Dreion Sounds the Alarm of Injustice through Music
Photo by Lasha Goodwin
by Leo Adam Biga
If the Omaha singer-songwriter-showman known as Dreion realizes his dream of stardom, then he has an origin story to match.
Breakout success for 23-year-old Da’Dreion Murrell, who plays piano and drums, may not be far away. Music from his debut EP I Am Life is sampled in the new feature film Foster Boy that dramatizes the ills of the foster care system. Its presenting producer is NBA legend Shaquille O’Neill, a foster reform advocate. Dreion spent time in the system and lends his talent and testimony to awareness efforts in support of current foster kids and system survivors like himself.
All this follows Dreion fronting a live outdoor set covering James Brown’s “Get On Up” in Boston last year whose video went viral on Facebook. It netted one million-plus views, including shares and comments by such industry stars as Bootsy Collins. The music video for his song “For a Change is Coming” off the I Am Life album is a tour de force of vocals, music, movement and stagecraft.
It’s only fitting his inspired rendition of the Godfather of Soul, complete with signature dance moves, blew up online since it was the work of Brown and other old school artists that sparked his desire to perform.
Dreion’s uncle Keith Mills, a local rap-gospel artist and percussionist, calls his nephew “an old soul.” Adds Mills, “He grasped the old-school roots and ran with it. It’s almost like he came up in that era himself. He’s a polished musician.”
That dynamic performance captured on video landed Dreion a manager and invites to share his music and story.
The heady response came while still a Berklee College of Music student in Boston. He was already a husband and father. He and his wife A’Lexis – his high school sweetheart at Omaha Northwest Magnet High School – married in 2015. He was 18. She was 20. They welcomed their daughter to the world in 2018.
This pair of soulmates form a formidable team.
“My wife is extraordinary,” he says. “She’s an author and a blogger. She has a romance fiction book coming out at the end of this year – Roses Are Red. She hosts a blog and YouTube channel, “Lex Sip & Read. We’re really working to accomplish individual careers, but doing it together to build a future for our family. She’s the reason why a lot of what I’m doing is coming to fruition because she’s been there to push me and support me in that dream. And I’m doing the same for her.”
So when the vid took off, the creative power couple handled the hype.
“That video really was the turning point for me in my career,” he says. “It exposed so many people to what I’m doing. The interesting thing is that we had done that show many times. That particular show was in a park as part of a summer series Berklee does. There was a nice little audience there. We were really having fun. A lot of what you see was spur of the moment. But we had played together for so long and we had done that song so many times we knew how to work with each other. It was just perfect timing.”
“We were blown away it got shared and viewed by so many people. It allowed me to make some really great relationships.”
With a slew of projects in the works, the next step is landing a recording contract. It seems only a matter of time, especially after impressing celebrity judges in the 2020 Unsigned Only Music Competition. His cut “I Got A Bad Feeling” from his debut EP won second place in the Vocal Performance category.
After four years honing his craft at prestigious Berklee back East, he’s back home, where his passion for music ignited. Omaha’s far from the music industry, but he envisions a day when it comes here.
Finding his way through music
Photo by Lasha Goodwin
Before music ever became a career path, it was Dreion’s salvation.
“My mother was 17 and still in high school when she had me...She didn’t make such great decisions in trying to raise me.” he said. “I grew up in a home where I witnessed physical altercations between her and some of her boyfriends. She was verbally abrasive when disciplining us,” said Dreion, he has three siblings. His biological father was incarcerated for selling narcotics and not in his life then, though he’s out now and close to Dreion.
Acting out in school became a release for the chaos inside. His behavior got him labeled a “troubled child.” At age 6 he was separated from his mother.
“I was a product of my environment. I learned the way you handle anger is taking it out on someone else. I got in trouble at Mount View Elementary School. My mother came and disciplined me there. By their definition, she was abusive. I was taken from her at the school. I was supposed to go to relatives but ended up going into foster care. I remember a police officer dropping me off at a strange woman’s house and my asking if I was ever going to go home and see my mother again, that’s how it all started.”
Dreion remained in foster care only six months, but he says that didn’t make it any less traumatic, adding, “It was one of the worst experiences I’ve endured in my life.”
“I ended up going through five different foster homes. I was physically abused and neglected. I was on seven different behavioral medications. I was tested and experimented on in psych wards in hospitals to see why I misbehaved so much,” Meanwhile, he says, he and his mother had no communication. “It was terrible.” She didn’t take losing him lying down. “She fought for me and got me back.” Their relationship was strained for a time but, he says, “My relationship with mother is not really close, but it’s good now.”
