On October 18, 1985, the same day David Franklin Sparks entered the world in Terre Haute, Indiana, Sony flipped the switch on its compact disc manufacturing plant just a few miles away. It was a cosmic convergence - the dawn of a new digital era and the debut of a future genre-defying artist whose very identity would bend to technology's democratizing effects on music.

As manufacturing for CDs and the Columbia House mail-order music club reached its billion-dollar peak in Terre Haute over the next decade, it flooded his household with an unprecedented eclecticism. His mother, a restaurant worker married to a welder, discovered a hack by signing up under different names - allowing their modest family to game the "13 albums for a penny" system.

"I remember when I was a little kid, my parents would get CDs and tapes in the mail all the time," Sparks, now known as dFRÆ, recalls. On heavy rotation was a kaleidoscope of influences spanning his mother's tastes like Melissa Etheridge and Alanis Morissette, his stepfather's classic rock from Lynyrd Skynyrd to The Allman Brothers, and his own predilections for divaesque vocals.

"My mom gave me a Sony Discman she redeemed with Marlboro Miles," he says. "It was liberating to listen to music privately without judgment from everyone else."

By 7 years old, dFRÆ was acting out ambitions far beyond just imitating Mariah Carey's unmatched upper-ranges. When not locked in his bedroom wearing out those diva cassettes through endless replays, young Sparks was developing his theatrical flair by recording mock TV shows with relatives using his family's first video camera.

This fearless playacting offered a temporary refuge from the harsh realities of growing up as "an only child in the literal middle of nowhere." After the clan relocated to rural Illinois, the young singer found himself adrift - Ostracized at his new school for being too femme, betraying the regional cultural preference for bro-country and nu-metal.

"There were no music programs at all and I had trouble fitting in," dFRÆ says. "I was bullied for being too effeminate." To cope with the loneliness, he turned to the surrounding woods to get lost for hours singing at full throttle.

"I spent so much time alone," he says. "My bus ride was an hour each way, and both my parents had long commutes and worked long hours. So I'd disappear into the woods, exploring, daydreaming, and singing at the top of my lungs."

dFRÆ' salvation came from an unlikely source - a "goth high schooler" on that agonizingly long bus route who let him borrow CDs from the antithesis of his private listening sessions. "He started lending me these crazy rap-rock albums from Korn, Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine and Nirvana," dFRÆ remembers. "Looking back, I realize all that angst and energy definitely shaped my sensibilities more than I realized."

By 16, dFRÆ's feverish musicalGeist could no longer be contained. He convinced his mother to let him move back to Terre Haute living with grandparents, graduating early to earn enough scratch from a gauntlet of jobs like call centers and Columbia House's warehouse to buy a plane ticket to his fantasy denouement - New York City.

"My only plan was that when I stepped off the airplane at LaGuardia, I was going to be as gay as I wanted to be and live my best life," he says. Arriving in 2004, dFRÆ was immediately immersed in the East Village's underground party scene, passing out flyers and modeling for nightlife magazines. He discovered new music like he had never heard before, from Amanda Blank, Peaches, M.I.A., and remixers The Twelves..

He quickly found both a community and a way to pay the rent when he fell into an unlikely calling - a gay male escort. “Nobody else was supporting me, and I started meeting these really successful New York men who fed me compliments and were really encouraging - AND I was getting paid to spend time with them? I felt like I hit the jackpot. Like, how lucky was I?”

His fearless confidence flourished alongside his income. "It was a time and place where I could embrace my most authentic self on every level," he says of those formative years. "The attention and the money was intoxicating."

An offer to list himself on premium escort site RentBoy.com took dFRÆ's life to another stratum. "Wealthy, successful men became my mentors and I traveled the world having incredible experiences learning so much," he says. "For the first time, I had real money to freely explore my creativity and myself."

This no-holds-barred lifestyle initially manifested musically in 2012 with the rap album "Deluxe" under the persona Fancy Sparkles. "It was my way to say what I wanted while hiding behind a mask of a fictitious character," dFRÆ explains. "Fancy embodied my sexuality, my hustle mentality, and my fearlessness.”

In the vein of similarly brazen, unapologetic rap predecessors like Cupcakke and Brooke Candy, Fancy spitista-raw wordplay over dFRÆ's self-produced avant-rap production. Songs like "UNeedAHo2Nite" and “I Just Want the Dough" channeled the visceral purity of his escorting journey, while the album's title track manifesto flipped the quintessential sex-worker narrative.

The character was inspired by a classic country song written by Bobbie Gentry in 1969.  As a child, dFRÆ heard the 1991 Reba McIntire rendition, about a “18 year old plain white trash making nice with wealthy men as a means to escape her circumstances," dFRÆ explains. "But if it was written today by someone actually in the life, it would absolutely be a rap song, not country. Fancy is all about the positive side of being a hoe!"

dFRÆ credits a 2008 interview with Erykah Badu in a Rolling Stone article for introducing him to Garageband software which remains in his workflow today.  “I didn’t know what it was, but I just got a new laptop, and it was already installed.. And I love Erykah, so I clicked it. That night, I wrote my first song. And the next night I wrote another, and another. Every time I wrote a new song, I’m just shedding layers.”

