Wednesday, October 29, 2014
About me
I grew up in Geneva, Illinois.
Close to downtown Chicago. But my South African roots are a huge part of my
life. My mom is 100 percent South African. The rest of her family is still
there.
I started to play guitar when I
was 10, on acoustic. I’m self-taught. I’ve never taken one lesson. I started
singing when I was about five years old. When I was younger, I bought Diana
Ross' Greatest Hits CD and listened to every song on my Walkman until I could
mimic her voice. That's how I learned to sing.
I started listening to rap and
hip-hop when I was in fifth grade. I was raised with siblings who loved folk
rock and bluegrass, so I was the odd one out with Lil Jon blasting out of my
boombox. I just really identified with the beats and the rhythm of the music and
melody. Lately, almost all the covers that I’ve done have no guitar chords. I
turn on iTunes and I play the song three times, then I pick up my guitar and
try to play what feels right. Half of the time I don’t know what the notes or
the key or the chords are. I just play what sounds right and I don’t write
anything down.
The day before my 18th birthday I
started posting acoustic takes on tracks
by hip-hop artists like Chief Keef, A$AP Rocky, Lil Wayne, and Ace Hoods When I
did the cover of Ace Hood’s “I Need Your Love,” he re-tweeted that two weeks
ago. That’s kind of where it all started. After Ace did it, DJ Khaled tweeted
me and I think that got a lot of people’s attention, but it really didn’t blow
up. After Chief Keef tweeted, that’s when it got really big. I saw that Trey
Songz followed me and Vinny from Jersey Shore followed me. This lead me to gain
a massive fast following , after WorldstarHipHop picked up my
acoustic-guitar-based rendition of Chief Keef’s “Love Sosa” in December 2012
I have been asked to work with two different
writers that wrote on Rihanna’s Unapologetic album. Kevin Cossom, who wrote
“Jump” and then another writer, Xplicit. I am currently partnered with Rifkind
and Russell Simmons’ All Def Music in partnership with Capitol Records, and I
have just released a six track EP called bad intentions.
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