Latest / The Scene Projects / Boo Boo's Journey: Music, Mentorship, and Building Community in South Dakota

Transcript

Boo Boo's Journey: Music, Mentorship, and Building Community in South Dakota · The Scene Projects

• 0:02
  Welcome in to another exciting episode of the scene.
• 0:04
  I'm your host Bubba Starz.
• 0:06
  With me today is South Dakota based rapper, songwriter, and producer.
• 0:09
  Boo Boo, welcome to the show, brother.
• 0:12
  Good to be here.
• 0:13
  Thanks for having me on.
• 0:14
  Oh, this is great, man.
• 0:16
  I I love connecting with other musicians in my home state of South Dakota.
• 0:20
  So before we get too far down the, love fest here, why don't you tell us a little bit about,
• 0:25
  what you do and and we'll keep it rolling?
• 0:29
  So I make rap music, obviously.
• 0:31
  I'm a rapper.
• 0:32
  I try to do more positive and, like, try to, like, push positivity and, you know, I like to
• 0:37
  make people smile with my music and I'm trying to put on like, get on to more charity shows
• 0:42
  than the one I'm on, and I also wanna put some on myself.
• 0:45
  And it's really what I'm trying to do right now.
• 0:47
  Nice, man.
• 0:48
  Well, yeah, have you hooked up with my boy Secret Veda yet?
• 0:52
  Yeah.
• 0:52
  I'm actually gonna be a hip hop for hunger April 12 in Sioux Falls.
• 0:56
  Hell, yeah.
• 0:57
  That's what I'm talking about.
• 1:00
  Love it.
• 1:01
  Love what what he's been building to get out there.
• 1:04
  And if we're gonna get together, we should be doing it for a cause.
• 1:08
  And that's something we kind of started with our songwriter showcase where me and Secret got
• 1:12
  together and, you know, doing it to raise money.
• 1:15
  If we're all gonna be getting together to fill these I don't even drink anymore.
• 1:18
  Right?
• 1:19
  So for me to go and to wanna do a show and to hang out in a bar, like, it's so far beyond
• 1:25
  just, like, my own performance for me.
• 1:28
  I've been doing this for a long time, boo boo.
• 1:30
  How long you've been in the game, brother?
• 1:31
  I've actually for performing, I just started last year when I opened for OG Mako in March
• 1:37
  before he passed away.
• 1:38
  But I've been releasing since I was 16, so about five years now.
• 1:43
  Awesome.
• 1:43
  You're a young fella.
• 1:44
  Look at you.
• 1:45
  Well and and that's why guys like me and Secret, especially, we're the OGs, man.
• 1:50
  We've been at this for decades and trying to bring in and to teach this new generation
• 1:56
  coming along of how we're gonna do it from now on.
• 2:00
  The game's all changed.
• 2:01
  Ain't nobody getting record deals and getting, you know, famous in that way.
• 2:04
  It's all about the community that you can build and what you can do to bring some positivity to
• 2:10
  not just your music, but to your community and to your life and to other people's lives.
• 2:16
  And I think that's a I mean, it's a vibe.
• 2:18
  Everybody's on it right now, and it feels really good to be in it.
• 2:23
  Yeah.
• 2:23
  And it feels great just to be able to do these, like, things, like, good things, you know, and
• 2:29
  be be able to push this positivity that I'm working on with my album.
• 2:32
  And I'm excited because I'm trying to put on, like, my own, like, benefit shows and things
• 2:40
  around here, trying to get into contact with the owner of Shooters Bar in Watertown, see
• 2:45
  what we can do here.
• 2:46
  Yeah, man.
• 2:46
  Well and you're going to.
• 2:47
  Right?
• 2:48
  And you're gonna be learning from some of the best definitely around in this area that are
• 2:53
  doing it, and people that just don't stop.
• 2:56
  Even if we're not the best at it, we don't we don't consider that a detriment.
• 3:00
  It just means that we still got work to do.
• 3:03
  And at least for myself, like, that's what excites me about life in general is that I can
• 3:10
  get better.
• 3:11
  Yeah.
• 3:11
  We're good now, but we can get better.
• 3:13
  And and that's that's something that I know, you know, Secret is doing and pushing.
