For quite some time now, Mississippi rapper David Banner has garnered attention due to his signature, gray goatee. And during a newly-released interview with DJ Smallz Eyes, the Southern wordsmith was asked if there is any significance behind his beard.
According to Banner, his beard represents both wisdom and freedom. While speaking on the meaning behind his goatee, he also spoke on the desire among many to “wanna stay a child,” and the allure of things that are fake.
“Yeah, it is,” David Banner said when asked if there’s meaning behind his goatee. “Wisdom. I wanted these children to see a successful man grow up. All these—I ain’t gonna say ‘all these,’ but a lot of people are lying. Everybody wanna stay a child, bro. That’s part of our culture. We respect the elders and wisdom. And I just got tired of being fake, bro. We running around like we got more cosmetics than girls do…What’s so crazy is these kids would rather see something fake than see something real. People think that I dye my beard…When this is the real. And they’ll trip because they’ll say ‘Why is my beard gray and not my hair?’ I don’t fuckin’ know. It just happened to be that way. But I just got tired. I want people to love me for me.”
Banner continued to speak on authenticity and being the first to set a trend, during his interview. At one point, he revealed that he’s the first or one of the first to add a tag or name before a beat.
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“Nobody else can beat you being you,” he said. “I haven’t seen nobody else with no gray beard. No full gray beard. If it starts popping, you can act like how y’all act—If not was the first, but one of the first that put the tags or at least your name [on a beat]. There was somebody who was putting the sound before me, but nine times out of 10, if you heard a tag before a beat—I don’t know. I’m willing to argue that. It may have been somebody, but I tell you what, I just wanna be me. I just wanna be the first.”
