Flowsmith

Without much of an interest in rap music, Flowsmith started off by writing love poetry. When he felt that his creative voice had to be heard, he started making music. Lacking the voice to croon, he started writing rap lyrics but being a beginner, found it hard to find the perfect rhythm. By listening to more rap songs, he got inspired especially by the likes of Eminem and Nas whose influences still show in his raps today as he develops his own signature style. With no FL Studio or Protools available, any object he came across was used to make a beat or alternatively, his friends would beat-box the instrumentals. He then hooked up with K-Rimez, El-Bee and Bash-Boy who at the time made up the group “Inferno-City” and from then, it was on.A few tracks were made, most of which never made it to the studio until the group found a recording studio near school where they made a couple tracks with hopes of one day releasing a mix-tape called “100 D-greez”. However, this plan never came to fruition due to limited finance and the need to keep on top of school work. After graduating from high school, he got his first copy of FL Studio and started messing around with it to see what he could do which wasn’t very much, initially. In a few months, he taught himself how to work it and started laying down some dope beats and later felt the need to upgrade to Reason and Protools music making software packages. As time passed and as he got more proficient with the software, he got a microphone and a pre-amp. The stage was perfectly set for him to be an MC/producer. He moved from Abuja to Cambridge and hooked up with the lyricist Mist. Flowsmith is currently working on Yungie’s mix-tape coming out in 2009 after which he and Mist will collaborate on a mix-tape also coming out in 2009.As he grew into the rapper/producer that he is today, he underwent a number of stage name changes which signifies his change of voice, style and mood. The name changes also show his desire to stay away from the limelight while focusing on school in the present and family in the future. When he first started to rap, his name was “Kuraf”. “Kuraf” never cussed on a track, it was just straight poetry which he felt was quite boring and as such gave” Kuraf” the boot. The idea then came to him that to get more attention he needed to use more aggressive and controversial lyrics which brought “K-Rogue” to the scene. K-Rogue’s style was more west-coast with lyrics containing themes such as murder, the glamorous lifestyle and girls with influence coming from Dr. Dre and 2Pac Shakur. At the time he had a party jam called “Get Down” which featured on one of the Abuja radio stations. It was by no means a lyrical master piece and he received a fair share of criticism about the track. As he matured as a musician, he found the perfect balance between poetry and hardcore rap, switching his name to Flowsmith through which he concentrated on writing more metaphorical rap that told stories about life, love, and his own lifestyle among other things.With hip-hop evolving and lyrical delivery being dumbed down by the industry & fans, he decided to concentrate more on producing rather than MCeeing. To make his beats, he currently uses Reason and Fl Studio while Protools and Acoustica Mix-Craft are used to record the vocals. Most of his beats show his preference for hard snares, heavy bass and strings and without attending music school, he learned how to use the keyboard to make tunes. He often samples beats and vocals from Fela, Dr. Dre, Lagbaja and Just Blaze. It’s difficult to classify the dominant genre in his beats and they are very diverse showing a combination of Old School Hip-Hop, West Coast and Southern Rap as well as Grime and the rare Techno beat. He has a catalogue of about 2000 samples to choose from when making an instrumental track. Before releasing a full album, he plans to release a pack of instrumentals for up and coming artists to use for demos, battles or whatever they choose.