Interview with David Biga of Novelist Music Group
- Who are you? My name is David Biga, and I am a 21-year-old artist from Dayton, Ohio.
- What are you passionate about? If you ask my family, friends and loved ones, they would probably tell you that I am an overly passionate person. I consider myself a passionate person, and I pride myself on that quality. I am passionate toward my family and friends and everything that concerns them, my music and what message it sends people, and most athletics.
- Where do you live and what does it mean to be an emcee where you’re from? Currently I live in Dayton, Ohio. Being an emcee from Dayton has it ups and downs. Dayton consists of some very competitive and talented emcees. Although we all are competitive people by blood, we all collaborate together towards a successful and positive message and passionately standing up for Ohio as a whole. We are the story of the life in Dayton.
- How did you become inspired to create your art? People have always asked me this question…I started writing when I was old enough to pick up a pencil, so it’s almost as if the art picked me rather than me picking up the art. My older brother loved rap when he was in grade school. He was always showing me Eminem, Dre, Run DMC along with other indie bands like Dave Matthews Band and Coldplay. These people really brought emotions out of me through their lyrics and songs. These are the people that influenced me to write about my emotions and my place in life. I focus on motivating the normal kid to follow their dreams and conquer all obstacles. Growing up, I felt trapped and silenced and felt the need to rebel due to situations caused by my parents divorce. I intend my music to be the voice for people that have been silenced their entire lives. I am not afraid to take a different direction with rap music as a whole.
- How has hip-hop changed you and/or your community? This art form has changed my community for the better by giving the voiceless a voice and allowing a feeding ground for the art and for ideas to spread like wildfire.
- What are you working on currently? I am currently working on my upcoming project “Audio Visual Therapy”. This project has been two years in the making. This mixtape includes feelings after three of my good friends passing away (Mitchell Haber, Jon Endres, and Luke Brown) in tragic car crashes and emotions from my childhood, along with another great friend Robby Spurling, and everything in between. This mixtape includes features from Novelist Music Groups very own DMac and features from John Nichols, Katie Biga, and words from Steve Jobs. A very good person and friend, Conrad Zengel, drew the artwork and it’s awesome how creatively the whole tape is coming together. I am very excited to release my Audio Visual Therapy tape in early 2015.
- What do you hope to change in the future through the use of your gifts and talents? I’ve always loved the lyrics Wale wrote, “I am just an artist, I am just a man, may not change the world but let me inspire someone who can”. I live my life through my art so one day when I leave this Earth I know I left a positive impact on the people I’ve been around. So hopefully when my time is over I did just that.
- What/who is the Novelist Music Group? Novelist Music Group is a group of three individuals including myself (David Biga), Dan Machowsky (DMac), and Ian Shores (Ion). We also consist of all the supporters we have that come to our shows and stream our music. All three of us went to high school together and we all had mutual friends. DMac and I would go to my place after school and would record with his dad’s old M-Audio board. A real ghetto rigged setup if you as me…but that’s all we had. That’s really where we started, even though we didn’t know it yet. Honestly, Ian and I were hanging out with our buddy, driving, doing what we normally do, and conversation led the idea of the word “novelizing” taking place of the word “freestyling.” (We still do this wordplay fooling today) Then out of nowhere we were like, “Lets call ourselves Novelist Music Group!” It took a few months to get all the legal garbage out of the way, but once that was finished we started putting the art together. As for now we are all individual artists representing our brand, Novelist Music Group. We are open to collaborating, and the best way to contact us is through Twitter or Facebook and coming to our live performances. We stand for positive change through putting our story into music. Our joint work is what makes us the novelists that we are today and we hope to inspire more people to create art in healthier, livelier way.
- What does “Living the Good Life” mean to you? Living the Good Life is waking up each day with the breath inside of you telling you to go create and give people opportunities to make themselves better. It’s living your life so positively that forces people around you to do the same.
- What accomplishments are you proud of? Accomplishments are goals that I believe are set by the individual. According to myself, the best accomplishment so far is the progress I have made as an artist overall and finally feeling comfortable with the direction my music is taking me.
- What are some challenges that you face as an artistic leader? Challenges are what feed the creation of my art. If you ask me, we are all leaders in our own way. When it comes to getting everyone together and actually creating the art…. it is easy and natural. However, the difficult part is all the business and rules that go into running a successful music group that produces revenue, because at the end of the day we all need to eat no matter how much we want to help people.
- What are your goals for the future? My goals along with Novelist Music Groups goals include going on tour, writing books about our experiences, creating more art and music videos, traveling the world and collaborating with other artists, and maybe one day working with a label.