Arizona players David Roberts and Adam Gottschalk’s impact in Arizona Stadium stretches far beyond the field. Those fans in their seats early may have heard “”The Pac-10 Diss Song — Arizona Tribute,”” the brainchild of the two teammates and their newly created production company, D & B productions.
The song – which “”disses”” each Pacific 10 Conference football team aside from Arizona — has recently become a pre-game tradition and is just the first of a long list of ambitions for the Wildcats players and their company.
D & B Productions was born after Roberts and his cousin, Dansby Sturdivant, decided to take their mutual love of music to the next level by becoming producers.
“”Me and Dansby — who’s a music major — grew up together and thought this might be kind of cool to start kind of as a hobby,”” Roberts said. “”But then we started adding some more people and now it’s growing into a real business.
“”Our motto is ‘good music will always be good music’ and we want to produce it.””
The company began to grow after Roberts and Sturdivant brought in their friend Brandon Betts. Because all three names began with either a D or B, the name “”D & B”” stuck.
The trio was making headway, but the company really took off when Roberts approached Gottschalk — a business major — to join in the mix.
“”Roberts approached me about (the company) and I said, ‘Look, if this is something you really want to do head-on I’ll do it,'”” Gottschalk said. “”I’m the kind of guy who can’t settle for good, it has to be the best. So when I got involved I took it pretty seriously.””
With Gottschalk’s business expertise, D & B productions finally became a legitimate company.
The Arizona safety, who already had experience starting three prior companies, began his work and soon had the company licensed and ready to do business.
While Gottschalk built the company’s infrastructure, the rest of the team began work on what would be the company’s first production — the “”Pac-10 Diss Song.””
Roberts used a connection to find local artist JGIBS to write and sing most of the vocals while Sturdivant — Dansby the Drummer Boy as he’s called in the song’s music video on YouTube — also contributed his talents, which he hones as a member of the Pride of Arizona marching band. The song, which was produced in the company’s make-shift studio in the home of Roberts and Gottschalk, has since become available on iTunes in addition to its YouTube release.
Gottschalk and Roberts contributed by dispersing flyers across campus and also hit advertising gold by getting the song played prior to all home games.
“”We first brought the song to the team to see what they thought, and they liked it,”” said Roberts, who didn’t know how the song got into the Arizona pregame mix. “”We also played it for Stoops and he said he liked it, so maybe he gave it the OK.””
While Stoops confirmed those thoughts on the song, he admitted he had nothing to do with its inception into Arizona Stadium.
“”Officials and the music, I’m not in charge of,”” Stoops said. “”But I thought the song was great. They did a good job on it.””
While D & B production’s first song is slowly becoming a hit, the company founders are focusing on producing their first album – mostly rap and R&B — which features more from the previous artist as well as the singing talents of other Arizona players, such as offensive guard Conan Amituanai. They are hoping the album will be ready next month and that soon thereafter, artists will come calling.
With much of the football season remaining, the pair of Arizona teammates must make sure to balance music and football. However, with Roberts’ role in the Wildcats’ offense growing by the game, Gottschalk said his friend’s success on the football field could help the young company grow.
“”There’s no harm in (boosting Roberts’ involvement) as a selling point,”” Gottschalk said. “”We could say, ‘Hey, get a free David Roberts poster,’ or something.
“”But as far as football we have a saying: business before pleasure. We know this team comes first so any success we have in the company will have to come after our work’s done (on the field).””
