San Francisco teen finds success thanks to Boys and Girls Club

Bay City News Service

February 12, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) -- San Francisco teenager Daniel Faddis knows success doesn't come easily, but now he knows it can come with work and a little help.

Faddis, 17, is a burgeoning record producer who says his music has already been played on MTV. At an age when most youth are still playing in the school band or thrashing their parents' garages in teen rock groups, Faddis has started his own record label and has sold tracks to MTV for use in at least three of the cable channel's shows.

Faddis credits his success not to rich parents or a lucky break.

Far from it. Growing up in the working-class Excelsior district of San Francisco with an alcoholic mother and absent father and brother, Faddis found sanctuary in the recording studio at the Excelsior Clubhouse of the Boys and Girls Clubs of San Francisco.

"I can honestly say that if it weren't for the club, I would probably be gangbanging, flipping burgers at McDonalds or maybe even in jail,'' Faddis wrote in the essay that recently won him the club's Youth of the Year award.

Instead, however, Faddis attends high school, maintains a 3.6 grade point average, works as an intern at a local record label and manages his own label, Foundation Unit Entertainment, according to the San Francisco Unified School District.

"If you were to ever step foot in the Excelsior Clubhouse, you would probably find me upstairs, on the second floor, in the second door to the left with a big set of headphones on, minding my own business, drifting away to the sounds of my orchestrated melodies,'' Faddis wrote.

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