Deep Jackson

With a Huntington touch is Marshall University graduate, Deep Jackson, a hip hop act from southern West Virginia who'll be taking the stage with guest vocalist Sasha Colette, who guests on his recent album. - The Herald Dispatch

HUNTINGTON - The old saying goes when God shuts a door, he sometimes opens a window. And for Darnell Poole that window led straight into a recording studio.

The 32-year-old originally came to Marshall University from Welch, West Virginia back in 2000 to play basketball for Greg White. When that didn't work out, Poole poured his thoughts onto paper and his heart and love of the game into the mic.

A decade later, Poole, who goes by Deep Jackson, has stacked up four hip-hop records with his latest "Sense of Urgency," a batch of 12 original songs on a CD being released Monday

Deep Jackson celebrates the release at 9 p.m. Monday, March 30, at Sharkey's Fins Cafe, 410 10th St., Huntington, with fellow hip-hop artist Duke Cartel, of The Green Team, and some 90s night turntable action from DJ iLLSpin.

Poole said he would probably have never found his love and gift for music had it not been for things not working out on the basketball court.

"I came down in 2000 to play basketball for Marshall and Greg White but that ended up not working out and it was for the better," Poole said. "I don't think I would have started making music if I would have still been in sports. I never thought I would be making music, I really started writing when I was 19 in a college class and I wanted to share it with my friends. I wanted people to tell me the truth and they liked it and there it was. That sparked me to keep going on."

In his previous projects, the all-state high school basketball player who tossed in 20 points a game his senior year, colored in his music and rhymes from his experiences playing ball from "Chin Music," a baseball-referenced album title to "Pretty Deep," a CD he cut busting rhymes over the instrumental work of Pretty Lights.

For Poole, who after an eight-year hiatus went back and got his Regents bachelor's degree from Marshall in December, his focus has shifted from the court to the layers of life and struggle on songs such as "Andre 3000," that speaks of the cultural clashes in the U.S., and issue of mistrust with law enforcement following the deaths of Sean Bell, Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown.

Poole, who put out "Middle Finger Music" in 2012, said in spite of the title, "Sense of Urgency II," he has been working on the project since the summer of 2013, trying to make sure each track was just right and had a touch of home from the 304.

"I wanted to take my time with the effort and take a different approach because I wanted to have a solely West Virginia-produced record and so I have like seven of the 12 tracks are West Virginia produced," Poole said.

Cut at the Sissonville, West Virginia, studio Lip Beats, "Sense of Urgency II," highlights several regional artists such as Beckley's Daniel Aliff on "Stomach Growlin' " and well-known Americana artist Sasha Colette on the soulful song, "Better Days."

"I wanted to keep it as West Virginia as possible," Poole said. "I went to Atlanta to work in construction with my uncle and it felt weird to rep West Virginia living in another state, so I just wanted to be one of the guys who stayed around and tried to make it from here. I love it and I want to shine a light on the people, somebody has got to shine a light."

Poole said he was excited to convince Colette to guest vocal on "Better Days."

"I went to the V Club about three years ago and saw her when she released 'Ridin' Away' and I saw her do 'Leroy' and I said man 'I have got to have her on a song,'" Poole said.

"I didn't approach her that night but I saw her out last year and said 'Sasha Colette I saw you and I really like you and I would like to collaborate with you and before you say anything go to my link and check my stuff out.' We linked up in Sissonville in September 2014 and I wrote that whole thing ("Better Days") the hook, and I wrote it three years ago, and so I knew who I wanted to sing it I wanted her on it."

Poole said he's stoked that DJ iLLSpin and Sharkey's is bringing in some live music on Mondays to give some of the local hip-hop artists a stage.

"I knew Duke Cartel from the Green Team and they reached out to me and they are going to do a weekly '90s night on Mondays and so I said I was proud of them for doing something on the hip-hop scene and they asked me if I wanted to do something." - The Herald Dispatch -- Dave Lavender

Growing up in McDowell County, Darnell Poole didn’t dream of becoming a hip hop star. He was more about shooting hoops.

“I played basketball and baseball. I was All-State in basketball,” said Poole, a Huntington-based rapper who goes by the name Deep Jackson.

He recently released his fourth album, “Sense of Urgency 2,” and right now he’s trying to put together shows, but it’s not easy. While there’s an appetite for hip hop in West Virginia, clubs that regularly offer the music are few and far between.

“I’ve played shows in Huntington, in Beckley and in Oak Hill,” he said. “I’ve never played in Charleston.”

Part of the reason for that, Poole said, is that hip hop clubs across the state don’t have a long lifespan but do have a history of gun violence.

“I used to DJ at a club called Shoots, in Huntington,” he said. “It got closed down after somebody got killed in there.”

The same circumstance has been repeated in other clubs around West Virginia.

“I hate that hip hop clubs get attached to violence,” he said.

Poole said he doesn’t want to focus on violence with his music, but more on social change and shining a light on the struggles of the state he loves.

“West Virginia is home,” he said.

Poole came to music a little late. Growing up in McDowell, rap wasn’t even a side project.

“I loved music,” he said. “I was always making people mix tapes and mix CDs. I wrote some poetry and a lot of love letters to girlfriends, but that was the extent of my writing.”

He didn’t start rapping until he got to Huntington in 2000.

“I came to Marshall to walk-on for basketball,” he said.

He’d been offered a couple of scholarships at smaller schools, including Tallahassee Community College and Bluefield State College, but said he’d hoped to play for a bigger school.

“I should have gone to WVU,” he said.

A place on the Marshall basketball team never materialized, but Poole studied business and started writing lines he tried out on his roommate, then his cousin.

“I figured they’d be brutally honest,” he said. “If they hated them, that was OK.”

But they liked it and encouraged him to keep at it. Over time, he said, he’s improved and fine-tuned what he has to say — and he came up with the identity of Deep Jackson.

“Oh, that was back in 2008, during the presidential election,” he said. “I kept hearing them talk about the veep, the vice president, the V.P. I thought well, I’m the D.P., the Deep.”

The name started out as kind of a joke, but then became something that sounded more meaningful to him.

“It kind of described what I was doing,” he said.

While he’s been at it, off and on for, almost 15 years, Poole said he feels like he’s finally making some progress. The new album is out locally and he’s working on piecing together some shows.

“I’m just trying to make it work and get the word out there,” he said. “A year from now, I just want to be a man on tour.”

To hear songs from Deep Jackson’s album, “Sense of Urgency 2” visit www.soundcloud.com/deepjackson.

Reach Bill Lynch at lynch@wvgazette.com, 304-348-5195 or follow @LostHwys on Twitter.

- See more at: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/article/20150409/gz06/150409342#sthash.frhW4dWz.dpuf - Charleston Gazette Mail -- Bill Lynch