I remember that it was a stocking stuffer at Christmas, I probably couldn’t recite a single line from it now, but he had gotten me the single on a cassette and I tell you, I wore that cassette out! Every day we would listen to Rumpshaker on repeat.
When it came to hip hop… this is an embarrassing story, but ima tell it anyways (HA HA) my brother, he had gotten me the Rumpshaker cassette tape. Music, man music has always been a big part of my family, I can remember that my mother, she would always be listening to music. So we have uncovered your inspirations, but tell me, when was that first time you heard hip hop and had that passion sparked inside you? (HA HA) Haystack, Cool Daddy Fresh both came from here, so I grew up listening to Nashville rap. When I was coming up there was a group called Rude Awakening, they was an all, white rap group this was before Vanilla Ice we had Chris Taylor and them, I will always remember “3-7-2-1-1, the area that I rhyme, my hometown is the Southside.” I was so excited that he was rappin about my hometown of Antioch. I think that is what separated me from everyone else.
When it came to the music… Musically, I was driven by Nashville culture. My father and my mother was just so different, my mom is from East, Nashville and she is tattooed and a smoker you know, and my father he is more straight-edge, he wore a suit and tie to work for the first 15 years that I was alive, he met my mom in a bar. On the other side of that I got a brother who ended up doing real good in life, so growing up we were definitely an odd family, life was always interesting. My brothers, man my brothers are so different from me, I got one brother who is about, half-a-dumbass (HA HA) his ass was always in trouble. My family is where my faith really came from. So personal inspiration was always family based for me. In the younger years it was definitely my father, the teenage years was more guided towards my brother and now later in life, today it is more back to my father. In my personal life, my inspiration came to me at different times in my life.
When you were growing up, who were the people that you personally gained inspirations from, as well as the people who musically helped mold you? Our main goal here at has always been to inspire our readers by sharing the story of each of our featured artist’s lives. Everyone from there… all of us were just so different and so fucking weird that race didn’t make a difference where I’m from. The race issue was never an issue for me when I came into the rap game because we had never focused on that where I was from. Growing up like I did and where I did in Antioch, it kind of made me real open to a lot of things. At the end of the day all of us there are sharing these two corner stores so it was interesting, man. You will have all Black apartments sitting next to an all, White trailer park. Like all of these are real criminals, and then you will go another direction and end up in an all, Black neighborhood. I mean, you can hang a right and end up in an all Asian neighborhood literally off of the same street and they will be The Asian Pride Gangsters. They even have a gang called The Kurdish Pride Gangsters. I mean, you go down Nolensville Road, man you might see an entire area of nothing but Kurdish people. One of the best things about Antioch for me is the fact, and I have said this multiple times in the past, but Antioch is the cultural melting pot of Tennessee. I watched Antioch change from the American dream that my father had to one of the biggest shit holes in the state. When my dad came out here and got us a house in Antioch, and at the time that was the place to be, right by the fairgrounds. My father and his family were born, bred and raised in South Nashville. I come from a long lineage of Nashville heritage. I actually saw the whole format out there change. You know what, growing up in Antioch was actually very interesting because I watched Antioch change.
Tell us about your experiences growing up in Antioche, Tennessee.