2/9/2014
Cromwell tries again to fill first town manager position
I called them out on it."
His videos are sometimes campy and at other times dark and violent, and many incorporate computer graphics and animation
techniques he uses in his work as a graphic designer and creator of Web sites.
Animation is used extensively in two recent videos decrying the election of Barack Obama, including one in which he seems to
strike down the president-elect -- whom he supported until Rush Limbaugh started an anti-Obama campaign, then voted
against.
"The End of America As We Know It," put online in mid-November, isn't a song, merely a two-minute clip of an animated Reh
Dogg pacing behind a desk and ranting that "To say I dislike this Marxist would not be too strong. To say I'm ashamed to be
black would not be too strong ... I'm a leader and I know that this man child is wrong for American capitalist society."
He followed it with a song, "What Change Other Than Being Black," in which he sings that Obama "will bring this country as
far left as he can. Him and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi the witch" while an animated figure with Obama's face is blasted twice
by a wizard's fireball.
"The video is a metaphor -- killing him politically," Blyden said Monday.
"Liberals do the same thing, and in some cases worse," he said. "It's political satire."
The Obama videos combined had fewer than 10,000 views as of Monday, but most of the comments are favorable to Reh Dogg.
New Britain rapper Centry, whose first single, "Magic Man," was a hit on Hot 93.7 this summer, hasn't crossed paths with Reh
Dogg -- in fact, he hadn't even heard of him -- and was surprised to hear of his political stance.
Centry, whose real name is Justin Bridges, is against people votin g for Obama just because of his race, some of which he's
experienced in traveling to New York to record, but Reh Dogg "is the only guy I've ever heard of being a minority who's so antiObama."
The references to Marxism and Obama as a man-child "kind of makes me want to say something to him on a record," Bridges
said of Blyden. "He's stating his opinion, but that's corny, sleazy stuff ... he sounds confused. I'm not sure if he's seeing the
bigger picture here."
He tried watching some Reh Dogg videos, but had to mute the sound almost immediately, he said. "I can't even listen to it. The
dude has no talent at all," said Bridges, who is opening for rapper T.I. at a Nov. 29 show in West Virginia. "I can't even take this
seriously."
Born in St. Thomas on the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1973, Blyden has taken his career in different directions over the years.
"My stuff is different and unique. I can throw in a rap, sing, do dancehall reggae, even put classical music riffs in the
background of my tracks," he said.
He went by the name Professor Dan in his hometown and opened for well-known Jamaican dancehall reggae music acts such as
Super Cat and Frankie Paul. Blyden moved to Hartford and reinvented himself under the pseudonym Donester. He's been Reh
Dogg since 1999.
When he's not computer animated, in his shower or naked in his living room, he has often used the picturesque settings of
Wadsworth Falls in Middlefield and the city's Westfield Falls. Another favorite location is the Gillette Castle State Park in East
Haddam.
Blyden is unmarried with no children and has a full-time job aside from being Reh Dogg and graphic design.
"Let's just say that my full-time job entails me carrying a gun," Blyden said. "I don't want people knowing about that."
Blyden said he has been approached by record companies, although he would not name specific labels, and rejected them.
"If I went commercial, I would lose my identity, and I don't want that," Blyden said. "These companies take advantage of artists
and when they don't need you anymore they dump you like a piece of s------."
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