Nigerian-Canadian rapper (born 1994)
Musical artist
Daniel Nwosu Jr. (born March 22, 1994), professionally known by his stage name Dax (often stylized as DAX), is a Canadian rapper, singer, and songwriter.[3]
Early life
Daniel Nwosu Jr. was born to immigrant Nigerian parents on March 22, 1994, in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. Nwosu grew up in Ottawa and moved to Wichita to attend university, after school he lived in Detroit for a short period before moving to Los Angeles, California. Nwosu attended Casper College in Casper, Wyoming during the 2013-2014 school year where he played on the basketball team, averaging 13.2 points per game. He then attended the Newman University, where he played guard for the Newman Jets basketball team.[4][5] He initially wrote poetry and was a motivational speaker prior to pursuing a rap career. During his tenure at Newman University, he worked as a janitor, which he claimed was a job he liked because he was able to work on building his rap career in his spare time from work.[6][7]
Career
In 2016, Dax decided to write up a poem as he rode on a bus with his basketball team. After receiving positive feedback from a teammate about his poem, he recognized his passion for writing. Since then he began releasing and promoting music through his SoundCloud account dropping mixtape 2pac Reincarnation Vol 2: As Told By Dax in 2017. He rose to fame for the official music video of his song "Cash Me Outside" featuring Danielle Bregoli.[8]
In August 2018, he released his first extended play, entitled It’s Different Now which features guest appearances from other rappers including OT Genasis and Futuristic. The following year, he was featured on Hopsin's song "You Should've Known".[9] In June 2019, he went on "It goes up" tour with Tech N9ne and then later announced his first solo headlining tour "It's Different Now Tour" via Instagram and scheduled to tour in October across America and Canada.[10]
In 2020, he released another EP, I'll Say It for You which received generally positive reviews, the 7 track EP was preceded by the controversial single "Dear God".[11][12] Later that year he released two more singles, "Faster" featuring Tech N9ne and "I don't want another sorry" featuring and Trippie Redd respectively.[13][14][15] In April 2020, he released the single "Coronavirus (State Of Emergency)", which was written about the COVID-19 pandemic.[16]
In July 2021, Dax released a sequel to "Dear God" called "Child of God".[17] In the following month, he announced his debut studio album and released "Propaganda" featuring Tom Macdonald as album's lead single.[18] The song peaked at number 15 on the Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Digital Song Sales chart and at number 9 on the Rap Digital Song Sales chart.[19][20] In early October 2021, album's third single "40 Days, 40 Nights" featuring Nasty C was released.[21][22] On October 15, 2021, his debut studio album Pain Paints Paintings was released digitally through Living Legends Entertainment.[23]
On March 11, 2022, he released a new single titled "Dear Alcohol", which was written about alcoholism. It debuted at number 9 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 and at 28 on the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart, and was eventually certified Platinum by both the RIAA and Music Canada.[24][25][26] On June 10, 2022, he released a country music crossover remix for the song featuring vocals from country singer Elle King.[citation needed] He received a nomination for Breakthrough Artist of the Year at the 2023 Canadian Country Music Awards.[27] In October 2023, Dax released a country music crossover remix of his song "To Be a Man" featuring Darius Rucker, and the song topped the Billboard Country Digital Song Sales chart in the United States.[28] On February 9th, 2024, Dax released the single “Narsiccist” featuring Phix.
Artistry
Style and influence
Initially, Dax did not take rap seriously because of his interest in basketball but there was a phase where he grew up listening to Tupac. He was never really a big fan of rap but he started listening to hip-hop when Drake took over the scene. Dax has also cited artists like 50 Cent and Lil Wayne. He compares his style to artists such as Tech N9ne, Eminem, and Hopsin.[8]
Feuds
KSI
On November 18, 2018, KSI appeared on the What's Good? Podcast, where he called out various internet rappers. In the interview KSI said both Quadeca and Dax were worse than him at rapping. Quadeca went on to post a full diss track against him on November 23, 2018, called "Insecure". Shortly after, Dax also responded with his own diss track, which was a remix of Eminem's diss track toward Machine Gun Kelly, "Killshot". KSI then responded to Dax and Quadeca's track with a reaction video, also accompanied by a diss track called "Ares".
He challenged Dax to a private boxing match, with Dax accepting but repeatedly delaying it. He then later appeared on Deji's diss track "Unforgivable" against KSI.[29][30]
Tory Lanez
On January 24, 2019, Tory Lanez claimed through a tweet that he is the "best rapper alive".[31][32] Dax responded by posting a video on YouTube, featuring a diss track titled "I'm Not Joyner Or Don Q" aimed at him.[33] Lanez posted a video on Instagram in response in which he pressures Dax to apologize for the diss track. Dax addressed the situation in interviews with DJ Akademiks, Impaulsive, and No Jumper, saying that apologizing was the right thing to do because he did not want a fight to break out.[34]