• 3:19
  And people like Jennica Hauser as well who's, you know, Half Dead and Guardian Angel is the
• 3:24
  name of their their group.
• 3:26
  They've been doing this a long time, putting shows together, going on tour, and now we all
• 3:30
  kind of feel like as we're all getting a little bit older, I think we're all, you know, late
• 3:35
  thirties, early forties, some of us, that it's our job to kind of work with these younger
• 3:40
  acts, right, that are in there.
• 3:42
  You know?
• 3:42
  Some of them are teenagers still, like my boy, Lil Devro.
• 3:46
  And, you know, gentlemen like yourself, 21 years old, that you have that want to do
• 3:52
  something and you're seeing the benefit of doing it in a positive light.
• 3:56
  I think that that means a lot more.
• 3:58
  You know?
• 3:58
  When we when we were growing up, it was all about chasing fame and money and and I don't
• 4:04
  know.
• 4:04
  It it just it got sour on all of us.
• 4:06
  Right?
• 4:07
  And it led us to the same point that you're at now, but you got eighteen years.
• 4:11
  You know?
• 4:12
  You're a you're a you're an adult younger than I am, man.
• 4:17
  Yeah.
• 4:18
  And the thing is, like, I like the ability to, like, learn, grow, and improve.
• 4:22
  And, like, what I'm really trying to do here is, like, yeah, I have some lines while I get
• 4:25
  money and fame, but I'm really in it for my passion and love of the music.
• 4:29
  Like, I've always loved making music.
• 4:31
  I mean, ever as long as I can remember, I've been singing or messing with instruments.
• 4:37
  Well, let's talk about that.
• 4:38
  I mean, what are some of your influences, and and what does the music sound like?
• 4:44
  So, I mean, like, influences music wise, like, what pushed me towards this more positive
• 4:49
  aspect would be, like, older Modson and older Mac Miller music and also Nubs for, like, the
• 4:54
  newer age ones.
• 4:55
  You know?
• 4:55
  Like, they really kinda inspired me, like, trying to be more positive with my life and
• 5:00
  change what I was doing because I definitely was not making a positive impact on my
• 5:04
  community or the people around me for a long time.
• 5:09
  Me neither.
• 5:12
  And even if my music didn't reflect that, my life did.
• 5:17
  A little about me, I did a couple years in prison for, I mean, selling weed, but I was
• 5:21
  still a drug dealer.
• 5:23
  I wasn't having a positive effect on on my community, and not that I was, you know,
• 5:27
  killing people or anything, but it it wasn't doing any good in my life and it wasn't doing
• 5:32
  any good really in anyone else's lives.
• 5:34
  And, obviously, it's a lot different now as we have a, you know, medical program in South
• 5:38
  Dakota, and it's pretty much, you know, put drug dealers out of business across the state.
• 5:43
  But, you know, I feel that.
• 5:46
  And and I I commend you for, at a young age, you know, accepting that and wanting to make a
• 5:52
  difference now.
• 5:54
  Yeah.
• 5:54
  Because I don't wanna wait too long to make a difference with who I am.
• 5:57
  You wait too long, people aren't gonna accept any change of who you are.
• 6:02
  And I want to be seen as a good person because I am a good person.
• 6:05
  I want to be a good person and make a positive impact, not in just my community, but, like,
• 6:10
  everywhere.
• 6:12
  That's awesome, man.
• 6:13
  So you you got a little bit of a you you got some shows.
• 6:17
  We talked about April 12 coming up.
• 6:20
  You you're looking to get more going on.
• 6:23
  What you know, we're gonna get you in, get you tapped into the Midwest Original Music
• 6:28
  Organization, Momo.
• 6:30
  That's, that's my own org that that we're, you know, forming right now to support artists like
• 6:36
  you and to bring and grow that community.
• 6:39
  But, what's what's your big goals for the rest of 2025?
• 6:43
  My big goals?
• 6:45
  I mean, I wanted, like I mean, there's small goals to a lot of people, but, like, I wanna
• 6:50
  get to, like, a thousand followers on each of my pages, something like that.
• 6:53
  You know?
• 6:53
  Like, I don't I'm not close to that, but I wanna be there at the end of the year.
• 6:58
  They they we all start somewhere, man.
• 7:01
  We we got 200 subscribers a little over on our YouTube page.
