David Augustine, the 23-year-old local rapper better known as Dee-1, is going to spend less time with some of his young fans. He’s leaving his job teaching at a Baton Rouge middle school to concentrate on his music career full time.
“The kids were a little hurt that I wasn’t coming back this year,” he says. “But the pace of my career justified it.” Setting aside his interest in teaching affected the rapper deeply enough that he recorded a song for his students called “The Announcement”: “Now I’ve got a vision worth more than green paper/ So I’m resigning. Now I’m a full-time dream chaser/ My friends say ‘Man, you got a job with good benefits!’/ I’m like ‘Yeah, but when I blow, the hood benefits.'”
New Orleans: the Underground Guide 