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BY: CHERISE JOHNSON
JULY 14 2021
I'M REALLY BIG ON MANIFESTING THINGS
“I’m really big on manifesting things, so the first little step was I had to win in a little boxing match,” he says from my passenger seat as we escape the heat and noise of a Los Angeles cafe. “As soon as I won that boxing match, we were done with the risky business. I put my whole career on the line. If I would've lost, then I feel like it would've negatively impacted my career. I would definitely not be on this wave that I'm on right now. I would've come back from it but it would 100% not be how it is right now. People would still be talking about it.”
Knowing that risk, he still took it and admits to spending only two weeks preparing for the fight. The week of the match, he was entranced by the Miami nightlife and opted to just go to the strip club and drink. DDG’s total self-belief stemmed from his past boxing training, giving him confidence in his ability to win and the knowledge of what repercussions were ahead of him if he were to lose. He bet big on himself and he won.
Once he returned to LA, a day before his photoshoot for this story, he uploaded a video to YouTube with the title “I Retire.” In it, he explained why he’s quitting YouTube. “I feel like I gave so much to this YouTube,” he said in the eight-minute video. “I have been doing this for six years. It was all my life. I want some type of mystery to my life. You got to know me for six years. We got to know each other. You know my family at this point. You know where I am from, what college I went to. Everything is documented. That’s the good part of you knowing me.” #DDGQuit swiftly hit the Twitter trends and his supporters emotionally posted about not being able to come home from school to watch new DDG vlogs.
Until then, he’s pursuing his rap dream as far as it’ll take him, even if it’s far less common to jump from making YouTube videos to hip-hop hits.
For a YouTuber, moving from the platform to film and television is probably the smoothest transition a star can make. It’s all essentially acting anyway.
This is especially true for emerging rap superstar and YouTube titan DDG. He was among the first to amp up the drama to crystallize storylines for vlogs, like when he bought his sister a car. And he also tried his hand at traditional acting with a small role in the 2019 comedy Wally Got Wasted. In the movie, he played the role of a drive-thru cashier, but the long set days just to be in a film for five seconds had him rethinking the prospect.
However, just because he withdrew his interest from acting back then doesn’t mean that he’ll never act again. He wants to wait until his profile is higher with undeniable star power and when he does, he wants to be the star of a horror movie. He just doesn’t want to die first.
“Like Bird Box,” he says while shaking his head to affirm. “I’m the main character. It's me getting somebody else through something. My life is on the line the entire movie, but I end up winning in the end. I want to be in a full-blown horror movie. I know I'm going to do it one day.”
he’s pursuing his rap dream as far as it’ll take hiM
A TRUE FIGHTER
I was wanting to make a song that people could move to, people can dance to it
Photographer: Peter Don (@donslens)
StyliST: Elle Jeffrey (@ellejeffreystylz)
Assistant Stylist: Sydney “Juno” Flanagaon
Designed by: Daisy James (@djamesdesign)
So far, DDG has flourished in any arena and made it look easy. Though he was christened with the name Darryl Dwayne Granberry Jr., “Risk Taker” could easily be his middle name. That’s how he got to where he is now with a platinum plaque for his smooth viral hit song “Moonwalking In Calabasas,” an induction into the 2021 XXL Freshman Class, and most recently a boxing victory against TikTok influencer Nate Wyatt.
YouTube helped me (...) but it also negatively impacted me because people know too much
The hashtag was filled with fan theories on why he’s quitting YouTube beyond the reason he stated in the video, calling his retirement a gimmick and expressing assurance that he’ll be back. On YouTube, DDG is one of the top Black creators and serves as an inspiration to young fans that follow him — especially young Black males. It brought him from his hometown of Pontiac, Michigan to Los Angeles with just a $40,000 check. He was so successful on the platform that leaving it confused many of his most loyal fans.
