DJ has no reservations about sharing his story with others

Dion Chavis, a local radio personality who goes by the name Showtime, did not have what you would call “a warm and fuzzy relationship” with his father.

Chavis’ mother, fed up with Elbert Parker’s drinking, recreational cocaine use and verbal abuse, left Parker when Showtime was 3. Showtime recalls court-ordered weekends at his dad’s house on a funky couch and a paternal grandmother who never got his name right.

When Showtime was 11, the explosive temper that caused his dad to punch holes in walls, kick down doors and curse out employers caught up with him, and after a fistfight in 1991, two men with whom he fought came back for him, armed. He was shot several times and died in a Norfolk hospital.

Showtime, 27, a Chesapeake native and radio emcee who now hosts a show on Norfolk State University’s station 91.1 FM, turned to hip-hop music as a saving grace. He learned black history from Poor Righteous Teachers and KRS-One,  and finesse and grace from Big Daddy Kane. Chavis’ story is like that of many men of the hip-hop generation who have endured – or succumbed to – strained relationships with their fathers, and in the new book “Be A Father To Your Child,” Showtime talks openly about how his experiences affected his outlook on life.

“I didn’t have any reservations,” he said. “I have never told anyone outside of my family that part of my life, but I thought it would help others going through the same kind of struggles.”

The book, which features chapters from well-known writers including Kevin Powell and Byron Hurt and rappers Talib Kweli and Rhyme- fest, is a collection of essays and musings on black fatherhood and hip-hop, and the relationship between the two. One writer tells how he is the result of rape; another watches his father become addicted to crack; another becomes a grandfather at 36.

In many ways the book humanizes intellectual arguments. Sociologists have long documented a jump in single-parent homes since the 1970s, particularly in black homes, and that era coincides with the birth of hip-hop music and culture. Phantom fathers – whether because of prison, death or just men who vanished when the baby came – have long been a theme in rap music.

The widespread absence of black fathers was so influential on the music that in the late 1980s and early ’90s, the pendulum swung back, and the resentment and grief many rappers openly expressed was channeled into cries for personal responsibility. The book’s title is, in fact, lifted from a popular ’90s song of the same name. The group behind the song, Ed O.G. & Da Bulldogs, has been forgotten, but the theme has remained a constant in rap in subsequent years.

Showtime’s relationship with his father is in part what prompted him to be a good father to his daughter, Nyla. In his essay, Showtime talks about using prayer and faith to endure problems with his child’s mother for Nyla’s benefit. And he was so thrilled with writing that he’s penning his own book, “Sins of the Father: 10 Mistakes Made By Fathers of the Hip Hop Generation,” to come later.

“I feel that black men need to be portrayed in a more positive light when it comes to fatherhood,” he said of “Be A Father.” “This book gives me an opportunity to go against the stereotype that the hip-hop generation is all absent fathers. This shows at least 24 black men who are there for their kids.”

Malcolm Venable, (757) 446-2662, malcolm.venable@pilotonline.com