The jarring experience incited rage. Music became his therapy and outlet. A gospel-rap artist introduced him to the music that formed and healed him. “The first time I got attached to music was through my uncle Keith Mills. He had CDs and music videos out. He was the first artist I fell in love with. I just thought he was everything.”
His uncle Keith helped him find stability after rejoining his mom. Dreion lived with him and his wife Lisa Mills for a time. “He’s been a big influence throughout my life,” Dreion says of his uncle. “He’s almost like a father to me.” Mills and Dreion’s grandfather, James Mills, helped set his music tastes by playing the holy trinity of James Brown, Michael Jackson, and Prince.
“I believe if you admire something in someone, it’s probably inside of you, which is why you can relate to it.” – dreion
“I would listen to these artists on family road trips. Their music literally spoke to me at a young age. I patterned my artistry, my style, and my approach to music after theirs because I really see them as masterminds and geniuses. I believe if you admire something in someone, it’s probably inside of you, which is why you can relate to it.”
“I studied their performances, their voices, their dancing, their songwriting, their musicality – all of it. I would try to take as much as I could and absorb it. It started off with inspiration. Then the inspiration turned into imitation. which led to innovation. I’ve taken what they’ve done, put my own twist to it, and now I’ve made it my own.”
Keith Mills saw it all play out. “He’s like a music savant. He went from A to Z real quick. He’s really gifted. The guy is married to music, man. He loves it that much. He always had his mindset ‘that’s what I want to do’ and he always moved in the direction to do it. It’s always a joy to do music with him. He’s on a whole other level now. It’s actually an honor for me to perform with him. He’s a phenomenal kid.”
Dreion aspires to be as groundbreaking and influential as his idols. “But at the heart of it, it’s not about the fame or popularity, it’s about dedication to craft. You can tell the blood, sweat and tears they put into every single thing they did.”
Other music influences include Stevie Wonder and gospel artists John P. Kee, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Kim Burrell, and the Clark Sisters.
Beginnings and Strivings
It’s interesting to speculate if he’d stayed years in foster care, whether music would still be his path. Once on that path, he’s never deviated from it. His first public performance before a sizable crowd came at a Sunny Slope Elementary School talent show. “I think the first song I performed was ‘This Little Light of Mine.’ They had an annual talent show right before we went home for the summer. I did that every year from second grade on. I absolutely loved doing that because it was my one time to do the one thing in school I loved.”
He was always a hit. “It made me feel great they appreciated my gift. It’s a feeling like none other. I liked feeling popular, too.”
By high school, he was so tunnel-visioned that he contended with being called “the weird music nerd.” In turn, he was frustrated singing with some classmates “who only took choir because it was a credit.”
He found his music tribe in the state and national honors choirs. The latter experience, he says, “took it up a whole other level because I got to meet people my age from across the country who were musicians.”
Photo by Lasha Goodwin
“It was incredible to meet others who took what I appreciated and did as seriously as I did. We respected each other. It was so amazing communicating with people on the same level. That’s what was so life-changing about it for me and why it solidified what I wanted to do. These people were just like me and didn’t think I was weird at all. They were just as involved in it and passionate about it as I was.”
He further honed his craft at the Omaha Conservatory of Music and his performing chops in church.
Things were still tight financially at home, where he says, “My mother told me, ‘If you want to go to college, you’re going to have to pay for it.’
I used that as determination.” He began attending Grace Apostolic Church, whose pastor, Bishop William Barlowe, mentored him. “He really taught me how to be a man, a husband, a father, and take care of myself. He gave me wise counsel. He even helped get me through the lingering trauma of being in foster care.”
A fellow church member with music ambitions, Tina Bishop, turned Dreion and his cousin Davion Bailey onto Berklee. “I’m so thankful she did,” Dreion says, “because it ended up being our dream college and we both now have our degrees from there.” But it took coaches from the College Possible program and a team of Northwest counselors, along with his own initiative, to find a way to afford it.
“With their help, I started applying for scholarships like crazy. I worked extremely hard and by the end of my senior year, I walked away with like $600,000 in scholarship money and financial aid. The Gates scholarship was life-changing. My wife had actually won it the year before I did. It offered a full ride to any college I wanted to attend in the nation and I knew I was going to go to Berklee.”
Not feeling yet prepared on the music theory side, he attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha for a year, where the Buffett scholarship paid his way, before heading to Boston.