Now 23, DDG has been uploading vlogs to his YouTube channel since he was a student at International Tech Academy, where he graduated at the top of his class as valedictorian. In the beginning, he started out with a tiny little camera doing small skits just for fun.
“It was just something I was into,” he recalls. “I used to watch people’s vlogs and just watch their life.”
At some point, though, things changed, as more and more people watched his own life. Sure, his music career is now thriving, but his decision to leave his successful YouTube career behind extends further than that. “YouTube helped me,” he explains, “but it also negatively impacted me because people know too much.”
Growing up in Pontiac, DDG says there was never much to do and it was very easy to get caught up in the bullshit. He was raised around his four siblings, which include his younger sister Tiarra Granberry, now 17, and older twin brothers, Darion and Dajuan Breckenridge, who used to be an R&B duo that gained some local recognition. "My big brothers were really supposed to be the musical artists,” he says. “It wasn't supposed to be me. They used to sing in little Pontiac festivals. I used to just show up. I got the same little outfit they got on because they wore the same outfit. I wanted to be a part of it.”
Of his immediate family, DDG and Darion were the closest, a relationship that spawned his now-iconic username.
“I stole his name,” he says of the big brother that used to drop him off at school. “His name was Pontiac Made DDB on PlayStation and I remember I seen it and I stole it and I made mine PontiacmadeDDG.”
One October morning at the age of 16, DDG woke up to the unfortunate news of Darion being murdered. He was devastated to lose
his big brother to street violence. Using remaining funds from the money raised by the community to help pay for the funeral, his mother, Tonya Granberry, asked him if he wanted a car or a camera, with the young man ultimately choosing the camera when most kids his age would have opted for a new ride.
“I didn't even have a license yet,” he explains. “I wanted a car. I would have driven around or whatever, but I was set. I had privileges. My mom let me have girls over to the house. They need cars. I ain't needing cars. They came to me. I was good.”
At the same time, he was working at TJ Maxx earning around $250 a week.
I didn't want to start out doing music because I was scared of the Illuminati
He was stationed in the home department where he would put the sensors on clothes and sometimes cashier. His most memorable moment of retail life was the gourmet candy they carried. He remembers eating all the gummy worms and hiding in the bathroom from his managers with a smile and gleam in his eye. It’s a life he doesn’t miss at all, quitting his job once the first YouTube royalties arrived.
“I quit off of one $200 check, which was once a month,” he remembers, even though it was less than what he was making at TJ Maxx. “I’m like, ‘Damn, if I can make $200, that means I can make $700 and that means I can make $800,’ When I got to be a freshman in college, I was making probably $800-$900 a month.”
The summer after his freshman year, DDG began dating a woman named Essence and made a discovery that would change his life forever: YouTube loves relationships. By the time he returned to Central Michigan University as a sophomore, he was a changed man, pulling in more than $40,000 a month. Once it hit him how much money he was making, he dropped out of college and moved to Los Angeles in 2016 with the full support of his family.
That same year, he began to drop music, including the Zaytoven-produced tracks "Balenciagas" and "Free Parties," as well as “Lettuce” with Famous Dex. “Lettuce” garnered more than 500,000 views in an hour, entering engagement heaven and fueling his thoughts of becoming a full-time rapper. However, there was one thing he was worried about if he were to take the music industry thing seriously.
“Truth is, I didn't want to do music,” he says. “I didn't want to start out doing music because I was scared of the Illuminati.”
A moment of silence fills the car as DDG stares back with an earnest expression. “I swear to God,” he adds, affirming the seriousness of his concern.
“I don't know nothing about [the Illuminati],” he explains. “But I used to look up videos and they just said all this crazy stuff about it. I used to be like, ‘Man, I don't want to be a part of that.’ But now that I'm in the industry I don't think it's real.”
According to DDG, it’s not so much the Illuminati as it is that people are putting on a show for entertainment purposes.
