Meet The Artist

    The Dragon  (Gavin Boardley) is a 19-year-old, independent hip-hop artist trying to build a community of hip-hop and Marvel fans. As an independent thinker who loves witnessing and telling stories, he seems to have an interesting take on the world. He started his music journey playing the drums in elementary school and continued picking up many other instruments until he finished high school. In high school, he discovered hip-hop through Eminem, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, 2Pac, and 50 Cent. He went through many personal struggles then, and hip-hop kept him alive. Inspired, Gavin began to write, rap, and produce in high school. Wanting to improve himself as a rapper and musician, he studied much of the history of hip-hop and its pioneers/important figures. While innovative artists LL COOL J, Eric B. & Rakim, Outkast, Eazy-E, The D.O.C., The Alchemist, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and more indirectly affect every MC to this day, Gavin learned much by studying their work directly. Some of his more modern influences are JamWayne, NF, Knox Hill, Juice WRLD, Coast Contra, Token, and Lil Dicky. However, he won't forget what started his music journey, heavy metal/rock such as Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Metallica, AC/DC, Avenged Sevenfold, System Of A Down, and later Linkin Park and Slipknot. Another one of his influences is “Weird Al” Yankovic. There are many other major influences on the way Gavin thinks about music, though, as he was in the concert, jazz, marching bands, and choir throughout school. With all that being said, while rooted in hip-hop, The Dragon's tracks usually like to add elements of rock, comedy, metal, jazz, etc.

  In terms of influences for filming music videos and creating stories visually, The Dragon takes inspiration from Family Guy, Breaking Bad, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Deadpool, Dexter, comedy flicks, horror flicks, and the 'YouTuber style'. Gavin always gets caught up in the little details of the entertainment process. One of his favorite parts of the MCU projects is finding 'easter eggs' hidden throughout the movies/shows, for example. Every single song he releases, while enjoyable in standalone, is also meant to build a bigger picture in terms of overall storytelling. If you were to watch each music video in the order it was released (check out 'THE STORY'
playlist), it would feel like a TV show (hence his debut single, 'Synopsis'). 

Viewers will find 'easter eggs' throughout the videos (if they look hard enough). Songs will have a variety of serious, emotional, comedic, violent, dark, competitive, relaxed, and light tones throughout. That usually varies from project to project. The setting of all of these releases, while sometimes very meta, takes place inside Gavin's head. He'd urge viewers to use some common sense while experiencing his music. Sometimes a song could be 100% factual, while other times 100% fictional, and just telling a story for the sake of creativity. Though a lot of projects will have a mixture of pure fiction and real-life events being told. Sometimes, especially the more violent and/or comedic songs, could be a very strong hyperbole and/or symbolism for real-life thoughts and feelings, rather than real-life actions or behaviors (expressed through works of fiction and creativity). Sometimes, he'll just say stuff because it rhymes and/or is funny to him purely for shits and giggles. So in summary, don't be an idiot, just use common sense, please, and thank you.

  Gavin is generally pretty attentive to detail when it comes to his work. While his favorite part of creating videos is placing 'easter eggs', his favorite part of making music is writing lyrics. He is always trying to see how many syllables he can get to rhyme in his schemes, and trying to fit in wordplay in his bars is fun as well. What is also cool about his releases is that he plays different, fictional versions of himself as the characters in his universe (not too dissimilar from Pixar's' Inside Out', though it's usually for a more mature audience). These characters, while all played by Gavin/The Dragon,
symbolize different parts/emotions in his head. This also gives him the ability to make the major differences in tones/subgenres throughout projects work within the bigger story.

  On a less serious note, The Dragon spits flames with his often comedic, uncensored, cruel yet imaginative storytelling, groovy drums and bass, kick-ass bars, and sick guitars. That doesn't mean he can't be serious sometimes, though...

  And yes...

  He definitely wrote this bio himself in third person because why the fuck not lol

  Welcome to the mind of Gavin Boardley.

  (mic drop *thud*)

~ Dragon’s Den Records