2006 was a year that Detroit and Hip-hop suffered losses which to this day remain unfathomable. One man who lost not only his bandmate but two of his closest friends was Denaun Porter.

Kon Artist or Mr. Porter, depending on which hat he is adorning at the time is a man that has absorbed the loss of his brethren, he will never come to terms with it, but in this interview with HipHopDX, you get the distinct impression that he has, since their passing, been laced with nitro. Focused and determined to make sure he does his part for Hip Hop and his home town he has been keeping busy.

Executive producing possibly one of the most acclaimed albums of 2007, Pharohe Monch’s Desire and allowing up and coming artists the chance to spit over his beats through his online portal MrPorter.com, this producer/rapper/fan/webmaster and self proclaimed student is still enjoying wearing his vast array of hats like he was back when he first started out, the only difference being that those hats are more custom made today. Well when you have achieved the success he has that is inevitable.

Talking beats, brothers lost, battles of a political nature and that five letter word that is often thought of as ‘the’ urban legend within Hip-Hop…Detox, this is how life is for one of the most promising producers in the game today.

HipHopDX: Where did your love of music come from?
Mr. Porter: Well my father is into music. He is a Gospel singer and it pretty much started there. Growing up in church and seeing my Dad and my uncles sing with all this feeling, that was where I got my start, but I didn’t take it serious for a long time.

DX: How does your Dad feel about your involvement in Hip-Hop? As I have talked to many rappers and producers who come from a church background and whose families do have an issue with them being involved in what some deem ‘the Devil's music.’
MP: My dad is an open minded dude and you know he never kept me to bay when it came to what I wanted to do. They encouraged me to do what I wanted to do. You know he wasn’t mad or anything but there was times when he would say that music wasn’t real loyal to me as I was to it. He is just very open minded and he doesn’t really mess with the Gospel music any more anyway.

DX: Coming up in Detroit there is an overabundance of talent in both performing and production. How influential was the vibe in Detroit in encouraging you to become the producer you have become?
MP: It is more important today as there were always different musicians and things of that nature. There were all different people that helped and being here certainly played part. Coming up under Dilla and Eminem and then moving over to Dr. Dre, it was like different extremes. It plays more of a part today being from Detroit as I can cope with a lot of the kids of the musicians. Being able to work with them, I think it is better for me to be here as there are so many struggling musicians that have been left here. More so now than when I was younger.

DX: Obviously just touching on J. Dilla, Detroit lost two of its most coveted artists within a few months of each other in Proof too. How hard was it for the Hip-Hop community to bounce back from that and have you even bounced back from it?
MP: We are beginning to now. A lot of the people that are actually doing a lot today, Guilty [Simpson] [click to read] and Black Milk [click to read], they were around when I was getting on. You know if I got work, I would put Black Milk on and Guilty is like my best friend, just the growth of what they have done and the bouncing back of it has been hard. It was hard for me as Proof was my brother and J. Dilla was a very good friend. I introduced him to Dr. Dre; you know just being in the same room as them. To me, I am just now bouncing back. Me being in Arizona [at the One Stop Producer's Conference] was the first time I felt like I was getting back to being serious with the music. Personally I am just bouncing back now and the Hip-Hop community is getting back on it, Trick Trick, Black Milk, Guilty, Royce [Da 5'9"] and D12. We are all back working together and everything does feel like it is starting to come back together again. But I would say it has been a couple of years to move past it.

DX: Do you think the media made it harder on you to deal with the loss, as I know everyone was looking for you to talk to you about it?
MP: Well yeah you know I shied away from a lot of that kind of thing. Fame is one thing, but something of that nature, people can be real cold. You have to understand that people took it as “Eminem’s best friend died,” not really looking at it like [Proof] was a part of D12, and I think D12 took just as big a loss as Eminem. The media attached Em with it, and the media threw it in his face a lot. It was hard for everybody, but yeah the media did make it worse and being in Detroit, I was very disappointed in how they started portraying it in Detroit, making out that Proof was this really bad dude. But all those people that were there, they are alive and no-one ever really told the truth. If anyone gave a fuck about Proof, then people would have looked for the truth and that to me was the worst part of the media. Continued on page 2 »