Domino
b. Shawn Ivy, c.1972, St. Louis, Misouri, USA. From the new school of rappers hailing from Long Beach, California, Domino typifies the area's preoccupation with cool, languid, almost sexual delivery. His hybrid accent is accounted for by the fact that he spent his first seven years in St. Louis. He had begun singing professionally in night clubs like Marla Gibbs' Crossroads and Sir Alex in Compton before he embarked on a rap style. Just as contemporaries like Snoop Doggy Dogg spice their rhymes with outbursts of actual singing, Domino repeats the feat, with slightly less contentious lyrics, to an arguably greater degree of success. In fact Domino had been Snoop's ‘homie’ at Junior High. After a childhood spent listening to soul and funk standards from the Stylistics and Funkadelic, he caught the rap bug and began writing words for himself and Snoop. According to Domino, Snoop couldn't resist the temptation to ‘go gangsta’ when it was offered to him on a plate by Dr Dre, and the duo split. Domino's perseverence with a more cognitive style was eventually rewarded. After several years of trying to get the major labels to listen, he signed with the small independent, Outburst. Getto Jam underlined his appeal: these were still tough talking rap words, but sauntered through in an easy, inviting fashion. The buzz created by the track saw him and Outburst signed up for distribution by Def Jam. Samples from Kool And The Gang sat side by side with lines like: ‘Everybody loves them dead presidents’ on his debut album. This was combined with a more realistic overview of Domino's place in the scheme of things, with rhymes discussing his desire for sexual gratification (Ass For Days) contrasting with morally tinged attitudes to safe sex (Raincoat), from which he even launched a condom range of the same name. Similarly, rather than the glorification of the drive-by shooting so evident in the work of others, there is a matter of fact discourse instead on the hassles of getting paid (Money Is Everything). Such platitudes saw him discussed in one magazine as ‘a soft spoken businessman who will make an excellent bank manager when he gets sick of making records’. His own view: ‘There's so much going on in the 'hood apart from guns and murder’. However, he did face criticism on his first British outing when misguided punters paid £10 to hear him perform three songs at a PA, when they had expected a full gig. Not to be confused with the production specialist Domino of Del Tha Funkee Homosapien's Hieroglyphics crew fame.