The hip-hop artist is one of several Kiwi creators behind a new AR exhibit. Photo / Supplied
David Dallas still can't quite believe one of his songs is in a movie starring Adam Sandler and produced by LeBron James.
His 2013 single Runnin' features on new Netflix film Hustle, and the Kiwi rapper is "stoked".
"It was crazy, bro," he tells the Herald. "It had been in play for maybe 12 months before it came out, all I'd heard was 'hey, do you want your song to be in a Netflix movie with Adam Sandler?' "
Admittedly not the biggest fan of Sandler - or of "s***ty Netflix movies that I don't watch", Dallas wasn't so sure. "But as an artist, I was like, sweet."
Then a month before the movie came out, his manager confirmed the news.
"I started reading the synopsis and I was like, oh, it's about a struggling NBA agent, it's executive produced by LeBron James and it has actual NBA players. It was cool."
In fact, the filmmakers made a whole sequence around the song, which plays over a training montage in the film.
"For me as a kid, the training montage is always your favourite bit in the movie. You think of Rocky, or every Van Damme movie or like any sports movie, it was massive," he enthuses, adding that while he was nervous to see it, the movie is "right up my alley".
Within a week, Runnin' was the third most Shazam'd song in the world - something Dallas says felt "validating".
"To have heaps of people around the world see the song and want to know what it is, it's a very validating feeling, even eight or nine years late."
Dallas thinks it's "cool" that music released years ago can have a resurgence, whether that's on movies or social media.
"Think of the Kate Bush song. It's kinda cool because it means there's no time frame on good music."
Dallas is one of five artists collaborating with Spark to bring a 5G augmented reality experience to the streets of Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch.
Along with Benee, Teeks, Parris Goebel, and Askew One, each artist got the opportunity to tell a story through AR, with each exhibit available to the public from today. Dallas chose to tell the story of the moment he stepped out as a solo artist.
"Music is my first passion, but before I even had an idea about music, I went to university, studied computer s***," he says.
"I'm old enough to be like the first generation of people who just recorded themselves in their bedrooms. Tech goes hand in hand with what we do."
Dallas, whose career began under the name Con Psy with the duo Frontline, first went solo in 2009.
"People always told me, 'you should be a solo artist, and you should just use your name - your birth name should be your name'," he shares.
"And obviously you're insecure and you don't know what you're going to do and it was just that. Stepping out under your own name is a hard thing to do, especially as a rapper."
Dallas reveals that he's working on some new music of his own after a difficult few years.
"I've got a few things in the stash.
"The last couple of years were a bit rough and my brother passed away last year, so that was kinda rough.
"But late last year after coming out of the lockdown I was like, let me see if the pen still works. And it's starting to work all right."
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