INTERVIEW | MR. D.TUNES TALKS HIP-HOP, RELIGION AND NEW SINGLE ‘GOD’S PLAN’

By Rishma • On Interviews

Hail­ing from Sur­i­n­ame,  Mr.D.Tunes is a rap­per, deeply inspired by his faith as a Chris­ti­an. Hav­ing already battled many hard­ships in his per­son­al life, Mr.D.Tunes is here to inspire, and give hope through his music. His latest single ‘God’s Plan’ talks about how life is big­ger than mater­i­al pos­ses­sions, as he puts his own life exper­i­ences into perspective.

God’s Plan is Out Now

Listen Here

We catch up with him to find out more.

Tell us a bit about grow­ing up in Sur­i­n­ame, how did the cul­ture and music influ­ence you?

Grow­ing up in Sur­i­n­ame was more than just life in a third world coun­try, with a sur­round­ing of nat­ur­al resources and an envir­on­ment of spe­cies that are both amaz­ing to see but also dan­ger­ous to be around. It was going to school via the dirt road, going to a loc­al busi­ness whose store was a house and the pops­icles you pur­chased you grabbed from the freez­er in their kit­chen. The cul­ture influ­enced me to con­tin­ue to be rel­ev­ant in my thoughts and music, instead of writ­ing things or tak­ing a moment to see oth­er per­spect­ives. It taught me to be grate­ful for not just life but for the small things like shoes on my feet. When I used to see pic­tures of the U.S i always dreamed of see­ing the lights and big build­ings, covered in snow. Simple things that till this day give me so much joy and is exactly why I make TUNES.

You are greatly inspired by Reli­gion and God. Tell us about your faith and why it plays such an import­ant role in your music?

When you really listen to my testi­mony, it will just leave you speech­less and solid­i­fy my answer. After mov­ing to the U.S I grew up as an immig­rant. The kid that was dif­fer­ent, bul­lied because I did­n’t speak Eng­lish right, couldn’t read and had so many dif­fer­ent chal­lenges. I con­stantly face adversity and a juggle of what the world seems like, life or death. I went to the emer­gency room, was sent to ICU, had tumors in my brain so big the doc­tors did­n’t under­stand how I was alive. The Doc­tor told me I prob­ably won’t walk again and the para­lys­is that I had would most likely not go away, but they will do what they can to keep oth­ers from grow­ing even big­ger. I star­ted to walk again, after my 14hr brain sur­gery and a recov­ery of pain. I made pro­gress, but only to find out that I had even more tumors to deal with and a com­mit­ment to the can­cer cen­ter to receive chemo­ther­apy and treat­ment, for pretty much how­ever long it takes. So the ques­tion would be, why am I still alive, ener­get­ic, why can I walk and per­form and when people see me they see no signs of my troubles? Because God has a plan and pur­pose for my life, I pray and walk in the spir­it and not the flesh. There is no oth­er explan­a­tion or thing or per­son that can ever be the source of my strength and my energy. My faith and walk in this path keeps me account­able and helps me con­tin­ue to love, encour­age and empower strangers, friends, chil­dren, my fam­ily and even my enemies.

Tell us a bit about your new single ‘God’s Plan’? What was your inspir­a­tion behind writ­ing it?

The new single ‘God’s Plan’ from dis­tin­guished, exper­i­enced rap­per Mr.D.Tunes sends a cru­cially import­ant mes­sage about life’s val­ues & his mor­als — “Life is not about fancy cars and jew­elry. We should learn to be happy with what we have”, in the words of the man him­self. The single was ori­gin­ally writ­ten as a chal­lenge to Drake, who’s song shares the same eponym­ous title, as Mr.D.Tunes claims his song is much more ‘cor­rect’ and accur­ate to the harsh real­it­ies of life. God’s Plan flaunts a dense sound­scape con­sist­ing of deep, power­ful 808s paired with the dense driv­ing kick drum, typ­ic­al trap hi-hat trills and a bop­ping vocal flow which rhyth­mic­ally lay­ers ideally on the top of the mix — per­fect HipHop pro­duc­tion. This Chris­ti­an HipHop hit is cer­tainly not one to miss and adds an extra spe­cial bow into the gen­re’s ever-expand­ing quiver.

What do you want listen­ers to take away from the song?

I want to under­stand that God has a plan and pur­pose for every­one. I want them to know that just because you say I believe and accept Christ in my life, does not make you immune to the things of the world and struggles there­of. Life is not about mater­i­al things and this of the world, we have to learn to walk in the spir­it and not the flesh. Change our frames like my pas­tor URB­AN D says, put your God frames on.

How import­ant is it for you to use your music to help guide the youth?

Extremely import­ant because the next gen­er­a­tion is the key ele­ment to con­tinu­ing and main­tain­ing a trend and walk. I can speak and encour­age many but the reas­on why I am who I am is also the work of my moth­er. She nur­tured me, taught me right from wrong and so much more. It takes a vil­lage and if I want to make some change in the world, I want to loop it. Have the teach­ing, the inspir­a­tion, motiv­a­tion put on repeat. To do that you have to focus on the youth.

Tell us about a time where Hip-Hop saved your life?

I wouldn’t say it saved my life, but it played a part in it. Hip-Hop motiv­ated me and con­nec­ted with the things I was exper­i­en­cing. Out of the many genres of music, I could always turn the radio on and hear a song about an exper­i­ence that I just had and didn’t under­stand. Hav­ing some­thing or someone that can relate to you and under­stand you, is always helpful.

What else have you got com­ing up?

This single is just a tease of the album I’ve been put­ting togeth­er, for two years now after my last release. I couldn’t put out music because I was recov­er­ing, but while I was recov­er­ing, my testi­mony kept evolving and now I have more songs to sing and more things to talk about!

Where can we find out more?

Web­site: https://mrdtunes.com

https://linktr.ee/mrdtunes

@mrdtunes — All Social

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Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

About Rishma

Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless.