Count Bass D

Count Bass D works as a rapper, multi-instrumentalist, and producer from Nashville, the center of country music, where he stands apart by rejecting sampling and instead tracking his own keyboard, bass, and drum parts entirely live inside the studio. Born Dwight Farrell, he spent his early years across the Bronx, London, and Canton, Ohio, picking up drums at age four under the guidance of his West Indian minister father, who urged him to play during church services. He soon mastered piano and organ before adding bass, all while cultivating a passion for hip-hop and sharpening his rhymes among friends. After studying at a music school in Pennsylvania and exploring R&B and jazz, he moved to Middle Tennessee State University in Nashville specifically to access the institution’s gear and complete a demo. During that period he also programmed and hosted a rap video program on the campus television channel. The finished demo secured him a contract, resulting in the 1995 release of his first album, Pre-Life Crisis, which relied exclusively on live instrumentation performed largely by the artist himself. The widely praised Dwight Spitz arrived in 2002, followed three years later by a limited-edition pressing of BEGBORROWSTEEL. In 2006 he issued Act Your Waist Size through Fat Beats.