When we meet at Sushi Express on University Avenue, Dequadray White is wearing a pinstripe button-up, a SZA hat, and carrying a Peruvian handbag procured on a recent visit to Brazil. His first two years at UW-Madison, he says, have felt like six or seven, given the amount of growth and struggle he has experienced.
He pauses, beams, and tweets that message out to his followers. Connection is the goal for Dequadray, regardless of the platform.
The singer, rapper and producer (who goes by his first name) is halfway to earning an art degree at UW-Madison, where he is also working toward a certificate in Afro-American studies. The outspoken campus activist released an excellent album in February, Dequadray! A Black Sitcom, and is currently writing and experimenting with new songs while carving out a path in Madison as a queer, black artist.
Dequadray grew up just outside Atlanta, experimenting with rap when the city was about to become the new hotspot for the genre. A bad teenage breakup pushed him to express himself musically and to create visual art. “It was like, ‘oh wow, this is where I can do my story,’” Dequadray says. “This is where I can have this free range of creating images, being an artist and also letting my voice be heard.”
In 2016, Dequadray enrolled at UW-Madison as a First Wave scholar, living in The Studio in Sellery Hall, an arts-focused community. In those circles he met many people who have shaped his life here: producer Matt Cousins, his current roommates, his manager and his friends. He helped form a collective, Still Strugglin’ Entertainment, with his mentor, Quaan Logan.
On campus, Dequadray works at the Gender and Sexuality Center, helping to create programming for queer students of color.
His music is both personal and political. In the hopeful song and video “Marathon,” recorded his freshman year after the election of Donald Trump, Dequadray sings about “the long run”: “Know your place. Keep your pace. You’ll win this race.”
During a summer internship in Green Bay at a Boys & Girls Club he began to build what would become A Black Sitcom. On “Underestimated,” he talks back to people who have passed him over. “What Can I Do” is addressed to a lover who he wished he could have changed, but could not.
“When I wrote those songs, they were me talking to the person in the song,” Dequadray says. “It was like I was writing directly to them.”
He also talks to himself. On the album’s final track, “Best For Me,” he sings and raps over a piano loop, reminding himself of how far he has come. Dequadray hopes that by sharing how he deals with adversity he can help others know they are not alone.
After we chat at Sushi Express, we move to Dequadray’s nearby high-rise apartment — just a few days before he moved to a new one. His roommates, also First Wave scholars, are reading and playing video games. Members of the Still Strugglin’ music collective stop by.
He plays a demo of the recently released track, “On The Regular.” The hook — “You call me/You call me” — features overlapping vocal lines. In the verses, he raps and sings: “I know you got a lover/But I need you to put me first” over a swaying, guitar-centered beat.
He also raps: “No matter how many times I said I’m through with it/I know I wouldn’t trade him out for anything,” repeating the male pronoun of the song’s subject, rather than the gender-neutral second person “you” that he used on earlier songs.
Dequadray’s music is evolving, becoming more emotional and immersive. And, he says, these new songs are more personal than anything he has done before. “I don’t think you could tell who I am,” Dequadray says of his earlier album. “On this next project, I want you to know that this is who I am.”