The Gates Millennium Scholarship allowed him to be financially stable. “Many friends at Berklee had a hard time figuring out how to pay for their next semester, and I never had to worry about that. I could just focus on school and family. I walked out of Berklee debt-free. Most of my friends cannot say the same thing. I can’t be more thankful.”
He graduated with a songwriting degree. “I was writing music the entire time.” He drew on that catalog of work to self-produce his EP. “The actual production of the vocals and the music were created in my daughter’s room. I didn’t have ready access to a booth where I could go do all of this.” He did record some things in a studio.
Advocate and ambassador
His past and present merge with his advocacy work. He dedicated the release of his first EP to Foster Care Awareness Month. He’s leveraging his work to shed light on foster care issues by working with the national advocacy organization Mixed Roots. “I want to bring awareness to the topic and to encourage other foster children. Mixed Roots has invited me as a special guest presenter for their community partner events to share my story with foster youth and advocates.”
Dreion talks about the experience of being severed from his family in the Foster Care Chronicles Series.
Through Mixed Roots he connected with First Star Academy in Los Angeles. It provides supports for foster youth to finish high school and attend college. Co-founder Peter Samuelson is a producer of Foster Boy. As an FSA ambassador, Dreion speaks to national partners about his experience and how they can help foster youth achieve higher ed.
As his platform increases, Dreion wants to use it to do more advocacy.
“I feel it’s a calling of mine to ring the bell or alarm on the challenges of the foster care system.”
“It’s a very serious issue that’s very forgotten and not talked about amongst social injustice issues. I really want to incorporate this into my artistry and make this my cause because I lived through it. I’m really looking to be the artist to bring it to the forefront.”
“I want my own record label to help other artists establish careers.”
Photo by Lasha Goodwin
Projects and Dreams
He views his work as a response to a common lament he hears all the time: where has all the good music and true musicianship gone? “I want people to know there are still musicians and artists that believe in the power of music and that music matters. Not just the beat, the lyrics, but music with something to say to everyone.” He dreams of building a work-home studio complex and community where people create, collaborate, learn and live together.
“I want my own record label to help other artists establish careers. My biggest goal is to build wealth that I can pass down to my children.”
He wants to retain a strong presence in Omaha. “I definitely want to because I feel like this is a best-kept secret place with a lot of talent.” He wants to do what another mentor, Salem Baptist Church director of music Ananias Montague, did in “bringing music industry executives to Omaha to teach artists the correct tools and resources to set their career in motion professionally.”
His uncle Keith Mills has no doubts his nephew has what it takes. “Some people just have it – that ‘It’ thing, and he just happens to be one of those kids. He has it. He’s really on his way to doing some really big things, man. I really believe that.”
Dreion’s maturity should serve him well as things accelerate.
“There’s always something going on,” he says. “The key is just staying consistent, persistent and mindful. As you get further into your career, you’re talking about real relationships on the line. You have to be on top of things. To me, my reputation is everything. I want to make sure I’m always on time, I always respond to people, I’m always professional in what I say and do.”
He isn’t a star yet, but he’s making all the right moves. I Am Life is getting strong radio placements. It made the UK soul chart. He’s inked his first synch licensing deal with a company pitching his music to movie studios, TV networks, and advertisers. He plans to release remixes of some I Am Life tracks and collaborating with artists.
“A griot (/ˈɡriːoʊ/) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, or musician. The griot is a repository of oral tradition and is often seen as a leader...”
Dreion has gospel, R&B, soul, and live album projects in the mix the next couple of years. “A lot of cool things are happening,” he says.
Social consciousness comes with the territory in the time of Black Lives Matter. In the tradition of a Griot, he sees his mission as telling the story of this era and the struggle for justice to inform current and future generations “It is very disheartening and sad to see the reoccurring acts of injustice towards Black and brown communities,” he says. “I feel it is my job as an artist and music activist to tell the story of the people and sound the alarm on injustice by using music as a unifying vehicle to bring awareness.”
He feels his own story will resonate with others, especially his hometown followers.
“I feel sharing my story could help a lot of people here. A lot of them can relate to things I’ve lived through. I know musicians here have aspirations of doing great things and I want them to know it doesn’t take a lot to make that happen. You just have to put your pedal to the metal and go for it.”
Follow Dreion on his website www.dreion.com and on Facebook. His I Am Life is on all streaming platforms.
Photo by Lasha Goodwin
Foster Boy opened at Omaha’s Westwood Cinema on Sept. 25. Check for it on streaming platforms this fall, also available on Blu-Ray.