I grew up in Huntington Station, Long Island down the block from Amigo’s Bodega (99 cent 40’s when I was 15). I never really aspired to become a “rapper” for a living and to be completely honest I stumbled across this hiphop shit. I got the same story as a lot of kids, older brother with a library of hiphop tapes ranging from NWA to Black Sheep (that was my shit), I would take his tapes and play them in the walkman my Aunt Gail bought me on Canal St. when I was 6 years old and just lose myself in a bunch of words I barely understood………………….
I think I was in 8th grade when I got heavily into graffiti and started trying to write rhymes and I stress “trying to” because like most 8th graders starting to rap I was wack. I didn’t even get pussy yet at this point so what gems was I going to be dropping. I kept it moving through High School doing the typical thing like lunchroom battles, house party ciphers on the special occasion there was a DJ with a microphone and spitting into headphones on my stereo over beats I got off people’s singles. I miss those days when I’d go to the Wiz and steal whatever single dropped (On tape before they were obsolete) take them home and write to them like The Rza or Primo made them for me. But anyway, I think it was like ’95 and I was steadily writing but I couldn’t freestyle for shit and being white my rhythm wasn’t something to brag about, when my partner in weed smoking and general intoxication, Mr. Snots made me freestyle in a parking lot drunk. The way I remember it I was killing it but I’m sure by today’s standards it was ass but it opened up a whole new world for me. My flow got tighter and I learned how to put more of my soul into what I was saying…………………
I spent a few years mostly just selling drugs and chasing pussy but occasionally putting a couple dollars up for studio time, but honestly I wasn’t chasing a pipedream. It was farfetched to think you could be in the same game as Method Man or Biggie so I just did this shit for the love and I was satisfied just being the dopest rapper in a no name cipher, that was enough for me. I think it was around ’99 and I was working some dead end job that left me smelling like fish grease when my homie Abe picked me up from work to pursue some white trash tramps in Suffolk County somewhere. We ended up at his apartment burning something and half drunk when he randomly says, “yo, you want to battle tonight in Manhatten? I know some bitch who can get you in,” so I’m like, “Sure, you driving?” That turned out to be my 1st trip to the legendary Wetlands. We got to the spot and this “bitch” he knew couldn’t do shit to get me in the battle so I proceeded to harass the woman throwing the event, Mohogany Brown. I told her if she put me in the battle I’d murder anyone, she brushed me off or so I thought. Then I ran up on her partner Poison Pen saying the same shit and he told me to chill that I was already on the roster. I loved battling back then. I was a new face, nobody knew me and honestly I was hungry as fuck. I took 2nd that night and anyone there can co-sign the robbery in the finals but that’s not important because that night put me on the map in the NYC underground and got me in the finals of The Hookt.com/Decipher battle series which at that time was the biggest thing going on. Needless to say, I bodied everyone in the finals battle slaughtering Jin in the final round to take the title………………………
At that 1st battle I ran into this youngster I had met at DJ Crossfada’s studio, Lou Cipher. He and my homie Manifest were going hardbody at that battle shit back then so I stayed in contact with them. Who would have thought going to Wetlands that night would have changed my future the way it did. Lou Cipher holla’d at me one day talking about some posse cut this dude wanted to get me on for his album and at that point I wasn’t doing much else but selling weed and writing rhymes with no future so I was like fuck it tell him I’ll down for it. That dude’s name was Immortal Technique. I had heard of Tech because he had a rep battling and met him maybe once but wasn’t too familiar with what he was doing, all I knew is that he wanted me to spit a 16 on this posse cut. It was supposed to be Tech, Lou Cipher, Manifest, Icon The Mic King, Awar and myself on this record called “You’re Nothing” so we all met up at 45 Calibur’s home studio to record our verses. I slacked off a little when I was supposed to be writing the verse so I ended up writing it on the LIRR on the way to the city. We all recorded our shit and the record didn’t come out as planned, to put it bluntly it was garbage. Little did I know, the verse I recorded would prove to be the turning point in my career as an MC. Tech took the record and scrapped everyone’s verses and it became the hidden track following “Dance with the Devil” on Revolutionary Volume 1……………………
The hidden verse got me a little light in the underground scene but in the grand scheme I was still a nobody and didn’t take hiphop serious. I’d record songs here and there with DJ Dummy or wherever else I could get free studio time but on some real shit I had a newborn daughter and my main objective was getting money and hiphop was not paying the bills. It’s a struggle being a father in your early 20’s and having to straighten your life out but I had no choice in the matter and had to get my priorities in order for my little girl. I think it was Rocksteady 2003 when Tech dropped Volume 2 and things just took off from there. Next thing you know, Tech’s headlining packed shows at SOB’s and touring nationally. It went so far as to blow my name up. I saw what Tech accomplished along with my friends doing street shit getting locked up and put 2 and 2 together. It was time to start taking hiphop more serious as a career before I end up in jail or some shit. The next couple years following that decision proved to be very productive. I toured and won numerous battles most notably Superbowl 2005 when I destroyed Rhymefest for 5 G's (Cheap Namedrop YURP!) and i just finished a 25 city tour on Rock the Bells this past summer……………………
I started working on my debut “Liar & A Thief” not knowing what direction it would take me in. I had no budget, no production and nothing I could promise people in order to barter the tools necessary for me to complete the project until I stumbled across this kid from Vancouver, Engineer. I don’t know if it’s luck, because I don’t have any, or fate because I’m a control freak, but this dude’s production style complimented my rhyme style perfectly. On top of that he had heard of me from Vol. 1 and had faith in me. So Here I am, still broke, still scraping to get by, still fighting for my spot in this rap shit, but being recognized for what I bring to the table and set to drop my masterpiece. I’ll never stop this shit, I’ll never give in to the corporate influences that tell me to make music that isn’t real to me, that doesn’t come from my soul. I’ll always remain a madman with a platform and this album is a lying thief’s vindication…
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