“People just got their own lives outside of their persona,” he says. “Certain people are not who they portray themselves to be. I seen stuff like that but I never seen nothing crazy. Minor shit. I was tweeking.”
The money and engagement were already great from vlogging, but they were even better when he released music. So finding out if the Illuminati was real or not was apparently worth the risk.
“I was basically like, ‘You know what, I'm just going to go ahead and do it,’” he says, “because I was playing around with it and doing little diss tracks that were going too viral. When I started doing it for real, the views was just there. I made a lot of money. It's a good business.”
These days, music is all DDG wants to focus on. The new barrier he faces is being dubbed a YouTube rapper rather than a bonafide rap superstar. However, DDG is okay with walking away from a lot of money by stepping away from the video platform because, like leaving TJ Maxx, he trusts that he will win regardless.
“It don't bother me no more,” he says of the YouTube rapper stigma. “It's something that I definitely wanted to shake. Other than that, I got a lot of support my whole career. I went on tour and got to see people reciting my words and that's a great feeling. You can't get nobody to recite a YouTube video. It's a whole completely different type of energy of fan engagement.”
You can't get nobody to recite a YouTube video
DDG takes inspiration from life and puts it into his art
Though he had released a few singles independently already, it was DDG’s rambunctious 2017 track “Givenchy,” off of his debut mixtape Take Me Serious, that allowed him to realize his ability to enchant a crowd through music. While headlining his Take Me Serious Tour, every night the crowd pined for “Givenchy.” He’s been in love with that power ever since.
“When that song came on, I heard people just yelling the lyrics,” he recalls of one Atlanta show. “I performed it three times — same energy.”
That power is on display throughout his breakout album, Die 4 Respect. The collection was created with the Grammy-nominated producer OG Parker, featuring some of his best work to date, with the two showing keen attention to detail, expert sequencing, and a unified vision. But maybe the best thing about the record is DDG’s focus on songs that are meaningful rather than bloating it with filler. “Hood Melody” with Youngboy Never Broke Again speaks to the street violence that took his brother Darion, while “Moonwalking In Calabasas” describes making it out of Pontiac to the affluent city that’s become a hotbed of hip-hop’s elite.
On his popular TikTok hit “Impatient” with fellow XXL Freshman Coi Leray (it was originally supposed to be DaniLeigh, he reveals), he hopes to encourage women. “I’m just saying it's okay to be impatient,” he explains. “I know you feel like you deserve the man that you want. It's about women’s empowerment and it was meant to make girls feel special.”
Reminiscent of Kilo Ali’s minor 1990s-era hit “Baby, Baby,” “Impatient” lives in the same Atlanta bouncy bass groove, with Coi serving a honeyed hook that forms the heart of the #ImpatientChallenge on TikTok. While “Rule #1” and “Money Long” were supposed to be the focus tracks on the album, “Impatient” had plans of its own and experienced explosive success as soon as Die 4 Respect was released.
Elsewhere, DDG takes inspiration from life and puts it into his art to showcase his vulnerability, even if that means opening up about his existing romantic relationships like he did on “Treat Me Right.” Just like YouTube, relationships also play well in the rap world.
“I feel like that's my most well-put together song,” he reveals. ”I freestyled the whole song, first of all. I didn't write anything. I got in the studio and I punched in the bars and it just flew off. I made the song in 20-30 minutes. It was one of those songs where everything was just so real and current at the time, and I was basically just talking about my relationship.”
“It's 100% about [fellow 2021 XXL Freshman] Rubi Rose,” he continues. “We be in and out all the time. I think we was broken up at the time for sure and I was just thinking to myself like, ‘Damn, do I want to move on right now? Or do I want to try this shit again? Even though I done tried it 100 times, do I want it?’”
DDG ultimately feels like he and Rubi met at the wrong time, but there’s no telling what can happen 10 years from now.