Despite the artistic catharsis, Fancy's debut failed to catalyze mainstream impact. "Technically it was a mess," dFRÆ admits of its distorted vocals and slapdash mixing. "I had no idea what I was doing, I just knew I needed to share my uncompromised essence."

More tragically, dFRÆ's new found courage to live out loud soon unraveled into a tsunami of personal devastation. His first serious relationship, with an older wealthy partner 40 years his senior, disintegrated after six years. "It started as this balanced, transactional thing. But when we tried keeping it real without that dynamic, I realized we'd never be equals and I ended it."

The split sent dFRÆ into a tailspin, prompting him to relocate to Lexington, Kentucky on a whim after a friend's casual recommendation. "She said it was just $800 a month for this bungalow and there was a cool artist scene, so I figured why not! It was the opposite of New York City, and I had these fantasies of living in a trailer park with a 12 inch high picket fence and my chihuahuas" he says. However, dFRÆ soon found himself adrift without job prospects as his drug use spiraled.

"I went from crashing with this friend to motels to living in this abandoned house which initially had no power or running water," he recalls. "The Kentucky experiment wasn’t turning out so good, I was running out of money, I was ghosted by guys I liked, and experienced some of my darkest depression." When one of those disappointing romantic interests invited dFRÆ to a party, he walked into his first encounter with crystal meth - a drug that temporarily supercharged his recording output.

"When my house caught fire, putting my music on hold was the least of my concerns about survival." Over the next three years, dFRÆ's life descended into periodic arrests, imprisonment, and an unshakable estrangement from his family.

"It was the only time in my life I had suicidal thoughts," he says gravely. After setting that house on fire and living transiently in motels, trap houses and eventually out of a storage unit, dFRÆ hit rock bottom trading charges - and his beloved dogs - for basic survival. "I lost everything," he says. "Myself, my future, my freedom."

His first stint of incarceration was a desperately needed wakeup call. "I got out determined to get my shit together," dFRÆ says. "Focusing all my energy on music and taking back control of my life." A new relationship with a like-minded sugar daddy proved stabilizing, and the two launched an AirBnB business creating lush, experiential spaces in a historic house  for dFRÆ to satiate his creativity.

By 2018, those artistic impulses hit an inflection point when dFRÆ liquidated all his assets to purchase a conversion van. In liberating himself from physical attachments, he found his sound underwent a similar emancipation. "I was obsessed with this idea of truly living in just a van, untethered, creating and exploring without worrying about anchors or rules," he says.

dFRÆ experienced a creative rejuvenation while hopscotching between the enclaves of  Denver, Oakland, and Long Beach throughout the late 2010s. Finally settling in Hollywood, living in a 40-foot “Mad Max” style converted school bus. Taking advantage of his location at the center of the entertainment universe, he prepared his reemergence by recording extensively and placing songs in contests. He was a runner up in the #OGBeats contest in April 2022 for his instrumental “Deju Vu.”

Poised to release his first official album as himself, dFRÆ arrived at the precipice of long-awaited artistic introduction in Summer 2022 - only to again find himself arrested and extradited to Kentucky on unresolved 7 year old charges.  After spending 7 months behind bars, he is out on bail and forced to stay in Kentucky pending trial.  He faces 11 years in prison pending trial on allegations of forging fake IDs and 

"I decided, look, I might go to prison - that'll be a huge black hole in my life," he says. "So I thought, how can I make this less bad? I don't want to just check out right when I have all this creative momentum."

The result is both a formal debut and impassioned cultural document by one of music's most defiantly uncompromising new voices. Fusing pop's genre-divided kaleidoscope into dFRÆ's own distinctly autobiographical vision, these songs confront the confounding duality of his underground journey.  The project will be released as a “waterfall album,” a new concept made possible by digital distribution and the way we release and consume music now.  A string of singles will be released over time, with each new release a new addition to the complete album.  

There's the defiant self-confidence reflected in bangers inspired by dFRÆ's unapologetic sex work. The hope and perseverance underscores dreamy melodic missives about cheating death more than once.  Moments of piercing darkness complement cathartic flashes of riotous joy and bone-deep vulnerability.

Yet together, this improbable sonic odyssey represents the fruition of dFRÆ's lifelong pursuit to be who he wants to be. From his misfit childhood dance-offs to Mariah to the grimy Manhattan outskirts to the drug-laced Bluegrass to van life wanderlust, he's steadfastly remained an Artist determined to actualize his most uncompromising self.

"I knew I would never be seen if I hid anymore," dFRÆ says, calling the new album his self-actualization. "Maybe this is my last chance. But finally, no more masks, no more personas. Just me, for better or worse in all its flaws and contradictions."

His literary life story may still be unfinished with threats of imprisonment looming. But in defiantly sharing on his own terms, dFRÆ has emerged from darkness as a beacon of resilience. A neon folk anti-hero whose rebel spirit shines on the forgotten fringes of society - while reminding those in his wake to never stop singing.