• 7:05
  And, I tell you what, that's a vast improvement from the 12 it was at the beginning of the
• 7:10
  year.
• 7:10
  Right?
• 7:11
  And and the 18,000 views that will pass this week is a huge number compared to less than a
• 7:18
  thousand at the beginning of the year.
• 7:19
  So it's all just perspective.
• 7:21
  Nothing happens overnight.
• 7:23
  And when you're not in it to go viral and you're not making content for that reason, it's
• 7:29
  just it's different.
• 7:31
  Right?
• 7:31
  Like, I'm not trying to make anything that I do to just capture lightning in a bottle one time.
• 7:37
  I'm trying to be the storm.
• 7:39
  Right?
• 7:39
  And I'm trying to to build this and to be that rising tide that raises all the ships and not
• 7:46
  waiting for our tide to come in.
• 7:48
  And that takes a lot more work.
• 7:49
  And it it a lot of it is I won't say thankless because I get a lot of love not just in our
• 7:54
  music community, but now in the podcast community as well.
• 7:58
  But it's a lot of hard work, man, and a lot of it is behind the scenes and not glamorous, man.
• 8:02
  I mean, I spend most of my days in front of this same camera and computer screen, you know,
• 8:08
  talking to strangers and clicking away.
• 8:11
  Yeah.
• 8:12
  I mean, I spend my days doing the same thing without the camera and the talking to
• 8:16
  strangers.
• 8:17
  I'm just clicking away and typing all the time.
• 8:19
  I mean, it's all work, but, you know, I guess here in South Dakota, right now, we are like,
• 8:26
  everyone that's really doing it is, like, the tide rising to build what the future ships will
• 8:31
  ride on.
• 8:32
  You know?
• 8:33
  Yeah.
• 8:33
  The music scene here, really.
• 8:35
  We're building it.
• 8:36
  Although that's how the podcast got its name.
• 8:39
  Right?
• 8:39
  Everybody's like, man, there's so many good musicians in Sioux Falls or around in the area
• 8:43
  in South Dakota, but there's no scene.
• 8:45
  There's no scene.
• 8:46
  There I was like, you know what?
• 8:47
  There is now.
• 8:48
  And it the reason it became the projects is because I had so many things.
• 8:53
  You know, we kinda talked off camera about all the the new networks that I'm building.
• 8:56
  I got a sports network.
• 8:58
  I got like a news and conspiracy network.
• 9:00
  We have one a show called Get Better Together where we just share those stories that most
• 9:05
  people don't talk about.
• 9:06
  Right?
• 9:07
  Opportunity for me to talk about my addiction issues and, you know, my prison time and to
• 9:12
  bring all of that and tell in-depth stories where, you know, this show especially is just a
• 9:16
  little get to know you, bring you on, let people, you know, see if they vibe with you
• 9:21
  real quick, and then, we can always talk again.
• 9:25
  Right?
• 9:25
  Like, there's it's so easy to connect these days through the Internet, through, you know,
• 9:29
  platforms like this and and Riverside especially.
• 9:33
  But podcasts are the future, brother.
• 9:34
  So I hope I can convince you to, to start your own podcast.
• 9:38
  And if you're gonna be in front of that computer, man, you might as well click it on
• 9:41
  and have some conversations.
• 9:43
  Yeah.
• 9:44
  I'm actually thinking me and my friend were talking about doing, like it'd be like an
• 9:48
  interview podcast.
• 9:49
  It'd be every Friday.
• 9:50
  It'd be freestyle Fridays where we'd end up, like, at some point putting on some of my beats
• 9:54
  and the guest would just get to go crazy on my on some of my unused beats.
• 9:58
  That sounds like a great idea, and I'm gonna help you in whatever way I can get that up off
• 10:03
  the ground, brother.
• 10:05
  You got it.
• 10:06
  Boo Boo, why don't you tell everybody where they can find your music and, yeah, so they can
• 10:10
  check you out online.
• 10:12
  You can find my music on YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, and Apple currently.
• 10:18
  All under the moniker boo boo?
• 10:20
  Yes, sir.
• 10:21
  I love it, man.
• 10:22
  Well, everybody make sure you're getting on, giving him a follow, listening to his music.
• 10:27
  And boo boo, thanks for being part of the scene.
• 10:30
  Thanks for having me on.