Keishon K. Martin (born December 26, 1978), known professionally as DLR VBS (pronounced Dealer Vibes) is an American rapper. A Long Beach California native rose to local fame in 2020 with a series of YouTube videos talking about real-life issues. A school custodian of 24 years He began studying music by listening for hours at a time on a daily basis while working alone cleaning classrooms. Where he says “The goal was to be consistently consuming popular music, where I would purchase or stream good music from most artists every time an album was released”. Now imagine this type of study is over the course of a couple of decades where he was able to craft the DLR VBS sound to effectively mimic the rhyme patterns and cadence of multiple platinum-selling rappers and singers like Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg (R.I.P) as well as study the production styles of many platinum and underground producers. The rapper/producer DLR VBS style really began to make strides when he started to engineer, mix and master his own music, which would allow him to be able to forge an original style that would later become known as the “Dealer Sound” which is similar to a retro west coast G-funk sound. The name DLR VBS as a brand and a lifestyle represents an intent to sell by making a high-quality product that would always resonate with the people that he could put his own signature spin on it. Like a form of digital dope that you can only get from right here.
Early life
Keishon Martin was born in Long Beach, California. His mother is an African-American from Long Beach and his father is an African-American from Compton, California. His mom was born and raised in West Long Beach attending Poly High School. The young DLR VBS never had run-ins with the law while growing up in North Long Beach, because his youth was spent having dreams of playing college football and eventually going pro but life has a Devine way of sorting itself out as he ended up getting a job doing custodial work as a student worker at Long Beach Jordan High School which lead to a permanent job with Long Beach City College and then a 24-year career.