Styles: Did you watch the Vice Presidential debate tonight between Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin?

Dev: Yes I did. This election is probably the most important election in the history of the United States. Our country is facing housing problems, health care problems, the biggest deficit that we’ve ever had – and a lot of other issues that hit home for me. After watching this Vice Presidential debate it was just shocking to me how inexperienced Palin was. It’s disgusting and I feel offended as a woman and offended as an American, that I am to be force-fed her little speeches that she gives that have no real backing, because she is a woman. Like I am going to switch my vote just because she has a vagina? It’s not going to happen because she doesn’t stand for anything.

When they asked her questions, she didn’t answer one thing. She tries to act like she’s being bullied by saying, “I’m not going to answer that just because you tell me to.” What do you think this is? It’s called a debate. I didn’t watch this to hear you give a speech. You have your chance to give speeches on the campaign trail. A debate is when you engage in conversation with your opponent and a moderator – and you answer questions! You are supposed to answer questions that we want to know about so we can formulate who we want to vote for.

Styles: I myself didn’t think it was Presidential-like using all of the folksy “gosh-golly-darn” talk.

Dev: I’m like, “dog gone?” Are you kidding me? It’s crazy how irrational people are because I have a very good friend of mine who thought that Palin was a very good candidate. She is a Governor of one of the smallest populations in the country, a state that has never faced issues like homelessness, poverty, drug-addiction, AIDS epidemic – that’s a state that has never faced any of these problems! She has a pretty easy record. I give it to her that she’s a Governor and a woman – fantastic – but it was a pretty easy job. It’s a state that is dark most of the year and too cold for people to leave their homes, doesn’t have a crime rate and doesn’t have an economy that is in decline – all she had to do was walk around, drink alcohol and carry a rifle. She has a 17 year old daughter that is pregnant and doesn’t believe teaching sex education in schools. She couldn’t even teach her own daughter how to keep her legs closed at home!

A lot of issues that face me as a woman, she doesn’t even believe in. She doesn’t even believe in abortion for cases of incest or rape. Then she doesn’t believe in sex education when we have one of the highest rates of STD’s in the country. You don’t want people to protect themselves? If a woman gets brutally raped, you don’t want her to have the option to terminate that pregnancy? It’s scary to me that someone like that can run our country.

Styles: In my opinion, she came off as someone more qualified to speak at a PTA board meeting than to heads of states or other world leaders.

Dev: Exactly. Her whole campaign is built off of this “hockey mom” image and joining the “PTA.” If you actually look at her record you will see that none of her kids were in a hockey league and she joined the PTA for one term when her eldest son, who is now like 21, was in Kindergarten. This “shining star” on her record was achieved 15 to 16 years ago. Stop feeding me bullshit. I keep saying this but as a woman I am so offended that she is even in this race. All of these Republicans that are standing strong behind their party know that she’s not fit to be in any type of proximity to someone that is running this country.     

Republicans and Democrats are not the Crips and the Bloods! Wake up people. You don’t have to stick behind a political party because that was what you were raised on or you just want to be affiliated with them. It’s ok to vote for whom you think is going to actually change this country. Vote for the candidate that is going to make a good impact after having the most horrible 8 years in the history of the United States!

Styles: Devi Dev is on a roll!!

Dev: I’m sorry, let me stop. Styles, you got me all started!

Styles: I like hearing a woman’s perspective on this because this is a female candidate and there are some out there who are only backing her just on the basis that she’s a “likeable” person – and not really paying attention to anything else.

Dev: If I am choosing friends to hang out with, I’ll pick a likeable person. If I am choosing someone to run this country then I have to dig a lot deeper. We as Americans have to dig deeper to find out if the things that we want taken care of will be taken care of. Us getting out of this war is something that I care about. A point that they keep bringing up is that “John McCain knows how to win a war.” Let’s keep it real, we didn’t win anything in Vietnam. And second, we are not really “winning” anything in Iraq. It’s another situation like Vietnam that we should not be involved in. For us to be spending 7 to 10 billion dollars a month over there, and we are facing a 700 billion dollar problem over here doesn’t make any sense!

God bless McCain. I don’t have anything against him – yes he was a P.O.W. – but damn, stop pulling that sympathy card! Let me get out my violin! No disrespect for what he went through but I could give a shit. That’s not all that I am going to be looking for in a President and I am tired of them thinking that we are that stupid and naïve in falling for these “maverick” statements. The stuff that they are relying on to try and sway my vote disgusts me.

