Though it's known as "Music City USA," Nashville has never been at the forefront of hip-hop music. That's just fine with Dwight Farrell, otherwise known as Count Bass D, who has made a career of staying outside the confines of convention in the cut-and-dried music industry.

Young Dwight Farrell spent his youth honing his skills on multiple instruments, gaining a music scholarship to the Wyoming Seminary Boarding School in Pennsylvania, and even gigging as a jazz sideman. He wasn't, however, immune to the lure and influence of hip-hop and displayed enough talent as a rapper that he quickly landed a recording contract as Count Bass D in 1993 with Pete Nice (3rd Bass) and Bobbito's Hoppoh imprint on Columbia Records.

Setting the tone for his entire career, Count's debut album Pre-Life Crisis pushed boundaries and defied standards. Recorded entirely with live instrumentation--most of which he played himself--and complemented by the swagger and humor of a brash 21-year old MC, the album received critical acclaim from press and rap tastemakers alike. While it wasn't the commercial success desired by a major label behemoth, Pre-Life Crisis remains a hot collectors item and something of a cult classic.

Undeterred, Count persevered and helped define a burgeoning underground hip-hop movement. Count, along with a number of like-minded creative types including MF DOOM and Kool Keith helped breathe life into this movement in the mid 1990s by recording and independently distributing 12-inch singles and frequenting underground and college radio programs. They were successful in turning on a fan base that was rejecting the increasingly homogenized, commercially-acceptable rappers that were emerging then and were so dominant into the early 2000s. During this time, the ever-busy Count even co-hosted a weekly radio show at WRVU Nashville with Egon Alapatt (the same Egon who now runs indie powerhouse Stones Throw Records) and co-managed the successful indie-rock label Spongebath Records.

In 2002, Count released the album Dwight Spitz and proved that he was equally adept with a sampler as he was a talented multi-instrumentalist. Traditional song structure was more-often-than-not shunned in favor of concise and stunning 90-second compositions and the album became a smash amongst Count's hardcore indie hip-hop fans as well as fans of experimental and progressive music in general.

Since the release of Dwight Spitz, Count has toured the globe a couple of times, released a couple of Japan and UK only albums, and continued to grow as an artist. He has collaborated with artists as diverse as bass master Victor Wooten (Bela Fleck & The Flecktones), Grammy-nominated soul sensation Van Hunt, and MF DOOM (producing and rhyming on "Potholderz" from the 2004 album Mmm...Food ).

All of which sets the stage for Act Your Waist Size-- his latest full-length and first album for Fat Beats Records. Count Bass D once again demonstrates his unique ability to showcase various styles in a hip-hop context. In addition to his trademark boom-bap and instrumental tracks, he reinterprets two 19th century standards, sings a self-penned ballad, and offers his version of the southern sound. Act Your Waist Size finds Count doing what he's always done--setting precedents and eluding the norms. Given the success of artists like Outkast and Gnarls Barkley, it's clear that creativity from a rap artist can be embraced by a larger audience, but you won't find Count Bass D worrying about such trends. No, he's busy just being one of many musicians trying to make it in Music City USA, and he's doing it his way.