“It's just because she's a very sweet girl when she wants to be,” he says. “But when she's mean, she's the meanest you can get. She's extremely stubborn. It's like, ‘Come on bro, it's been two days. You still mad about the littlest shit.’ Our arguments was dumb. Stupid. It could have just been easily resolved.”
While displaying your relationship on YouTube translates into a more controlled outcome (since YouTube subscribers love love), he’s learning that in the music industry things can get a little tricky.
What isn’t tricky, though, is transitioning to an acting career. And if the trends he’s already set continue, DDG likely will do just that. He has accomplished every goal he has set his heart to and took on big risks to achieve them.
His decisions have been calculated and made with precision, as if he took his trained boxing skills and applied them to how he handles his life. His win in Miami at the Hardrock Stadium in front of thousands — bobbing and weaving between punches, taking his opponent by surprise with steady calmness — is how he’s approached everything so far. He’s a true fighter in every sense of the word. Get ready to watch the rise of DDG, a rap star who is humble, unstoppable, and knows exactly how he plans on getting there.
He has accomplished every goal he has set his heart to and took on big risks to achieve them
For a YouTuber, moving from the platform to film and television is probably the smoothest transition a star can make. It’s all essentially acting anyway.
This is especially true for emerging rap superstar and YouTube titan DDG. He was among the first to amp up the drama to crystallize storylines for vlogs, like when he bought his sister a car. And he also tried his hand at traditional acting with a small role in the 2019 comedy Wally Got Wasted. In the movie, he played the role of a drive-thru cashier, but the long set days just to be in a film for five seconds had him re-thinking the prospect.
However, just because he withdrew his interest from acting back then doesn’t mean that he’ll never act again. He just wants to wait until his profile is higher with undeniable star power and when he does, he wants to be the star of a horror movie. He just doesn’t want to die first.
“Like Bird Box,” he says while shaking his head to affirm. “I’m the main character. It's me getting somebody else through something. My life is on the line the entire movie, but I end up winning in the end. I want to be in a full-blown horror movie. I know I'm going to do it one day.”
I'M REALLY BIG ON MANIFESTING THINGS
So far, DDG has flourished in any arena and made it look easy. Though he was christened with the name Darryl Dwayne Granberry Jr., “Risk Taker” could easily be his middle name. That’s how he got to where he is now with a platinum plaque for his smooth viral hit song “Moonwalking In Calabasas,” an induction into the 2021 XXL Freshman Class, and most recently a boxing victory against TikTok influencer Nate Wyatt.
“I’m really big on manifesting things, so the first little step was I had to win in a little boxing match,” he says from my passenger seat as we escape the heat and noise of a Los Angeles cafe. “As soon as I won that boxing match, we were done with the risky business. I put my whole career on the line. If I would've lost, then I feel like it would've negatively impacted my career. I would definitely not be on this wave that I'm on right now. I would've come back from it but it would 100% not be how it is right now. People would still be talking about it.”
Knowing that risk, he still took it and admits to spending only two weeks preparing for the fight. The week of the match, he was entranced by the Miami nightlife and opted to just go to the strip club and drink. DDG’s total self-belief stemmed from his past boxing training, giving him confidence in his ability to win and the knowledge of what repercussions were ahead of him if he were to lose. He bet big on himself and he won.
Once he returned to LA, a day before his photoshoot for this story, he uploaded a video to YouTube with the title “I Retire.” In it, he explained why he’s quitting YouTube. “I feel like I gave so much to this YouTube,” he said in the eight-minute video. “I have been doing this for six years. It was all my life. I want some type of mystery to my life. You got to know me for six years. We got to know each other. You know my family at this point. You know where I am from, what college I went to. Everything is documented. That’s the good part of you knowing me.” #DDGQuit swiftly hit the Twitter trends and his supporters emotionally posted about not being able to come home from school to watch new DDG vlogs.
