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Biography

I was born in 1987 and raised in Mattoon, Illinois (about three hours south of Chicago). My family was hard-working, especially my dad. He was in the military, so he never got a college education and just works in a factory at a job he hates to put food on the table. I’m real proud of my mom too, she’s worked real hard to get where she is. Both of my parents were dirt poor as kids, so I think they really wanted to give me what they couldn’t have. The thing about it is that they were working hard just to barely make it. I think that’s the case with a lot of different families. All around me there are families that are poverty stricken and in terrible conditions, but I was lucky enough to never be at that point. In the middle it’s just as hard though because we weren’t able to quite get assistance, but we weren’t rich in Mattoon either. It has its good parts and bad neighborhoods just like any other place. A lot of people see that I’m from such a small town and just laugh because Mattoon is only about 20,000 people. What they don’t realize a lot of times is that it has the highest methamphetamine rate per capita in Illinois. It has a lot of drug problems, but also a lot of talent in hip-hop. Its black population is getting a lot higher because people move from the projects of Chicago, Decatur, Peoria, and other places. They see all the drug money that can be made, that’s why gangs are starting to form in the area. I became exposed to this, so I really saw what the street life was like. I just want to say that I don’t claim to be some gangsta, I just want to be known as an emcee trying to make it in the game. But, I have been through shit in my life and I know about the streets so I’m just going to express my struggles through my music. Music has always been a big part of my life ever since I was a kid. I always wrote songs and poetry as a hobby, but in 8th grade I started writing hip-hop lyrics. I never recorded anything until the summer of 2002. Two of my friends, John and Jared, had been recording freestyles for fun. I got on a couple of those with them, and when they decided to record their first real track they asked me to be on it. It was a song to the beat of “..1 Stunna”, and from there we recorded a whole album of mixtape tracks and titled it “Midwest Mafia”, which we decided to be the name of our group too. Jared (J Money) came up with that name because he really liked Three 6 and we’re from the Midwest, so he just combined the two I guess. We had another album in between “Nothin’ 2 Lose” and the first one where we were just polishing our skills a little bit. We knew eventually our music would be released to the public, so these were the early songs that did not make the official album with original beats because I didn’t feel they were good enough. When “Nothin’ 2 Lose” got released, it created a huge buzz in the community. Everyone knows the Midwest Mafia in Coles County. We’ve got played at a bunch of clubs in the region, and sold a bunch of albums, so we definitely got some credit for our work. After we felt that our popularity was high enough, we created a small label of unsigned artists with talent in our hometown. We called it, “M Dub Records” to represent for the Midwest once again. We created an album with all nine of our artists and formed the group “Street Quality” or “S.Q.” This album was a huge success as well, and our first live concert was with the M Dub Records crew. I grew up listening to Pac mostly, so I love the West Cost style but I listen to a lot of other artists too. In the dirty south, I like T.I., Lil Wayne, Ludacris, Young Jeezy, Clipse, Jody Breeze, Three 6 Mafia, David Banner, Chamillionare, B.G., and Paul Wall. On the east I’m feeling Jigga, early 50 Cent, Jadakiss, Nas, Murda Mook, B.I.G., Cassidy, and Juelz Santana. Then in the Midwest there’s Twista, Kanye, Nelly, Lupe Fiasco, and Murphy Lee. Being from the Midwest, we have a good mix of styles. In the East, they have a unique sound with their music, just like in the West and the South. But in the Midwest, I don’t think we’ve really established what our sound is. So until then we just have a mix of East, West, and South. In my tracks, I have the upbeat club beats like in New York, I got the crunk songs like in the South, plus I got the gangsta West Coast beats too, so it should be something that everyone can listen to no matter where you’re from. So I think I have a universal sound and a lot of potential.