It felt nice to get invited to an intimate house show; in a way I felt like I was apart of a small, secret group of creatives that lurk in Denton and only associate amongst themselves. Too bad that wasn’t the case. Christian Win sent me the screenshot of a tweet to the small event. It interested me because the last house show I attended in Denton wasn’t too shabby and it was years ago. Also, there was an artist that was hosting it that I never heard of before. After a quick meal, I was off into the mid summer night. 15 minutes and 3 or maybe 4 stop lights later, I arrived at the apartments where the show was being held. At first, I was going to wait for Christian and whoever he was bringing with him but I had a change of mind and decided to go in. As I walked in, I noticed the space was filled with young people, neon blue and purple lights, 3 couches that were moved to face toward the kitchen and the patio door was open. I made a bee line towards to the patio because it felt a little too crowded in such a small space. I became acquainted with the few attendees that were all leaning on the fence outside facing toward the glass doors. It wasn’t long until Christian, Marlon and a few others showed up to the function and appeared at the patio door. Shortly after, the show began and there were two performers by the time I showed up: a shorter one with a bald head and another performer who was tall, lanky and wore dreads. Although very brief, each performance was decent and truly intimate, I definitely enjoyed it. The taller performer stood out to me. His sound was have a unique feel, it left me curious. After a brief introduction, I got ahold of his name: Donovan Bogney.

I met up with the Allen, Texas native at the same apartment that the show was hosted to talk about his album “Lucid”. It was in the moment of walking inside that Donovan stated that this was his apartment. Bogney seems to tower over my short frame and possess a monotone voice that can be soothing during a kindergarten story time session. Growing up in a north Texas upper middle class, suburban neighborhood, Donovan was the only child who was creative and very talented at a young age. From the age of 8, he had aspirations of being a videographer and had a talent in playing the drums and piano. A former student at Allen High, he mentions that the school had a lot of opportunities and resources that students didn’t really use; animation and film class and Mtech, which was a club held in a classroom that contained studios for musicians to record music. He mentions that it was the perfect hangout spot for creatives and artists to network. In middle school, he began making tracks and recorded it on SoundCloud, along with his friends. He always found a way to incorporate music in his school projects. By senior year, he was the president of three different clubs. Not only that, he began officially rapping, making comical, joke songs. A few months later, he purchased his own studio equipment and made the Donovan Bogney EP, available somewhere on SoundCloud. Shortly after high school ended, a few months pass by and Bogney starts to make good quality music, along with making more connections with like minded people. He linked up with Savior Jaman earlier on, a former classmate who attended the same church as Bogney, in MTech. Following after that, he linked up with fellow artist Shermstix, who eventually mix and mastered Donovan’s project “Lucid”.

A couple of his major influences include Chance the rapper but most importantly Alex Wiley, both from the Chicago alternative hip hop scene. He was first introduced to Chance the Rapper. A friend of Bogney’s introduced him to the song “Cocoa Butter Kisses” via YouTube. Based off of his friend’s aggressive and vulgar taste in rap, he assumed the song wasn’t going to satisfied his ears. Surprisingly, his assumption was wrong. From there, Donovan began listening to Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap album. Every so often on the Recommended Section on Youtube, Donovan would overlook Alex Wiley until he eventually gave in and clicked on the Vibration video. For that moment on. Bogney was hooked on Alex Wiley, including listening to his project, “Village Party”. He learned a lot from Alex, from the way mixes and masters to how he layers his voice in recording. “There’s a lot of things in my sounds that I took directly from him [Alex Wiley]”, he states. Smino, an r&b artist from St Louis, is another artist that Donovan is influenced by as well.

In comparison to his previous projects, Lucid is his first serious album. Donovan states the meaning behind Lucid;” It’s about taking control of your dreams, being aware cognizant and being present where you’re at” he explains. “The album is about growth, learning and understanding the consequences, and experiencing things”. Initially, he intended on writing for the album a while back but claims he kept ditching it and procrastinating. He better explains his reason when he tells me that he just wasn’t ready for it. He wanted to go to more personal experiences and to gain enough perspective on his current journey through life.

“I feel like when you try to make an official album and you put a stamp on it, it scares you.”

Donovan states nothing was preplanned about this album, nothing was rushed and there was no pressure involved. He was very “free and open” during the process and this allowed him to let his creativity take over, as opposed to forcing himself to write full songs at once. To him, it’s more about capturing the moment than to actually create a moment. He doesn’t require too much thinking, as he tells me that if he started to think too much about what to say next, it becomes a thought and if it becomes a thought then it isn’t real, it’s isn’t true. When a thought process becomes involved, he simply stops what he is doing and does something else.

“In the very moment you are creating something is when it’s considered real.”

Lucid consists of 13 songs and is roughly 30 mins. In my opinion, it’s an interesting body of work. In a way, it’s reminiscent to the way Jim Morrison from the Doors puts his albums together. In the more contemporary sense, you can tell his influences shine through, esp with the hip hop element present through out the album. Although this project is what the majority would consider as “alternative hip hop”, I described Lucid to Donovan as “shoegazey”. If there was a sub genre called ,”shoegaze rap” or “shoegaze hip hop” , I would place this album in that bubble. All in all, he’s very confident when says that he has THE BEST CONCEPTUAL ALBUM IN ALL OF DFW. Outside of Lucid, Bogney has other endeavors in the works including more Dreamfest events and his own interview series, “ Rappers in the woods”, where he takes rapper out of their comfort and conduct and puts them in the woods to interview them.

Lucid is available on all streaming platforms including

Apple

Spotify

Click Donovan’s Bored Magazine cover to visit his site