“Why you rapping when you already have a Masters Degree?” It’s a question that I get asked a lot, but people are more surprised by the fact it was never part of my plan…here is how it happened.
My story began in the Sutton Homes Housing Projects of San Antonio, TX where my mother raised me and my four siblings. As the story often goes for many inner city kids in similar situations, I witnessed death, drug abuse, gang violence, police brutality and some things I don’t even discuss to this day. However, my mother made sure we also experienced love, understood compassion, learned how to survive, and embraced faith.
My mom is a great role model. She worked full-time, attended community college part-time and encouraged us to pursue our passions.
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I found my passion early and it revolved around sports, but writing rhymes was my chemotherapy for the cancers I witnessed every day. At 12 years old I wrote my first song about a friend who was killed by a rival gang, and how I went on to avenge my friend’s death. In reality I didn’t harm anyone but writing music allowed me to safely release those negative emotions that could easily have lead to terrible consequences. Thus began my passion for hip-hop music.
At around the same time, I found a similar love for playing basketball. As Notorious B.I.G (Biggie) once said “You either slangin’ crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot”. Fortunately, that “wicked jump shot” plus a killer crossover kept me out of trouble throughout high school, but more importantly it opened up opportunities that I had never imagined.
After completing high school, my choices were to either immediately begin grinding for a music career or go to college on a basketball scholarship.
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My passion was with music but everybody whose opinion I respected pointed out that music would always be there and getting an education was something that no one could take from me. So putting practicality over passion, I accepted a scholarship to play basketball in Hawaii.
Yep, that’s right…in Honolulu. We’re talking about a 19 year old mama’s boy from Texas who had never been on an airplane or lived away from his family. It was major culture shock and I was homesick. I called home every day and eventually my mom said, “Suck it up…you wanted to go, you’re there, and I ain’t letting you come home.” Yep…she punked me J. Later (years later) she told me how she cried after getting off the phone because it was difficult for her to deny a mother’s natural instinct to comfort her son…instead she did what she felt in her heart was the right thing to do. I love her for that!
I stayed in Hawaii, but during those hard-times I wrote music to help get me through it. Eventually, the culture-shock period ran its course and I came to embrace the island culture as if it was my second home, plus the unique diversity of the island lifestyle began to open my mind to cross cultural influences to include the way I wrote music.
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Mean while my basketball career was experiencing some bumps in the road as my playing time on the court was inconsistent. Some games I got serious playing time while others games I wouldn’t play at all. It was explained to me that I wasn’t doing anything wrong but instead it was just a coach’s decision. That was the moment I re
