Jerbana: A History of Black Daniel White

If you’re not familiar with the Champaign-Urbana DIY DJ scene, there are few names more important than BlackDanielWhite. Coming up on a year of DJing in the area, BlackDanielWhite (real name Daniel White) has already been sowing seeds of influence at house shows around CU. This interview was a few months in the making, with conflicting schedules preventing a meetup in 2018. Finally, in true Gonzo Journalism fashion, the interview was arranged at a party the night before.Arriving at my apartment after a slog through the bitter cold, Daniel wasted no time getting into the details of his long history with DJing, not even spending time to take his coat off. His background is as eclectic as his music, being inspired to DJ by the Dave B. album Punch Drunk, a semi-obscure ambient trip hop album from 2015. A near-obsession led him to attempt a remaster that would fix many perceived inconsistencies with the album. Daniel purchased his first mixer—a $60 hunk of junk he immediately regretted buying—but it wasn’t until he got a much better one that his career really began. He explained that he went through many phases of production: chopping and screwing, mixing and looping, and eventually creating full sets before finally being inspired to publicly DJ by seeing an unenthusiastic crowd response to Tay K’s The Race at a party. He said, “I noticed the disparity between the people in the pit and everyone else. Everyone in the pit was really enjoying Tay-K, everyone else seemed disinterested. I decided that wasn’t the right song for the crowd, it made me want to DJ because I believed I could do it better than many people.”When asked about his first live set, he said it was “God awful. A mix of Kaytranada and Majestic casual tracks.” He has recently shifted his focus more towards neohouse and Brazilian music, while also playing some Caribbean inspired tunes as well. He put it best himself, claiming that his DJing style is “like roller skating music for people who like The Internet.”In a moment of pride, Daniel explained that he doesn’t take inspiration from many other DJs, believing the duty of a good DJ is to bring something new to the table that they discovered organically, not simply reflect the work of other DJs. He went on to explain that he focuses heavily on sequencing his music, and does it better than most DJs that he’s heard. He puts these talents on display at what he considered his best performance at the Green Room for The Collective launch party back in October.Of course being a DJ isn’t perfect all the time, and Daniel detailed some of the most frustrating aspects of DJing to me. He is particularly annoyed by “wack ass requests” affirming that he is not, in fact, a wedding reception DJ. He goes on to clarify that requests are not inherently bad, but that requesting hits tends to be annoying, especially when the person making the request can’t read a room or understand the direction the set is going. On a more personal note, Daniel stated that he sometimes tends to struggle with understanding when the crowd is feeling his music and when they’re mentally checked out. According to Daniel, one of his friends told him that “Urbana white hipsters” tend to be less confident in displaying their dancing abilities openly.When he’s not DJing, Daniel bartends at Krannert Center and does some mixology on his own time. However, DJing has gradually consumed more and more of his time, becoming less of a hobby and more of a source of income. He has also been learning how to cultivate vegetables indoors and became more self sufficient. When I asked what he listens to he told me his favorite albums include Blonde by Frank Ocean, Animals by TTNG, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight by Travis Scott, and Beauty Ave. by A.M. Overast. He also said if he could perform with any artists in history it would be either Missy Elliot with his band Flat Moon Theory or DJing with Anderson Paak, Fishbone, or The Internet.When asked if he had any prediction about artists blowing up in the next year he said Lil Gnar, Rico Nasty, or maybe even Soulja Boy (with his tongue in cheek, of course). One trend from the past year that Daniel found surprising at first was the rise of rappers rapping off beat, particularly Blueface. Of course this isn’t an entirely new phenomenon, as artists such as MF DOOM and Earl Sweatshirt have done this for a while, but for it to reach this level of popularity and prevalence in the mainstream is surprising. Daniel went on to claim that “there was practically nowhere else to go but offbeat” so the evolution makes sense.Daniel’s music can be found on his Soundcloud titled BlackDanielWhite, and his Instagram of the same name, but more importantly, it can be found blasting from the speakers of many houses in Champaign-Urbana every weekend. If you’re interested in being entranced by exciting neohouse beats and occasional rap crescendos there’s no better place to listen than right from the source.