The Break Presents: Dave B

Since Macklemore and Ryan Lewis burst onto the hip-hop scene, the spotlight has been placed on Seattle, which has quietly been producing a handful of serious young talent. Young artists like Sango, Nacho Picasso, Jarv Dee, Shabazz Palaces and Aminé, plus more, are making waves of their own. Another MC that's starting to see his name become bigger is Dave B.

Dave, the son of a preacher, meshes hip-hop, jazz and soul together to make music that will make you bounce, plus provide food for thought. The 24-year-old's style is perfect for today's sing-song rap style yet he manages to find his own sound. After releasing a string of singles then his Punch Drunk mixtape last year, Dave B gained fans from way beyond Emerald City.

"It was dope, niggas were knowing the words, it wasn’t too big of a room but it ended up filling out," Dave told XXL a few days after he performed in Brooklyn last month. "This was my first time ever being in New York and my first time performing here. It was really dope."

Now with a growing fan base and excellent work ethic, Dave is quickly working on releasing his new project this month. "I finished the last songs [on my project] I’m working with Sango, he lives in Seattle too," he said. His collaboration album with Sango titled Tomorrow is releasing on July 22.

Dave B is about to have a big Summer '16.

Name: Dave B

Age: 24

Hometown: Seattle

I grew up listening to: "[I grew up listening to] hella gospel music, like so much gospel music. My dad was a youth minister at a church so I was apart of the choir and whatever little organizations they had at church. I used to spend hella time there [laughs]. I used to do theater a lot and I went to school to do theater and audio production and I just got sick of being in class, everything he’s teaching me I’m going back in the crib and doing it for myself, so I might as well do that. So I started taking music seriously. I went to Columbia College.

"I’ve been singing for a long time but I’m not really a singer like that. I’ve been trying to be in rap groups with like my friends and my cousins since fifth grade. I just started thinking, we could do this, we could be a rapper. But it never happened. [Laughs]. Maybe, 15, 16, my sister got me a microphone for Christmas and I got an old white MacBooks. I would just put it together on Garageband and just record to every beat I can download. I didn’t start taking myself seriously ‘till four or five years ago.

"I was doing like little Mediafire links on MySpace and Facebook. And I had music MySpace with like 50 something songs. All I would do is record for songs a day and upload it at night. I remember I had this song, don’t remember the name but it had like a thousand plays. It was crazy. Then I did a freestyle live at this gallery in Chicago and it got like 2000 plays and I was like, 'Yo I got a hit, I need to start getting serious now.'"

Most people don’t know: "I eat a lot of sushi and I used to ride bikes a lot but now I don’t. [Laughs] Pretty much I eat a lot of sushi."

My style’s been compared to: "People have compared me to a lot. Some people say Chance but I don’t really see that. Someone said Bryson Tiller and I didn’t see that at all. Someone on Twitter said if like Frank Ocean and Andre 300 had a baby it would be Dave B and I were like, 'I’ll take that' [laughs]. I don’t know if I would compare myself to anything or anyone. But [my sound] is real soulful. Not even really hip-hop but just some kind of contemporary version of hip-hop that’s got like a lot of really jazzy soulful undertones."

My standout records or moments to date have been: "I put out this song 'Leaves' produced by Jake One last January. I put out like three songs because for a while I was hella inactive. So I put out different sounding records to see what’s going to be the bigger one. That one skyrocketed. I was like, 'oh shit, people are fucking with me.' I started to see it trickle over into my other socials and people were trying to book me for shows because of that one song. From getting a 1000 plays on YouTube to getting like 100,000 plays on SoundCloud, I be like, 'oh let me take it serious again.'"

My goal in hip-hop is: "To make it better, kind of just encourage people to take their time and be themselves. I’m not trying to be no body or sound like nobody where everybody is the poor’s man version of whoever. I say that out load because I’m just trying to be completely transparent of who I am and encourage to do the same. Be you."

I’m gonna be the next: "I think I’ll be the next Apple. Just like this thing that pretty much changed our generation."

Follow Dave B on Twitter and Soundcloud.

Standout: Punch Drunk

"Help Me Find A Way"

"Leaves"

"Got It"

"Olive Oil"