The hashtag was filled with fan theories on why he’s quitting YouTube beyond the reason he stated in the video, calling his retirement a gimmick and expressing assurance that he’ll be back. On YouTube, DDG is one of the top Black creators and serves as an inspiration to young fans that follow him — especially young Black males. It brought him from his hometown of Pontiac, Michigan to Los Angeles with just a $40,000 check. He was so successful on the platform that leaving it confused many of his most loyal fans.
Now 23, DDG has been uploading vlogs to his YouTube channel since he was a student at International Tech Academy, where he graduated at the top of his class as valedictorian. In the beginning, he started out with a tiny little camera doing small skits just for fun.
“It was just something I was into,” he recalls. “I used to watch people’s vlogs and just watch their life.”
At some point, though, things changed, as more and more people watched his own life. Sure, his music career is now thriving, but his decision to leave his successful YouTube career behind extends further than that. “YouTube helped me,” he explains, “but it also negatively impacted me because people know too much.”
Growing up in Pontiac, DDG says there was never much to do and it was very easy to get caught up in the bullshit. He was raised around his four siblings, which include his younger sister Tiarra Granberry, now 17, and older twin brothers, Darion and Dajuan Breckenridge, who used to be an R&B duo that gained some local recognition. "My big brothers were really supposed to be the musical artists,” he says. “It wasn't supposed to be me. They used to sing in little Pontiac festivals. I used to just show up. I got the same little outfit they got on because they wore the same outfit. I wanted to be a part of it.”
Of his immediate family, DDG and Darion were the closest, a relationship that spawned his now-iconic username.
“I stole his name,” he says of the big brother that used to drop him off at school. “His name was Pontiac Made DDB on PlayStation and I remember I seen it and I stole it and I made mine PontiacmadeDDG.”
One October morning at the age of 16, DDG woke up to the unfortunate news of Darion being murdered. He was devastated to lose the big brother who regularly drove him to school every morning to street violence. Using remaining funds from the money raised by the community to help pay for the funeral, his mother, Tonya Granberry, asked him if he wanted a car or a camera, with the young man ultimately choosing the camera when most kids his age would have opted for a new ride.
“I didn't even have a license yet,” he explains. “I wanted a car. I would have driven around or whatever, but I was set. I had privileges. My mom let me have girls over to the house. They need cars. I ain't needing cars. They came to me. I was good.”
At the same time, he was working at TJ Maxx earning around $250 a week.
I didn't want to start out doing music because I was scared of the Illuminati
He was stationed in the home department where he would put the sensors on clothes and sometimes cashier. His most memorable moment of retail life was the gourmet candy they carried. He remembers eating all the gummy worms and hiding in the bathroom from his managers with a smile and gleam in his eye. It’s a life he doesn’t miss at all, quitting his job once the first YouTube royalties arrived.
“I quit off of one $200 check, which was once a month,” he remembers, even though it was less than what he was making at TJ Maxx. “I’m like, ‘Damn, if I can make $200, that means I can make $700 and that means I can make $800,’ When I got to be a freshman in college, I was making probably $800-$900 a month.”
The summer after his freshman year, DDG began dating a woman named Essence and made a discovery that would change his life forever: YouTube loves relationships. By the time he returned to Central Michigan University as a sophomore, he was a changed man, pulling in more than $40,000 a month. Once it hit him how much money he was making, he dropped out of college and moved to Los Angeles in 2016 with the full support of his family.
That same year, he began to drop music, including the Zaytoven-produced tracks "Balenciagas" and "Free Parties," as well as “Lettuce” with Famous Dex. “Lettuce” garnered more than 500,000 views in an hour, entering engagement heaven and fueling his thoughts of becoming a full-time rapper. However, there was one thing he was worried about if he were to take the music industry thing seriously.
“Truth is, I didn't want to do music,” he says. “I didn't want to start out doing music because I was scared of the Illuminati.”
A moment of silence fills the car as DDG stares back with an earnest expression. “I swear to God,” he adds, affirming the seriousness of his concern.
You can't get nobody to recite a YouTube video.
