Khris Davenport’s path to writing wasn’t the most conventional. The Hamilton resident always had a love for music, but his passion for writing didn’t arrive until he found he could use it to advance his other interests.
“I had started randomly writing poetry and stuff in high school and when I got to college, Napster was a thing, AOL Forums—they were taking shape and I was noticing that my interests in writing and internet culture started back then,” the 35-year-old said.
That was 1999. The Hun School of Princeton graduate left La Salle College after one year to pursue his writing dreams by starting an online community, alongside an unrelated full-time job.
“You could see how easy it was to get like-minded people to come to a site with similar interests and then balloon out into something bigger,” he said.
Davenport also believes that his start on community forums was a “major stepping stone” into what became his latest and most prominent project: a blog called Rock the Dub.
Rock the Dub has almost 1,000 likes on Facebook, more than 1,000 followers on Twitter and thousands of fans from around the world. But it has just one writer and editor—Davenport. The hip-hop and electronic, drum-bass music review blog celebrated 10 years last March. For Davenport, the blog is more than just a hobby.
‘Realistically, I just wanted free music, new music.’
“It started off as a place where I could put reviews up that didn’t get posted,” Davenport said. “But then it started to gain traction and views and became more than just my thing, so I started to spend more time on it putting together free compilations of mixes, trying to highlight upcoming artists.”
Davenport didn’t get into music review writing until the early 2000s. He began by contacting random blogs and forums across the world with the line, “I’ll write a review for this song/album if you send me the pre-release.”
“Realistically, I just wanted free music, new music,” he said.
So he dove into the music scene through online magazines and blogs including “Dogs on Acid,” an electronic music blog in the U.K. and “The Flow,” a defunct online music magazine. His first writing job at “The Flow” gave him his first taste of a real editor and real deadlines.
Shortly after, Davenport joined the “Dogs on Acid” team, where he eventually ended up being the Editor-in-Chief. He was able to see all of the “nuts and bolts” for the almost four years he was in charge, a learning experience that has proven valuable to him.
That gig morphed into a full-time position at Complex Magazine in September 2012 after Complex Editor-in-Chief Noah Callahan-Bever posted on his Twitter that he was looking to start an EDM Blog and needed help. Davenport tweeted back at him, and Callahan-Bever answered back.
“I thought I’d be a good candidate because I ran Dogs on Acid, and I had a lot of experience writing about electronic music, so I said why not tweet at him?” Davenport said.
With that, Davenport landed the job and was hired to run the newly formed blog: Do Androids Dance. It ran from January 2013 until February 2015.
Davenport stayed on with the mag since he could write about literally almost anything: sports (professional wrestling, which he calls “a soap opera for men”), pop culture, music, movies, etc. Four days out of the week, he travels into Manhattan for his job, while the other three he stays home to spend time with his family and blog.
Just recently, his wife of more than 11 years, Anna, got him involved in the Trenton art and music scene. Both are Trenton natives, and they wanted to give back to the community. He said it was natural for them to do that through the arts. Over the last five years, they went from volunteers to being in charge of organizing Art All Night, one of the region’s largest community art events.
“We’re definitely a yin and yang situation,” he said.
Davenport spoke at the event and profiled different artists from around Central New Jersey on his blog. Some of his favorites include punk band Molly Rhythm and hip-hop artist Black Collar Biz, but says the scene “is definitely an interesting situation” with many on the rise.
“Locally there’s a lot going on…within the last year a couple artists have gotten on stage and showed their stuff,” he said.
Throughout his years of writing, his favorite pieces have both been recent.
“I did this piece on local Trenton DJ It’s Just Ahmad that embodies what I try to do with rockthedub.com,” he said. “I also have this profile of Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld that I did for Complex earlier this year that I am very proud of.”
Davenport always tries to find the story that’s not being told.
“The only inspiration I get is introducing people to stories that they might not be up on,” he said. “I’d much rather tell stories no one else is saying than just hopping on trends. I feel like my particular take on music/things in life is different than others, and love getting those stories in the world.”
When he’s not writing or working with his wife on the art scene, he loves to hang out with his 10-year-old son Jayden and play video games, watch MMA or read comic books. He recently became a proud step-grandfather to seven-month-old Alaina Graves and is completely thrilled.
“It’s one of those things where writing about music and working in the industry…I’ve seen what it takes for certain entities to get to air, but I don’t really chase that,” Davenport said. “I’m more comfortable with just doing my thing and people recognizing that.”
Khris Davenport,
