For Thomas Martin, the MC, DJ, and producer known as Thaione Davis, 1917 was a very good year: it marked the dawn of the Harlem Renaissance, the beginning of the black migration to the cities of the north, and the earliest African-American solidarity marches. The title of his new disc, Situation Renaissance: 1917 Edition, alludes to this pivotal year, when much of what we now know as African-American culture was born–and its release heralds another kind of birth for Martin. Though he’s still best known as cohost of the WHPK hip-hop show CTA Radio and as a former member of south-side group the Nacrobats, he’s poised to launch a solo career with the eight ambitious, densely packed tracks on Renaissance.
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Born in 1978, he’s spent his whole life immersed in the music and its culture, rising through the ranks in break dancing competitions and MC battles. He says those street-level opportunities for young people have all but disappeared. “All these kids coming up, they got nothing as far as ways to express themselves,” says Martin. He decries the ubiquitous materialism and cartoonish braggadocio in rap–and to encourage the development of more human voices, he hosts youth open mikes at places like Harper Court in Hyde Park. “Kids are just being spoon-fed all this stuff on TV and radio, and not knowing what’s really out there,” he says.
The oldest of five kids, Martin was raised by a single mother (“Papa-was-a-rolling-stone-type shit,” he says) in the south-side neighborhood of Princeton Park. “You wouldn’t see no white folks unless it was the police. As hard as it was on the south side and being from a low-income community, I wouldn’t have wanted to be raised anywhere else. It just gives you a tougher skin.”
At the time Martin was also a member of the Nacrobats–he’d joined the collective, headed by Atomz, back in 2000. The five-MC version of the group–Martin, Atomz, Infinito 2017, Cosmo Galactus, and Psalm One–“shut down shows” all over Chicago, Martin says. “We’d just get onstage and rock it. It was like second nature with the five of us.” In 2003 the Nacrobats released a well-received full-length, All Ways, on the Birthwrite label, but though they seemed destined for bigger things, they abruptly split up just a few months later while on tour in California. “We were having some serious communication problems,” says Martin drily. “But everybody’s still cool with each other.”
