by Drew Pitts

After suffering a knee injury in 2021 that took him away from basketball for six months, Donovan Arnason, known professionally as Dono, found comfort in the studio. “I need something to put my mind to,” Dono said. “So I said, ‘fuck it, I’ll just hop in [the studio].’”

So far, Dono has always approached his music and his career in a very straightforward manner. He is not one to wear the most expensive or flashy clothes or have the biggest social media presence. He is calm and humble, and he just wants to focus on his music. He logged onto the Zoom interview wearing a plain white T-shirt and basketball shorts; not trying to impress anyone—just excited to talk about his craft.

Dono was tied to the industry through mutual friends early on. Ghostly, who is now his engineer, was running shows in the DMV through his business Premium Product. Dono helped promote and run the shows, using them as an opportunity to network and connect with other local artists. So when the time came for Dono to start making his own music, he already knew the right people, and was able to start making waves locally almost right away.

What separates Dono from many of his DMV contemporaries is that there seems to be particular focus on his lyrical content. While many local rappers prioritize catchy flows, hooks, and beats over what they are talking about in their music, Dono takes a different approach. “Today it’s more about the beat than the actual lyrics, for real,” he says. “I usually try my best to rap about an actual situation that’s going on rather than just freestyle and say random shit.” He says that some of the hip-hop legends that he listens to, such as Rakim, KRS-One, and LL Cool J, help him implement lyricism in his music. Nowadays, many new hip-hop artists and fans do not do their research and are not very enthusiastic about early hip-hop history. This is not the case for Dono due to his appreciation for these pioneers. “Growing up, my Dad really bumped those rappers and it just caught on with me…I know that talent-wise, lyrically, they are way better than today.”

In less than a year, Dono started to gain attention from bigger underground acts and to make a name for himself. “At first, I really didn’t think I was that good until I started getting notice from other underground rappers,” he says. These underground figures included Tyla Yaweh, who has made music with Post Malone, Wiz Khalifa, and DaBaby; Showjoe, who has over 23,000 followers on Instagram and is very popular in Northern Virginia; and EastbayTae, an Ohio Rapper who was co-signed by the late PNB Rock.

All of these artists are descendants of the present-day underground sound that has been popularized by artists like Playboi Carti, Autumn!, and Summrs. The mixture of heavily auto-tuned rapping and singing, emo themes, and psychedelic beats has gained a lot of appeal over the last three years. Dono noticed that he was having more success with this style of rap and ran with it.

“I tried some other flows just to see if people fuck with it. Mostly people were fucking with the underground-type flow…I tried some DMV shit in there, they wasn’t fucking with it,” he laughs.

DMV rap is on the more aggressive trap side of the hip-hop genre. The unique flows and hard-hitting beats of many DMV rappers often don’t reach or connect with rap fans outside of the area but are praised and beloved locally. DMV Artists like No Savage, Lil Lo, and TWINNSKI gain millions of views on YouTube But struggle to build growing fan bases outside of the area. “You don’t really make it out with the DMV flow,” Dono explains.

Many people wonder why the DMV does not get the nationwide love that other regional sounds get, like New York, Chicago, or Detroit. Dono credits big egos and animosity as the reason why the DMV hasn’t yet built a following outside of the area. This is also the source of his first mixtape’s title, DMV Battle Royale.

“Unfortunately, I feel like the DMV doesn’t collab with each other like that. It’s really just a battle everyone is fighting against themselves…unlike Atlanta, they fuck with each other heavy. But the DMV, it’s just hard to collab,” he explains. “I was thinking of every man for themselves. So DMV Battle Royale is just what came to mind.”

This summer, Dono plans to release more music and grow his following. Now that he has fully recovered from his knee injury, Dono will be slowing down with making music for a while to focus on his first passion, basketball, but he is still setting aside time to work on his music. “I got more features that I’ve been working with and more on the way,” he says. “Big things coming.”