Ron DeSantis' Florida Board of Education Appointee Was Once an Aspiring Rapper

This just in from the How It Started/How It's Going Department: Before he was Broward County School Board member Daniel Foganholi, he was rapper "Daniel Van Gogh."

Foganholi, whom Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed to a Florida Board of Education seat after voters rejected him for a second term on the Broward School Board, previously pursued a career as the lead singer in a rap group called City of God and as a solo artist under the stage names "Daniel Van Gogh" and "Muleke Blk."

Music videos on YouTube dating back to around 2010 show a baby-faced Foganholi spitting bars about everything from getting women to getting high, with at least one song from 2011 featuring him belting out lyrics about sex.

Specifically, his own sexual prowess.

"Then there was Miss Green, she left 'cause my sex game wasn't supreme," Foganoli raps in "Over Yu." "I learned to hold it down, and I got a lot of practice, how you like me now?"
In a video for "Blown," a City of God tune posted online more than a decade ago, Foganholi raps from a New York City rooftop at night while sporting sunglasses: “Motherfucker I’m blown, with the shades on, and she think I’m amazin', and I'm cool. I'm just sayin', not playin', ooh, I’m hustlin' now/And I’m GQ, and y’all on that weed too, huh?"

In a 2019 video for "Slow Down," released under the "Muleke Mlk" moniker and seemingly shot in or around Miami, three women dance and twerk around a yellow Ferrari while Foganholi raps alongside them.

"Girl got a brand new Benz, girl got some brand new friends. But are they gold diggers? I guess it don’t make sense/And Lord knows my heart, and God knows me well. I got that Jesus piece, I ain’t going to Hell!"
After releasing a mixtape on SoundCloud and Spotify — as well as several music videos, one of which depicts Foganholi and a woman committing an armed robbery at a South Florida convenience store — Foganholi's music career appeared to fizzle out around 2019.

He remains a verified artist on Spotify, where the website shows he still has 74 monthly listeners.

A New (Florida) Man

Foganholi's former rap personas, who sang about topics like women and money to (dare we say) catchy, upbeat rhythms, stand in sharp contrast to the more polished image he presents today.

After attending Florida Atlantic University and serving as director of legislative affairs for an orphanage his grandmother founded in Brazil, the Coral Springs resident was appointed by DeSantis to a Broward school board seat in 2022.

Foganholi was ineligible for re-election last year because he didn’t live in the district, but he ran for the Coral Springs City Commission and lost.

In November 2023, DeSantis again appointed Fohangoli to the school board, this time in a different district. (He replaced Rodney “Rod” Velez, who was elected but ineligible to serve owing to a previous criminal conviction.)

As previously reported by New Times, Foganholi, who's 38, was one of several candidates who appeared at a Moms for Liberty-hosted candidate forum ahead of the election, during which he emphasized that he wants to ensure that books in school libraries are "age-appropriate."

"Some of these books — and you see it when people come to board meetings and they'll start reading [them] — I feel so uncomfortable when it happens," Foganholi said. "Like as a board member, I put my head down. I'm just like, 'There's no way — there's no way these books are in our libraries.'"

Added Foganholi: "As a parent, it scares me."
Foganholi was soundly defeated in the August 20 election. But three days later, DeSantis tapped him to serve on the Florida Board of Education, an unpaid post that will grant him oversight over K-12 education policies across the state.

According to an August 23 press release from the governor's office, Foganholi will step up to the new role on November 20.

In a phone interview with New Times, Foganholi reflected fondly on his time as an up-and-coming rapper.

He recalls touring across the nation with his best friends and family, playing rowdy shows at the popular Brickell bar Blackbird Ordinary, and even opening for groups like the Jonas Brothers.

"We weren't doing it for fame. We weren't doing it for money," Foganholi says. "What I loved doing was making people happy. I loved, you know, entertaining and making people feel good.

"And I liked that part of it, but I felt my calling was to help people," he adds. "So that was really where my passion was."

Then came his pivot to politics and education, which he describes as "an overnight sort of shift." He says he zeroed in on children's education in particular because he believed it was "the biggest payoff" of all.

"To look at kids and say, 'Man, I'm fighting for them every single day,' is the coolest thing ever," he says. "I got a little soft spot for kids going after their dreams, whether it be football or music or art."

Foganholi adds that he believes it's important for children to understand that their careers don't have to follow a straight path.

"You can have multiple dreams, you can have multiple chapters, and nobody says it's over until it's over, you know," he says.

As for his own past life as an artist?

"I'm proud of it, I’m proud of the past," he says. "The music? Not so much."

Correction published 8/28/2024: The original version of this story incorrectly identified Foganholi as a Florida Atlantic University grad. The above version reflects the corrected text.