and a little luck is how most people achieve success. Even a "boy from the jungle."

Because that’s not the story I had heard, I heard another story. Even in Iowa I heard another story. But I never saw racism in Holland or in Iowa. Racism happens when you are always confronted with people, but these guys live in their Iowa world. They’d never come across a black guy or any [minorities] so when they saw they were like, “We’ve never met a Sri Lankan before!” They were just so happy. And I was happy too. They were helping me like crazy. Everyone was helping me, otherwise I would’ve not survived. I came here with no money, people took care of me.
posted by three blind mice at 4:08 AM on April 15, 2014