D Smoke on Teaching, Student Throwing Up Gang Signs, Lil’ Red, Says Hip Hop Isn’t Just for Youth

Hard Knock Tv’s Nick Huff Barili sits down with Netflix’s “Rhythm and Flow” winner D Smoke for in-depth interview. In Episode 2, D Smoke and Nick talk about Smoke learning from his students and how its helped him get his bars up. D Smoke share personal stories of experiences in his class room including a story of one of his students coming to class high and throwing up gang signs on other students and then on Smoke. At first Smoke reacted by trying to overpower the situation but then he learned that showing vulnerability actually worked better in the end. D Smoke says that growing up in Inglewood he tried to ignore the drama around him to not get caught up in trouble but ones he became a teacher it was his job to know what was going on. His interactions with students inspired him to write about the darker side of Inglewood including on the song Lil Red. Smoke finds a balance between talking about what is going on in the streets without glorifying the violence saying that there is nothing glorious about what is going on because its a trap. As the conversation with Nick and Smoke continues, Smoke shares why he never gave up on music through the ups and downs and says that Hip Hop doesn’t just belong to the youth. Giving insight to one of his favorite books “7 habits of highly effective people”, Smoke says that there is a whole market open for him to make music that is different that what is currently being played on the radio. Episode 2 covers a lot more topics including “Producer of the Year” an album that D Smoke put out in the early 2000’s when he was getting his Diddy and DJ Khaled on ! We are just getting started, make sure you subscribe to be notified when episode 3 drops!