Like you I've always been writing. I've been reading since 3, pretty much the same age I opened my mouth to talk. Taking shows I liked (particularly Scooby-Doo) and injecting new characters till they developed a world of their own. Always been into science fiction shyt. Like 10 years ago when I was in middle my dad told me I was writing shyt that would be the trend in Hollywood. With stuff like Avatar, Twilight, Elysium coming out, he wasn't lying. But I never finished anything. I'd always set up an outline of each stories universe, or wrote 15 pages before a new universe was created.
I started to wrote raps around 7 but it was for fun, a hobby. My goal was basically usurping J.K. Rowling's impact. But the summer before high school (2007) my boy put me on to Illmatic. I listened to rap before, had Lupe, Kanye albums, Hip Hop is Dead, etc, but that album became my Holy Grail and was a segway to 90s rap in general. From 14 to 16 there was a leap in the quality of my verses, and I developed the confidence to believe I could rap for a career. High school actually proved to be a, though isolated, solid foundation to support this sentiment. nikkas rapped, including my boys in my crew, but I was basically THE rapper of the school. It was a science and math based school lol but still that was my claim to a tad bit of fame. In there, you either got grades, or got p*ssy. Basketball and soccer (lots of Portuguese/Brazilian/Spanish kids) of course helped you with the p*ssy. I was doing none of the above lol but I was the kid who was better than nikkas with record deals. You knew my last name or my rap name, never my first name lol.
I skipped lunch more days than not to go into the music/computer lab to do my first mixtape. My choir director (this activity got me into singing hooks) always let me rock. The female friends at my lunch table sometimes scolded me for not eating lol but I was happy. I spent my last week of high school selling them CDS I think for 3 bucks. But of course the further away from school I got, the less support I felt. And I always studied trends in the rap game, rap lore, from the old school on down. And was noticing the recipes to mainstream success. Qualities you have to have really as a person so it can pour over into your rapping career. And really I lack the vast majority of them.
My last tape, which was the third, was November 2014. As I stare down the age of 23 in July, my belief in doing shyt in rap has waned dramatically. Not cause I stopped thinking I can rap. I stopped believing in people, and my personal life being too unique to put into my tapes, not looking flashy or trendy enough to get attention for what the fukk I'm spitting, and my ability to gain any traction with people under 25. I've always wondered if rap was a shortcut instead of 300 page novels, or even acting where I can bring charafters to life (the last 3 years my interest in acting has grown also)
Oh and I spent 4 years in a community college towards a 2 year degree in nothing lol
My life fukked up
...No certs, Not that I don't have the knowledge, again I guess laziness. Coming up onto year 2 on my second IT job and I guess they way both these jobs gobbled me up made me feel secure. Then I hear about these dudes who barely know how to plug shyt in making twice as much as me
. I just need to cop some material and study and push forward.
will the youth identify with a 30 year old rookie (to the mainstream anyway) who isn't street/club-driven? That's a part of the trend watching I peeped plenty of rappers blow between 25 and 30 but they usually come from a certain cloth. In the grand scheme of life yeah I'm a baby but in the path I chose like 7 years ago...the tick of the clock is louder than my own thoughts. I guess it's time to put rap down and do something else.
