Danny Rakow’s six-second Vine videos have been looped almost 7.5 million times.

Rakow, a freshman Bandier student, started making Vines in October 2013. After his first Vine video, Rakow said his Vine following “blew up overnight.” The student rapper, who goes by the artist name Daniel James, said he received approximately 2,000 new followers daily for several weeks after he released his first Vine, in which he rapped Chance the Rapper’s “Favorite Song.”

“It was definitely a bug out for me that it was happening, but I kind of embraced it. It was kind of a point for me that I could get started at,” Rakow said. “When I had this following, it inspired me to make music for them, so it was really cool.”

Rakow, who currently has 130,400 followers on Vine, said he projects messages through his videos.

“Whatever the feeling of the beat was, I’d write a couple lines of what I’m feeling in the moment, and I get the message across it in the lyrics,” Rakow said.

Rakow began making music when he was in eighth grade with his best friend Jeremy Zucker under the name “Flow.” After taking a musical hiatus for a few years, Zucker and Rakow reunited and began making music together again later on in high school, with Rakow rapping and Zucker producing.

Zucker, who now attends Colorado College, said Rakow has grown “astoundingly” as an artist.

“When me and him sit down and make music, it’s a very fluid exchange of ideas,” Zucker said. “I’m kind of the creator, but he’s the one who often gives it direction, which is really cool, and when we’re making music together, it’s that constant back and forth exchange of ideas, keeping it creative and professional.”

Zucker is Rakow’s main music producer, and both agreed that attending separate universities has made the production process more difficult.

Rakow sends recordings of his verses for Zucker to mix and master, but said he hasn’t been able to make as much music as he wanted to. For that reason, the two friends plan on extensively working together over the summer to make up for the lost time.

Benjamin O’Connell, another friend of Rakow and Zucker’s, teamed up with them to create the brand 3OAK, which stands for “three of a kind,” in order to represent the three of them. Although the three are technically separate artists, they wanted to represent the fact that they collaborate often. O’Connell, who goes by the rap name Benjamin O, is an New York University student currently abroad in Florence. He said he believes that 3OAK has been able to accomplish a lot in the past year despite their geographic separation.

“(Danny) just keeps progressing, he keeps getting better and better, and we’re all just trying to help each other out. We’re really getting a lot done given the circumstances,” O’Connell said.

Zucker believes that Rakow’s prominence on Vine has helped him develop a fan base, but said that most of the people who follow him are more interested in Rakow’s persona than strictly his music.

“It helps him a lot with his image and the way people perceive him, but it’s limiting in his music because it only displays six seconds of what he can do,” Zucker said. “(However), it gives him the ability to showcase his songs to a lot of people, which is awesome.”

Zucker has been involved in creating several of Rakow’s music videos, which are available on YouTube on his Daniel James page. Rakow recently released a video for his song “All The Time,” which was shot in Thornden Park and was the first song he released in Syracuse, which also features several references to SU in its lyrics. Rakow’s music is also available on SoundCloud.

Rakow said he hopes to become a well-known rapper on campus, and says he often freestyles for friends at parties.

“I don’t get scared by it, I enjoy it. If there’s 20, 30 people, no matter what, I’m just ready to go and just start rapping off the top of my head,” Rakow said. “It really just comes to me. Whatever comes to me, I rap.”

Published on April 7, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Isha: idamle@syr.edu