Anybody that wants to go at it with me, hit me on my Myspace, and I will break it all down with you fact-for-fact.[www.myspace.com/devidev ]

Styles: I think we’ve covered politics [laughs]. Let’s talk about you now. You are working over at Los Angeles station 93.5 KDAY. How did that all start?

Dev: I grew up listening to Power 106 – and a shout out to them. I also grew up listening to the now defunct 100.3 The Beat. That’s where my roots come from, listening to Theo on The Beat and Big Boy in the mornings on Power. I would get so excited when I would see a street team vehicle out at my high school. I wanted to be like them out in the community and talking to people. After high school I went to college for broadcast journalism because I’ve always wanted to have a show like Teen Summit one day.

So I went to broadcast journalism classes, however I decided that I didn’t want to be a news caster or someone that spews from a teleprompter in front of me because I have a lot to say as a person. I went to a poetry spot during my freshman year in college and ended up meeting a guy named Tony who was starting his own internet talk show. I started to work with him and we met up at a studio in Inglewood for our first day of recording. I began talking on that show and I’ve been doing it everyday since then. That show ended up getting picked up by Sirius Satellite and that made me consider taking radio more seriously. The only difference was that we recorded those shows but I was curious about what live radio would be like.

I used to listen to the Goodfellas a lot on Power 106 when they used to be at that station. I used to wonder what happened to them because they had left Power, so I searched on Myspace for them. I found them and I sent them a message – and like a nerd I attached my resume’ [laughs]. I told them that I was down to be an intern and get their coffee for them – whatever they needed – because I just wanted to learn. They ended up hitting me back on Myspace – thank you Tom! They asked me to come through to KDAY’s station where they were now working. I went to the station like a week later and we ended up clicking. They told me that they would love for me to be in their team, so I started interning with them. Eventually I started coordinating their whole show; producing for it, booking guests, getting them out to events and other things.

Around 2 years ago, I started doing a radio show with my original partner Tony, called Zombie Radio. That started because through my internship with The Goodfellas I started meeting all of these dope new artists from a segment that we had called “Hate It or Love It” where new music would be played. So I started meeting all of these dope new L.A. artists that have never been on the radio before and I got so passionate about it because I would wonder why these artists weren’t on the radio. There is so much talent in L.A. and in the country that can’t get put on radio due to politics or whatever reasons – so me and Tony started Zombie Radio. We would give a lot of cats their first interviews and play their music. The tagline for that show is, “We say what we want. We play what we want.” If you are dope, then we will play you – as long as you come at us with some mixed music that is good. We wanted to be an outlet for all of these artists that are not being heard.

Styles: I will get in to that, but lets go back to KDAY for a moment. Were you familiar with the original 1580 AM KDAY?

Dev: I wasn’t. I had always heard about it but I’m only 23. When the original KDAY was on I was really young. Of course I had heard about it because it’s been mentioned in a lot of songs. I didn’t grow up listening to it though. Julio G who is an absolute legend in L.A. was on at The Beat and I was really familiar with him.

Styles: You were interning but KDAY eventually picked you up as an employee, right?

Dev: Yeah. When you are trying to get put on in the music industry, you can’t be lazy. Anybody that knows me knows that I am a hustler. I was pulling that internship at KDAY, doing a show on Sirius, and I picked up an internship/assistant position at Universal Music. You can’t sleep! If you want to make it then you can’t sleep, so get that out of your head. I was also still going to college and I was working a full time 8 hour job during the day!

Styles: Damn, you were on a super-grind!!

Dev: I was living in West Covina so I had a near 4 hour commute each day because it would take me an hour and a half to get out here to L.A. Then I had to travel to Northridge to go to school. I got by on maybe 4 hours of sleep a day for over a year working 7 days a week. If you want to get put on, people aren’t going to do it for you and that’s a problem that I have with a lot of younger people coming up under me and even new artists. You’ve got to put your grind where your mouth is. If you say that you are this or that, actions plus those words equal truth. It’s not just true because you say it. You’ve got to have action to back it up.

I was doing all of that and then there came a time when KDAY was starting to restructure and they gave me a shot at overnights. I was doing the 12 am to 5 am shift. Then I started working on the Steve Harvey morning show doing the local news and traffic from 6 am to 10 am. Everything just went from there and it’s been such an absolute blessing. I am able to get paid for being myself.

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week!!

Comments (2)

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written by Lunatic 63, October 04, 2008

GOD DAMN devi went HARD on Palin! LOL! very good points made and a great interview!

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written by Styles, October 06, 2008

Thanks Luni... yeah, Devi smashed on her. She would have really smashed on her had we done this interview after Palin's new smear "pals with terrorists" campaign.

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