Put on your tinfoil hats and get ready for some wild claims. Everybody reflects on their path in life and wonders how small changes could have impacted it. The effects from everyday choices and happenstance ripple outwards in a butterfly effect. Today, Dijon Duenas is a successful RnB singer, but things could have turned out very differently. Somewhere out there in the multiverse is a version of Dijon topping charts and spitting straight fire, as a full-fledged rapper. This wasn’t meant to be in our reality. Instead, lil Dijon found himself in a rap battle with LaKeith Stanfield in Jr. High. The thrashing he received forever marred his perception of himself as a rapper. According to himself, this directly leads to him pursuing a different musical career.
The artist reminisced about his past in an interview with Pitchfork. Though some strange quirk of fate, both Dijon and Lakeith found themselves in the same Jr. High School. One day they duked it out at lunchtime, with their words instead of fists. The results of that conflict shattered Dijon’s perception of himself, “’He ruined me,’ Dijon says with a laugh. ‘He put the hit on my dream.’”
Sadly we don’t have any recordings of that battle, as entertaining as they would be. Nor was it the end for Dijon; he got knocked down but ricocheted off the ground. He transitioned into RnB, forming the duo Abhi/Dijon while in college. His most popular song, “The Dress,” has over seven million listens on Spotify.
Don’t Leave out LaKeith
There are two sides to every story. In the case of Dijon Duenas v Stanfield, LaKeith came out on top. Emboldened by his victory, LaKeith and his friends started their own record company… at 11 years old. Things changed however in High School when the then rapper discover a love of the theatre. He transitioned his performance skills to a different form of art and began pursuing a career. Today, the actor is famous for his roles in popular films such as Get Out and Straight Outta Compton, as well as his time playing Darius in the series Atlanta.
