Dan Isenberg

During the spring of 2020, at the height of lockdown in New York, I found myself writing, producing and recording rap songs for the first time in years. Making music has always been a hobby of mine, and something I even pursued professionally in my 20s, though I always maintained a full-time career outside of music. But in recent years, I had shifted my focus more toward the journalism side of music, and of course my career in marketing and my growing family.

The first song I recorded during the lockdown, “Dope (Big Ip Don’t Play),” was a collaboration with my friend of over twenty years Max Bent, one of the most talented beatboxers on the planet who I met when we were students at the University of Maryland. I reached out to him with the idea to recreate a loop I had of Grand Puba’s ‘90s gem “Big Kids Don’t Play” with all-beatbox sounds, and he delivered an incredible rendition that I thought paired perfect with my lyrics. We were excited about the final product (including the artwork I designed myself for the single), so we decided to release the song digitally.

The week of the release, I sent the song out to Shade 45’s DJ Eclipse, who back in 2005 was the first DJ to ever play my song on NYC radio when he was at WNYU. He liked the song and ended up playing it on his show, which was incredible in itself. I mean, here I was, a father of three with a baby on the way and a full-time job returning to rap during a pandemic, and the first song I make gets spun on one of the biggest underground hip-hop radio shows in the country? Needless to say, Max and I were thrilled. 

But that was just the beginning. It turns out DJ Premier, the legendary producer responsible for countless classics with Gang Starr, Nas, Jay-Z, The Notorious B.I.G, KRS-One and many more, heard Eclipse play the song and fell in love with it. He went on to play it on his own Shade 45 radio show six weeks in a row, including one week as the first song of the set. And how did I find out Premier knew about our song in the first place, you ask? Well it all start with this tweet I got from another legendary producer and friend of Premier’s - Alchemist. See below. Crazy. 

Inspired by the success of “Dope (Big Ip Don’t Play),” I continued to record through the pandemic. My second digital release “9th Inning,” a follow-up ‘90s flip I self-produced of Fat Joe and KRS-One’s classic collaboration “Bronx Tale,” was also played on air by Eclipse, Premier, Peter Rosenberg on Hot 97 and more. I followed that with “Lampin’,” another self-produced song that features a JB Smoove sample from my favorite television show of all-time, Curb Your Enthusiasm. “Lampin’” also was played on underground radio, but even more exciting than that was JB Smoove himself becoming a fan of the song and sharing it on his Instagram!

By the end of the year, I had accumulated enough new recordings to pair with a few songs I had stashed away from the mid ‘10s to release a full project titled BIG IP DON’T PLAY. 

I decided to release the project exclusively on Bandcamp, as I had seen the site cultivating a strong community of underground hip-hop fans and supporters. The album was selected and written up as one of January 2021’s Best Hip-Hop releases on Bandcamp, which was a huge accolade for me. Not only did it help me make a decent amount of sales, but it opened me up to a whole new audience of rap fans. 

Although I still consider making music a hobby at this stage in my life, it feels extremely rewarding to see my recent releases embraced by the one of the most influential hip-hop communities in the culture right now and legends like DJ Premier and Alchemist who I grew up listening to. I hope to make more in the future. In fact, Max and I have a new beatbox-only single coming out in March 2021!

UPDATE! Max and I released our new song “Pumpkin Cheesecake” in March, 2021, and not only did DJ Premier play it back-to-back weeks on his show, he posted a video on his Instagram of him scratching it up live on the air! Check it out HERE.