Meet Dasani Burton

We recently connected with Dasani Burton and have shared our conversation below.

Dasani, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
Keeping my creativity alive really relies on 2 things. Where life takes me, and how I react to those experiences. In my opinion the best creativity comes from truth. Sure we can have abstract imaginations and create fun productions, but how will the consumer relate. How will one truly see themselves in a song, movie, or story when there’s nothing for them to identify with. That’s why in my opinion I keep my creativity alive by just simply being alive. Side note: I also get a lot of my creativity specifically from reading a lot of comic books. Reading stories about other peoples life experiences can effectively change your outlook on your own life.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
So I was born in The Bronx, New York in September 2002. Long story short, I moved to Broward county Florida in 2017 for my freshman year of high-school. In doing so I would meet who would soon become my bass player Bradley Bhalai and my soon to be drummer Nicholas Burdo (8ightvibes). For a long time me and 8ight would make hip hop songs for fun but quickly falling in love with the music making process I wanted to push my music further than what I was hearing on the radio. It was around this time I got a 4 string electric bass, my first instrument. I played the bass for about a year before moving on to my first electric guitar. Once I got a good amount of songs down this is when I started harassing 8ight to get a drum set so we can start a band. Being the son of a drummer and drumming from young. 8ights drumming skills grew quickly. For about a year we played and practiced and called ourselves “Leviathan”. but we both knew that our duo needed a solid third. After pressing my friend Bradley to learn bass since the band first started. He finally caved after experiencing our first show. I lent him my bass and taught him the basics. Playing with a band ( and having me as a teacher) Bradley was playing full songs at shows before even reaching the 1 year mark playing bass. This new trio needed a new name, “Paraphernaila”! Now we record music and release on all streaming services. We gig as many shows as we can. And were currently working on expanding our brand with clothing and other merchandise. Eat more Paraphernaila!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1. One quality that helped me was definitely my love for creativity. As a kid I wrote my first verse and recorded it in a studio at 5. I filled my notebooks with sketches that impressed the teachers who’s work I was supposed to be engaged in. I read comics, manga, loved cartoons and tried to draw what I seen. All this being said I think that my ability to appreciated be inspired by creativity as well as being able to create myself is a key quality in my overall being

2. Being born in New York, Living in Boston and now Florida all before the age of 14 truly let me experience a lot of different cultures and ways of life. In doing so it gives me the ability to appreciate a lot of different taste in music, clothing, foods. And I feel like that effects making art or music drastically. I can make something and kind of guess how certain people will react to it based on my experience with them. And these are people from different religions, states, countries, and etc. Further expanding the type of people I can consider when creating.

3. Another kind of sounds depressing but I always have this feeling of needing to be better. No matter how good at something I get, or how beautiful something I create is. There is always a part of me that feels like I can do it better. This might not be a good quality in some respects, but I definitely think this is apart of my motivation to be successful.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
In the past 12 months I started getting into the habit of reading more (comics) and taking notes. Reading so many complex stories and artwork really drives creativity like I’ve said before. But Taking notes and then later practicing from them has definitely help expand my knowledge and capabilities when its comes to playing the guitar or working on music in general. Something about writing notes physically with a pen and a paper really implements the concepts in my brain.

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