D. Bess is a one-man band: reggae/ska/blues-hop and roll. Accounts of his birth vary and it is supposed that he was born in March of 1991 or February of 1988.
Bess, Dave Bess, David Benjamin Bess, was born and raised on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean known as "Oahu". He grew up deep in the jungle of Palolo Valley and was raised by a pack of wild boars. Abandoned by his heroin-addicted mother and left to die a baby orphan's death in the wild, he was spared starvation and a sure death when Sandor, King of the Boars, decided to take pity on t
he child and take him in as one of his own. And that day mighty Sandor said, "We shall not eat this child! This child is marked with the scar of Kuntur, father of the dance! Bear witness to what the heavens have laid before us... this child shall change the world forever! Sebrina, bring forth our best banana beer! Gabriel, we shall gather mongoose and mountain apples for a splendid feast of the ages!"
And so the boars caroused till dawn, celebrating as the baby child lay crying in his baby boar lair. When he turned old enough to have his first boar hunt, the child ran away to see the what was beyond the great boar valley. What he found changed his life forever...
The rest is musical. History. To read more about the great adventures of D. Bess & Sandor, King of the Boars, please contact Random House and Disney Pictures to get details on his upcoming book and movie release in 2031. "Bess dazzles as a one-man band, writing, playing and singing everything into an ambitious, genre-tripping groove-athon... a shape-shifting hybrid of dub, hip-hop, ska, reggae, funk and classic early '70s soul."
- Jim Musser
Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, D. Bess is a one-man band who now calls Chicago home. Since 2010 he has been honing the strange art of live-looping (recording various instruments on the fly) to create a full band sound. Although reggae is the foundation of his sound, D. Bess meshes blues, ska, dub, funk, Hawaiian, hip-hop, folk and country into his original grooves.His first full-length solo album, Man vs. Bear, features reggae legend T***s Hibbert of T***s & The Maytals trading vocals with D. Bess on the ska song "Oh Carolina", for which they shot a music video in Kingston, Jamaica the same year.
