Recalling a Famous Father : Dexter King Raps His Dream in Song

Dexter King may have the same neat mustache, the same almond eyes, the same stocky build as his father, famed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. He may be attending the same school, Morehouse College in Atlanta. He may be special assistant to the president--his mother--of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

But at 24, Dexter King is quick to point out that he has his own style: “I’m a very independent kind of person.”

That much is evident in the way he has decided to honor his father’s memory and the approach of Jan. 20, the first time his father’s birthday will be celebrated as a national holiday.

He chose rap.

The staccato, rhyming chants of rap music have little in common with the measured cadences of his father’s best known speeches. But King got to like the music during his high school days, when he was a disc jockey at parties. And now he believes that a mixture of rap and soul music is the best way to take his father’s message to a generation of teen-agers born too late to fully understand the impact of Martin Luther King’s life and 1968 assassination.

And so Dexter King stood in a Pasadena recording studio Saturday, quietly puffing a pipe while four of the five singers from the band New Edition leaned against a piano and, one after the other, repeated their lines:

“He had a dream . . . Now it’s up to you . . . To see it through . . . To make it come true.”

“Now do it!” they shouted together.

New Edition and seven other recording artists form the nucleus of “The King Dream Chorus and Holiday Crew,” a group of volunteers all under the age of 30 who agreed to make a single of “King Holiday,” a combination of rap lines and singing to be released in December or January. A video and an album are also planned. Project proceeds will be donated to the King Center.

The younger King’s idea was born when he began making plans nearly a year ago to mark the first time his father’s birthday would be a federal holiday. “I wanted to do something that would be inspirational as well as educational,” he said.

He watched as British and American pop singers banded together to make records to raise money for African famine relief. And he decided to do something similar--but with a twist.

An all-talk rap record was his first impulse. “My father’s message was in a sense very uncomplicated,” King said. “His style of writing was able to appeal to so many people. It’s a lot harder to express that in song. Rap music, it just clicks.”

Gets Rap Artist, Friend

So he contacted rap artist Kurtis Blow and an old friend from school, New York producer Phillip Jones, whose professional name is P.J. Blue. The three of them decided to try interspersing spoken and sung lines--in part, to get a broader spectrum of participants.

King gave Blow and Jones several of his father’s speeches and books and told them the kind of philosophy he wanted expressed in the piece. Then Blow, Jones and two others--Melle Mel and Bill Adler--wrote the song.

The Pasadena session was not the first, nor will it be the last. The rhythm tracks have already been recorded in New York. Next month, singers Stacy Latisaw and James Taylor (or J.T.), lead vocalist for Kool and the Gang, as well as rap artists Blow, Run DMC, the Fat Boys and Whodini will also perform in New York.

For New Edition, the chance to donate their time was a thrill. “This is something they learn in school,” said the group’s manager, Khalil Rountree. “Their feeling is, ‘Wow, we did something for Dr. King; we’re that big.’ ”