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DVS Mindz: The Twenty-Year Saga of the Greatest Rap Group to Almost Make It Outta Kansas
99.9% of aspiring rappers never make it in the music industry. So why do we only hear the stories of the ones who do?
DVS Mindz might be the greatest rap group you’ve never heard of. Formed in Topeka, Kansas, in the mid-1990s, they developed a reputation for ferocious rhyming and frenetic live performances. In their heyday, DVS Mindz released a critically acclaimed CD, received nominations for prestigious awards, and opened for legends such as Wu-Tang Clan, Run-DMC, and De La Soul as well as KC icon Tech N9ne. But the group struggled with creative differences, substance abuse, ego battles, and money issues, and they split up in 2003.
Geoff Harkness takes readers on a unique two-decade journey alongside the members of DVS Mindz, chronicling their childhoods, their brush with success, and what became of them in the years that followed. Based on more than one hundred hours of video and audio recordings from 1999 to 2022, this fly-on-the-wall account offers a backstage pass into the recording studios and radio stations, video shoots and house parties, nightclubs and concert halls of the Kansas City-Lawrence-Topeka music scene circa 2000.
DVS Mindz is at once a compulsively readable group biography of four talented MCs, a vibrant voyage through the forgotten history of local hip hop, and a breathtakingly real story of struggling to achieve big dreams.
DVS Mindz might be the greatest rap group you’ve never heard of. Formed in Topeka, Kansas, in the mid-1990s, they developed a reputation for ferocious rhyming and frenetic live performances. In their heyday, DVS Mindz released a critically acclaimed CD, received nominations for prestigious awards, and opened for legends such as Wu-Tang Clan, Run-DMC, and De La Soul as well as KC icon Tech N9ne. But the group struggled with creative differences, substance abuse, ego battles, and money issues, and they split up in 2003.
Geoff Harkness takes readers on a unique two-decade journey alongside the members of DVS Mindz, chronicling their childhoods, their brush with success, and what became of them in the years that followed. Based on more than one hundred hours of video and audio recordings from 1999 to 2022, this fly-on-the-wall account offers a backstage pass into the recording studios and radio stations, video shoots and house parties, nightclubs and concert halls of the Kansas City-Lawrence-Topeka music scene circa 2000.
DVS Mindz is at once a compulsively readable group biography of four talented MCs, a vibrant voyage through the forgotten history of local hip hop, and a breathtakingly real story of struggling to achieve big dreams.
461 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 18, 2023
7 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 19, 2023
https://scratchedvinyl.com/reviews/ge...
Interview with Geoff Harkness here: https://scratchedvinyl.com/interviews...
Interview with Geoff Harkness here: https://scratchedvinyl.com/interviews...
October 5, 2024
Personally, rap is not my music preference - but I took an interest in this book anyway out of a personal connection. I grew up in school with a couple of the guys in the four-person rap group that's profiled here. And I wasn't disappointed in the read. It tells their story, beginning with concert coverage that gives exposure to what made their music, and especially their live performances, so potent. They exceeded expectations, out-performing even the more high-profile acts that they were opening for.
Then the book segues into a personal history of each member and of the group - including a visit to the Lowman Hill Elementary School in Topeka. It also gives a lot of attention to the house that served as a base of operations for the group, just a block or so over. It's a very honest telling of the story; the reader gets a real good feel for the history of the band.
Then the book moves into coverage of the band's heyday. One big surprise here is that in some ways it's a narrative of self-destruction; it's an honest recounting that includes some of the ways they shot themselves in the foot - e.g. intoxication at performances, unnecessary clashes with a local hip-hop writer, quarrels within the group, scolding concert-goers from the stage, etc.). From the beginning, the author emphasizes the idea that that these guys had everything they needed to make it big, but they didn't. Why was that the case? A partial answer seems to come in this part - though it's certainly not the entirety of it.
You have to credit all parties on this aspect: An honest telling of the story requires some uncomfortable details. If you're going to tell the story, don't sugar-coat it - and they don't.
The third sequence visits the scene after the band broke up, several years later. There's a mix of both reflections, along with some renewed interest - to the point that three of the four members reunited for a new recording. The author surveys the continued projects, what the artists are like now, and how they look back on the previous decades of experience.
Overall this was a very interesting read, and not just for personal interest's sake. You don't have to be a big rap fan (or even like it) to appreciate it as an art form, and all the creative potential that goes into it. But the story makes it more than something about the music.
The author's personal interest was helpful on the whole. My only critique would be his writing style: He often reverts to present-tense language even when describing events that happened years ago. It takes away something from it. A reflective mode would've been an improvement.
An important qualifier: There's a lot of profanity here; it's in the culture. If you have a deep aversion to vulgar language, this book isn't for you. And this especially needs to be kept in mind with the common use of the n-word. It's one thing for people to use it in that culture, but white people have lost their jobs when they've used it - even when just reading out-loud what somebody else said or wrote (e.g. as with Cale Gundy).
Another qualifier: One of the listed songs in the beginner's guide at the end of the book describes one of the musicians threatening Topeka law enforcement officers, by name - and even threatening to kill them. That is not cool; I can never go along with that.
But overall, the beginners guide at the end was helpful. It's a useful survey of music, and which of the songs can be found online. I regretted not coming upon it at the beginning; it might have been a good place to start.
Then the book segues into a personal history of each member and of the group - including a visit to the Lowman Hill Elementary School in Topeka. It also gives a lot of attention to the house that served as a base of operations for the group, just a block or so over. It's a very honest telling of the story; the reader gets a real good feel for the history of the band.
Then the book moves into coverage of the band's heyday. One big surprise here is that in some ways it's a narrative of self-destruction; it's an honest recounting that includes some of the ways they shot themselves in the foot - e.g. intoxication at performances, unnecessary clashes with a local hip-hop writer, quarrels within the group, scolding concert-goers from the stage, etc.). From the beginning, the author emphasizes the idea that that these guys had everything they needed to make it big, but they didn't. Why was that the case? A partial answer seems to come in this part - though it's certainly not the entirety of it.
You have to credit all parties on this aspect: An honest telling of the story requires some uncomfortable details. If you're going to tell the story, don't sugar-coat it - and they don't.
The third sequence visits the scene after the band broke up, several years later. There's a mix of both reflections, along with some renewed interest - to the point that three of the four members reunited for a new recording. The author surveys the continued projects, what the artists are like now, and how they look back on the previous decades of experience.
Overall this was a very interesting read, and not just for personal interest's sake. You don't have to be a big rap fan (or even like it) to appreciate it as an art form, and all the creative potential that goes into it. But the story makes it more than something about the music.
The author's personal interest was helpful on the whole. My only critique would be his writing style: He often reverts to present-tense language even when describing events that happened years ago. It takes away something from it. A reflective mode would've been an improvement.
An important qualifier: There's a lot of profanity here; it's in the culture. If you have a deep aversion to vulgar language, this book isn't for you. And this especially needs to be kept in mind with the common use of the n-word. It's one thing for people to use it in that culture, but white people have lost their jobs when they've used it - even when just reading out-loud what somebody else said or wrote (e.g. as with Cale Gundy).
Another qualifier: One of the listed songs in the beginner's guide at the end of the book describes one of the musicians threatening Topeka law enforcement officers, by name - and even threatening to kill them. That is not cool; I can never go along with that.
But overall, the beginners guide at the end was helpful. It's a useful survey of music, and which of the songs can be found online. I regretted not coming upon it at the beginning; it might have been a good place to start.
June 7, 2023
I will be covering this in the July issue of The Pitch Kansas City :)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews