“So, why Cane’s?” I inquire of the can-do kid before me at our table. He’s as cool as a goddamned cucumber, this cat – slouched against the wall of Gretna’s Raising Cane’s with the sort of chill-pilled, “aight” posture you can’t learn. His T-shirt is a saintly white. His black hair is immaculately close-cropped. Even his thick-framed glasses give him a distinguished aspect, say, of Johnny Depp. There’s no teaching this dude’s distinct dougie: It was his decision, after all, to be interviewed for this piece at – of all places – the Westbank New Orleans’ Cane’s. “Really just enjoy sweet tea,” he y’ats at me, free and easy – and sans subject. “Really do,” he y’ats again, as if it were the toneful hook of a sweet tea slow jam, reeling me in, saccharrine-like. Meet eighteen-year-old Dale Tabor, Jr., business management sophomore and would-be rapper – and sweet tea stalwart. Meet Deeds. He’s pleased to meet you, at any rate. These days, they don’t make ’em more straight-shooting than the self-styled “relaxed but classy” New Orleanian. He’s a Simple Simon, Deeds. Less a rapper than a storyteller. And through it all, he waxes rhapsodic, “I try to keep my chin up and my pinky out,” which is something of a moral for his story – itself a welcome Lake Pontchartrain wind through the city. It’s the tale he tells on his forthcoming mixtape “New Orleans 2 Baton Rouge” (NO2BR), a mixed-bag offering dropping Thursday – Deeds’ nineteenth birthday, as it were – downloadable free of charge at jmacdaddy.com. NO2BR, his second such compilation, puffs on tight-rolled thoughts of “home” – “not where you live,” he says, “but where you come from.” Home is where Deeds’ heart is, ultimately. He burns for New Orleans. You can smell his smoke. “Everybody has a home. Everybody. Even if it’s a corner, even if it’s under a bridge.”
From Dale 2 Deeds And even if it’s on the Mississippi River levee – like Tabor’s. “We grew up on the levee. When I was thirteen or fourteen, after my mom would go to work, we’d go walk on it, drinking Monster and smoking cigs,” he snickered through a too-cool-for-school grin. “I was a kid who grew up way too fast in the first city of sin,” he confessed. His parents were divorced, and he was often left to his own devices – Tabor was somewhat of a pyromaniac “skateboard kid,” a cat he let out of the bag at Cane’s with a Cheshire’s grin, unabashedly. Surprisingly, Tabor never was a “hip-hop head.” It wasn’t until his high school years at Archbishop Shaw, in fact, that he began rapping. He was “D” then – for Dale. But before long, Tabor said, as a cappella freestyle rap free-for-alls raged, “‘D’ is up, ‘D’ is this, ‘D’ is that, ‘D’ is, ‘D’ is” simply became “Deeds” – a moniker he assumed, too, for the fact that he “[does] nice things for people.”
“I’ll come.” It wasn’t until January, 2011, though, at The Howlin’ Wolf in New Orleans, that Deeds really grabbed the mic. That night, Deeds was just another face in the popular venue’s poppin’ crowd – until, as luck would have it, a lull in that night’s hip-hop gumbo-pot lineup left emcee Shiny Green with an unexpectedly empty stage. “Anybody wanna come up here? Anybody?” he provoked The Howlin’ Wolf patrons. Deeds dared. His palms were sweaty, his knees were weak, and his arms were heavy. Deeds declared despite this: “I’ll come.” Ten minutes later, Deeds had “seen the lights, the bright lights, the awed faces” at The Howlin’ Wolf in New Orleans. And ten months later – Deeds saw them at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.
“Dear Mama” “If you don’t got a home,” Deeds is explaining, “you got nowhere to – ” Deeds had turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to his iPhone for an hour or so, but he’s suddenly dropped the mic, now, as the device begins to break-dance across the table. He’s still as cool a customer as ever – but his eyes are big. Bulging, even. Superdomes nested in a downtown of high-rising lashes, maybe. “Sorry,” says Deeds to the caller – and like he means it, too. “I’m in an interview.” And then – “Love you, too.” “Mom?” I ask. “Yeah,” he grants. “But, ah, I got a song on the mixtape called ‘Home,’ actually. It’s about leaving home and dealing with the temptations you’ve had your whole life.” “Home” is Deeds’ darling, the black swan in NO2BR’s gaggle of tracks. Downy, duskless and deep-seated, it’s a slow-burner – a haunting nocturne more akin to Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” than anything else on the mixtape. Deeds spits the song’s opening snippet for me – “Sorry, mama, had to leave, had to leave. / I know you worry, but my demons ain’t catchin’ me.” He lets the lyrics linger for a little while. “It’s about the person you’ve always had looking out for you, that person everyone’s had in their lives – leaving and telling that person not to worry, that you’ll be good.” “Mom?” I ask again. “Nah,” he protests – and damned quickly, at that. “It’s not necessarily about my mom,” he insists. A few slow-dripping seconds of silence elapse, then. But for all I know, time’s been remixed itself. Chopped and screwed, maybe – the Swishahouse cut. “Yeah, it’s about my mom,” he finally fesses up, rosy-cheeked and smiling wryly.
Mixtape on the mind I’m again at Cane’s – again opposite a coolio kid with a cup of sweet tea. This time, though, Deeds and I are at the restaurant’s original Baton Rouge location – and this time, it was by my doing. Deeds, all hot and bothered, is making sweet love to his sweet tea. He needs the TLC, having just taken a mass communication test for which he wasn’t well prepared. His excuse: “got the mixtape on my mind.” It’s not a University-approved excuse – but it’s a valid one, nonetheless. “Having to balance my schoolwork and my music is a big challenge,” Deeds says. Bigger, too – when you’re homesick. But Deeds’ takes solace in his University, his alma mater: “Everybody at LSU,” he says, “everybody left home just like me,” Home is where the heart is, ultimately, and Deeds’ is in his mixtape. He’s always home, then – and in a heart as big as Deeds’, there’s plenty, plenty room.
Phil Sweeney is 25-year-old English senior from New Orleans. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_PhilSweeney.
 
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