Credo: Lester B. Wallace III
By: Leah Fabel
Examiner Staff Writer
August 30, 2009
Lester B. Wallace III knows the power of a good education. He graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, one of the best historically black colleges in the country, before earning a master’s degree from George Washington University. But the 30-year-old also respects the pull of his passion for creating music and influencing young lives. He works with Words, Beats and Life Inc., teaching radio production skills to young people in the D.C. area. And under the pseudonym 2-Tone Jones, Wallace spins records at clubs in D.C. and New York City, hosts “Ill Street Grooves” Monday nights on 89.3 WBFW and plays every Tuesday night with Sound of the City at the U-Street Corridor’s historic Bohemian Caverns jazz club. He spoke with The Examiner about what inspires his works and his creativity.
Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?
I consider myself to be a Christian. I was raised in the Baptist church in Charlotte, N.C., and still attend there when I visit home. I wouldn’t confine myself to the Baptists now, but I believe in the core Christian values: Doing good to others, trying to be Godlike when you can. We all have our faults and vices, but there’s a higher power who forgives, especially when you make efforts to improve. I’ve maintained my faith and I pray, and have kept up my relationship with God.
Young artists often have the reputation as misguided, or as slackers. What does it take to refute that reputation and to prosper in an artistic career?
It starts with a good work ethic as a foundation. One thing I tell young folks — those who aspire to make music — is that this is something you work at. It’s not like the Matrix where you sit in a chair and someone plugs you in and then you’re there. For young people, everything looks like it comes so quickly, but it comes with work.
And then I have to make sure the business aspect of what I’m doing is taken care of — having a paper trail for everything. Before I resigned from my first job out of graduate school, I looked at how much I was making from deejaying on the side. Then I considered how much more I could make if I devoted myself to it full time. And with my degree to fall back on, I knew I’d be able to sustain myself during slow times — that was important.
When it comes around to the workweek’s end and people are ready to relax, what is the deejay’s ethic?
As a deejay, you want the energy level to go up and up and up throughout the night. And to do that, you have to make sure that everything makes sense musically and rhythmically. You can’t move from fast to slow, one after the other. You can change tempos gradually, but you have to group the music together, and master the tempo from one song to the next so that the transition seems seamless. That’s how deejays keep the energy constant. The worst thing you can ever see is people walking off of the dance floor.
There is a culture of drugs and violence often associated with urban music scenes. What is a truer characterization?
It’s a scene that thrives off of creativity. And in the past, I think there was more of that. Now, because much of hip-hop music is considered mainstream, there are recurring images that aren’t original — people put out hit records that sound a lot like other hit records, and that too often don’t relate to real problems affecting kids’ communities. When I talk to young people about hip-hop, I try to help them understand that they’re entering a culture that has been around since before they were born — a culture based on creating something out of virtually nothing, taking events from life and from the past and making them your own. Make it your own — produce something unique that no one else could produce on this Earth, because they’re not you.
At your core, what is one of your defining beliefs?
I believe that people can learn to be humble and should always look for the good in other people and in all situations. If things don’t go my way, dwelling on it doesn’t help. I believe that if I keep doing what’s right, and treating people with respect, in the end I’ll get that all back.
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