JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Dwayne Richardson II grew up in Jacksonville making beats on a computer, posting them on MySpace and selling them for about $100 to neighborhood rappers.<\/p>\n
Watch the full interview with Richardson below.<\/p>\n
He was a high school football player with a dream tucked into the liner notes of CDs his father bought \u2014 he wanted to see \u201cProduced by\u201d next to his name.<\/p>\n
Richardson, professionally known as D Rich, taught himself how to make beats in a digital audio workspace program called FruityLoops through hours of repetition and let some of his neighborhood friends listen.<\/p>\n
His friends recognized his talent and suggested he start selling them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019d always be like, \u2018man, take some of your beats to school, let them dudes hear it, and they\u2019ll buy some beats,\u2019 and they would buy them $100 a pop and it was selling,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n
He was a football player at Lee High School and Nathan Bedford Forest and many of the other guys at the school were rappers too. While football was his true passion, he gained confidence in his music production talent.<\/p>\n
Dwayne Richardson at Nathan Bedford High School. (Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew I had something…so I stayed on the field and once football didn\u2019t work out, I was like, you know what, man, I\u2019m gonna give this music thing a try, and it worked out,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cI knew I had a talent because people loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was so special that in the era of custom voicemail messages on phones, his classmates would call him and tell him not to answer just so they could hear the song and him rapping on it.<\/p>\n
\u2018It unfolded like a miracle\u2019: Taking a risk<\/p>\n
He used to post his beats on his MySpace social media page. There was a rap producer based in Atlanta named Shawty Redd, who worked with the heavy hitters at the time. Richardson said he sent him a message to look at his beats.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe checked it out instantly and shot me a text and shot me his number and I called him,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cIt unfolded like a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dwayne Richardson and Shawty Redd. (Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
This led him to take what he called the biggest risk of his life. He had just got a job at a Publix Warehouse, which wasn\u2019t easy to get into at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a song with Jeezy called \u2018Who Dat,\u2019 I was already signed to Shawty Redd, but the song came out and I was still in Jacksonville working, but I never told anybody,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n
His coworkers would be listening to the song on their stereos while working.<\/p>\n
Dwayne Richardson in the studio. (Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
\u201cI had it in my mind that I can\u2019t tell nobody that I made this song because nobody will believe me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He went into work like any other day, but something felt different.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just looked at the manager\u2019s office, I looked back at everybody else and I just walked out,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cIt\u2019s like something came over me and say \u2018this ain\u2019t for you, you\u2019ve got something else to do,\u2019 and my mom took me to the airport with a book bag, got a standby pass with AirTran for $60 and I flew to Atlanta just like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019d rather take that risk and move in with Shawty Redd and be okay with it not working out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t live my life knowing that I had a chance to do something,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Jacksonville is the sound of my music\u2019<\/p>\n
While Atlanta is roughly a five-hour drive up the interstate from Jacksonville, Richardson was sure to carry the influences of his home city with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like Jacksonville is the sound of my music,\u201d he said. \u201cThe horns, from playing high school football, the battle of the bands, my music has a lot of horns in it and I feel like the horns from the band is what\u2019s known as my sound.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dwayne Richardson honored alongside Atlanta-based super producers Zaytoven and Honorable C Note. (Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
He said Jacksonville rap fans listen to fast, high-energy music, which represents the toughness of its residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy beats kind of had a umph and I definitely credit it to Jacksonville,” he said.<\/p>\n
That umph led him to many awards and to work with many of hip-hop\u2019s biggest names. He said his collaboration with Future and Metro Boomin on the mega-popular song \u2018Type S***\u2019 was a defining moment in his career.<\/p>\n
Dwayne Richardson recognized for the massive success of “Type S***” (Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
\u201cI was 17 years in at the time so most people really don\u2019t have a career that long or their biggest song doesn\u2019t come that long into their career,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was a big moment for me and I was accepted by a lot of my peers…[Future and Metro Boomin] love working with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another significant moment is when Rick Ross shot the \u201cBox Chevy\u201d video in Jacksonville in 2013, shutting down parts of Main Street and the Florida Theatre and bringing visibility to the city. <\/p>\n
Richardson produced a beat for Ross that never came out, but Ross eventually released a song that sounded similar to one that Richardson made.<\/p>\n