“I don't know nothing about [the Illuminati],” he explains. “But I used to look up videos and they just said all this crazy stuff about it. I used to be like, ‘Man, I don't want to be a part of that.’ But now that I'm in the industry I don't think it's real.”
According to DDG, it’s not so much the Illuminati as it is that people are putting on a show for entertainment purposes.
“People just got their own lives outside of their persona,” he says. “Certain people are not who they portray themselves to be. I seen stuff like that but I never seen nothing crazy. Minor shit. I was tweeking.”
The money and engagement were already great from vlogging, but they were even better when he released music. So finding out if the Illuminati was real or not was apparently worth the risk.
“I was basically like, ‘You know what, I'm just going to go ahead and do it,’” he says, “because I was playing around with it and doing little diss tracks that were going too viral. When I started doing it for real, the views was just there. I made a lot of money. It's a good business.”
These days, music is all DDG wants to focus on. The new barrier he faces is being dubbed a YouTube rapper rather than a bonafide rap superstar. However, DDG is okay with walking away from a lot of money by stepping away from the video platform because, like leaving TJ Maxx, he trusts that he will win regardless.
“It don't bother me no more,” he says of the YouTube rapper stigma. “It's something that I definitely wanted to shake. Other than that, I got a lot of support my whole career. I went on tour and got to see people reciting my words and that's a great feeling. You can't get nobody to recite a YouTube video. It's a whole completely different type of energy of fan engagement.”
Though he had released a few singles independently already, it was DDG’s rambunctious 2017 track “Givenchy,” off of his debut mixtape Take Me Serious, that allowed him to realize his ability to enchant a crowd through music. While headlining his Take Me Serious Tour, every night the crowd pined for “Givenchy.” He’s been in love with that power ever since.
“When that song came on, I heard people just yelling the lyrics,” he recalls of one Atlanta show. “I performed it three times — same energy.”
That power is on display throughout his breakout album, Die 4 Respect. The collection was created with the Grammy-nominated producer OG Parker, featuring some of his best work to date, with the two showing keen attention to detail, expert sequencing, and a unified vision. But maybe the best thing about the record is DDG’s focus on songs that are meaningful rather than bloating it with filler. “Hood Melody” with Youngboy Never Broke Again speaks to the street violence that took his brother Darion, while “Moonwalking In Calabasas” describes making it out of Pontiac to the affluent city that’s become a hotbed of hip-hop’s elite.
On his popular TikTok hit “Impatient” with fellow XXL Freshman Coi Leray (it was originally supposed to be DaniLeigh, he reveals), he hopes to encourage women. “I’m just saying it's okay to be impatient,” he explains. “I know you feel like you deserve the man that you want. It's about women’s empowerment and it was meant to make girls feel special.”
Reminiscent of Kilo Ali’s minor 1990s-era hit “Baby, Baby,” “Impatient” lives in the same Atlanta bouncy bass groove, with Coi serving a honeyed hook that forms the heart of the #ImpatientChallenge on TikTok. While “Rule #1” and “Money Long” were supposed to be the focus tracks on the album, “Impatient” had plans of its own and experienced explosive success as soon as Die 4 Respect was released.
Elsewhere, DDG takes inspiration from life and puts it into his art to showcase his vulnerability, even if that means opening up about his existing romantic relationships like he did on “Treat Me Right.” Just like YouTube, relationships also play well in the rap world.
DDG takes inspiration from life and puts it into his art
Photographer: Peter Donaghy
@donslens
Photo Assistant: Patricia Gomez
@patygonia
Styling: Elle Jeffrey
@ellejeffreystylz
StyliNG ASSISTANT: Sydney “Juno” Flanagaon
DESIGNED BY: DAISY JAMES
@DJAMESDESIGN
GaffeR: Dimitrios Christoforidis
@damnhumble
PHOTOGRAPHY BY:
Peter Donaghy
EDITION 04
JULY 2021