'A beautiful place where the wild runs wonderful': The artist Dream! wants his song to be a new anthem for the place he calls home
Nov. 26—Ask any West Virginian who ever moved someplace else — even the ones who couldn't get across the state line fast enough.
Or, the ones who had to leave. Especially the ones who had to leave.
Go ahead.
Ask them where they're from.
"Well, I live here, " they'll say, "but I'm from West Virginia."
Translation: They're not just from this place. They're of this place.
The place with the funky, squiggly borders.
And the tenacious history.
And, its (sometimes) inferiority complex offset by that fierce pride and love of place among its denizens.
When you ask Dream ! all the above, be prepared to settle in — for 4 minutes and 32 seconds.
Take a ride Dream ! is the stage name of Raheem Davis, a 28-year-old rap artist, mixed-martial arts fighter and entrepreneur who divides his time between his hometown of Morgantown and Los Angeles, where 11:11 Records, the music label he co-founded, is based.
The aforementioned 4 minutes and 32 seconds is the runtime of the video promoting his newest single, "Country Roads, " an urban take on the Mountain State anthem associated with John Denver.
"... I know somewhere we should go Windy long high hills, mountaintops, mines and coal It's a beautiful place where the wild runs wonderful I'm talkin' 'bout them country roads Lord knows I'm from the country roads Let's take a ride on the country roads ..."
Visit https://www.youtube.com /watch ?v =sdRM5Pfu7xE to view the video.
Mountain State diaspora drives the tune, with the born-and-bred collaborators reaching in from New York to California, while embarking on a well-traveled swath of the 35th state in the Union.
Davis was on the road in Santa Monica, Calif., on business last week, when he talked about the song and its mountain motivation in a telephone interview.
"It's tough being away from home for Thanksgiving, " he said.
Related, his "Country Roads " can be a new anthem of blessings for the Mountain State, he said — once the people who live in this place, and are of this place, can hear it.
"It's a song that highlights the talent and pride of what it means to be from the wild and wonderful state of West Virginia, " he said.
"It's a song that builds this place up."
A bad decision — and what happened next For years, though, West Virginia was a place that knocked him down.
He was 5 years old when his father was murdered, and was a young man when his stepfather, a stabilizing force in his life, also died.
As a kid, he was bullied relentlessly, which, in part, got him into MMA fighting, where he's now a whip-thin 6-footer who can lead with his right and his left.
An arrest from a domestic incident — for which he assumes full responsibility — put him on the other side of the correctional system for a time.
"I made a bad decision, " he said. "I'm a model citizen now."
Now he wants his song to be about good decisions.
He wants his song to be an emotional and creative model for young West Virginians, he said.
Young West Virginians of color, especially, who often feel the dual sting of racism and prejudice against a backdrop of tourism-spot, pastoral scenery.
He was always writing things down in a notebook. Song lyrics, bits of dialogue he heard in the hallway.
Mix-tapes were part of his landscape, too, as he explored the beats that were the pulse of that muse that kept beckoning, always.
The kid who would become the artist Dream ! just knew he had to get it down, whatever it was.
The words came first then, and they still do.
Keep your vision, creativity and work ethic, he said, and you too can climb figurative mountains as you make your way.
"We're all mountaineers, " he said.
Shining on (with kindred spirits, Koda and correct map placement)
His "Country Roads, " which is now available across all major social media platforms, is both fun and lyrical — a genre-buster that gets the geography right, besides.
No knock on the folk singer Denver, Dream !-Davis said, but this version might even go two road trips and a half-dozen pepperoni rolls past the hippie-fueled original — which only took in the slightest sliver of the Eastern Panhandle, anyway.
His collaborators include Luke Wiseman of Farmington, Marion County, who is known by his performing name of "LDJ, " and Colby Gallaher ("Colby G "), who was born in Morgantown and raised in Grafton.
Dream ! and LDJ have fun playing off one another in the video, which was shot and directed by Marco Toro, a Morgantown High alum who graduated from film school in Colorado and is now living and working in New York City.
It didn't take long once they found the right beats, Davis said.
"I just started free-styling, " he said, "and LDJ started name-checking all the places in West Virginia."
The rhyming travelogue, in particular, includes mentions of Fairmont, Morgantown, Clarksburg, Interstate 70, Braxton County and more, he said.
"I'm gonna have to go back and listen, " Davis said, "so I can count the references."
Toro framed the video, which was shot in Morgantown and the Grafton area on literal country roads, with warm, rich lighting and cast including WCLG radio personality Chris Chaos and a four-legged charmer billed as, Koda, the Blind Dog.
"We wanted to take something and turn it on its side and still make it yours, " Davis said.
"This is my song but it's really your song, " the artist continued.
"In West Virginia, we need to bind together and we need to support one another. We've never really gotten that shine."
