Back then, recognition came from pure skill. Today, you still have to be good, but social presence has become another layer in the process. You need online visibility on top of talent if you want sponsors or brand partners. It is not a phase the culture went through; it is how the landscape evolved.
Category: Rap
Cadena for Desmadre World.
Rap inspired me from a young age. My mom bought me the Mickey Unrapped CD that had a bunch of popular rap songs with Disney characters performing alongside the original artists… Whoomp! (There It Is) by Tag Team had me in a chokehold. The beat was infectious, and I knew the real version of the… Continue reading Cadena for Desmadre World.
Shamon Cassette.
There’s no place for a black person in a white army.
My mom was a single-parent soldier and had me very young. I was raised in Kanagawa, Japan, just outside of Tokyo. I remember seeing her experience a lot for the first time growing up, even though her main push in raising me was to get off the base. I was a kid, a lone wolf, just going around to…
Eleazar.
I moved by myself exclusively for many years. I didn’t want to collab with anyone, I wanted to do it all on my own. That’s a young artist’s game, I feel. When you first get into your art more seriously, you think you’re gonna show everybody – there’s never been a producer, rapper, whatever, that can do it like me.
The deeper you get in the game, you start realizing, damn, a lot of my heroes had teams low-key. Even though on the outside, it looks like one guy. But nobody does anything by themselves – everybody has someone that put them up in their first gallery, gave them their 1st break, gave them their first shot at something greater.