As one of New York’s most beloved ‘golden age’ MCs, Brooklyn-born Dana McLeese was writing rhymes during hip-hop’s most fertile periods. As a rhymer during the age of Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, and KRS-One, Dane became one of the most recognized storytellers in rap. But over the years, a mature Dane started thinking of an alternate route. “I was trying to figure what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life,” says the MC. “I started out doing hip-hop, but rap music wasn’t driving me…as it once had.”
After a few soul-searching conversations with friends, Dana Dane realized that his passion was something that had always been in him; writing. “I’m always writing,” he confirms. “When I’m down, when I’m up — I’m always writing rhymes or short stories or what have you.” He started writing a book of short stories based on many of his classic rhymes, like “CinderFella,” and “Nightmares.” “That was a test to see if I could actually do it. From there, I decided to write screenplays, so I wrote two screenplays in the span of three months.”
Dane had found his voice, and his new novel, Numbers, is the perfect showcase for the rapper-turned-author’s talents. The gritty tale of a New York numbers runner, Dane put his heart and soul into the work. And he’s grateful for the role that hip-hop has played in both inspiring his stories and his approach to writing. “Hip-hop and writing story rhymes was a great training ground for me,” he says. “I had to get everything that I wanted out in under 5 minutes — 16–20 bars. [Now] I write a story [and] I know what it takes to express myself via the literary craft.”
–todd williams
