ARTIST: STREETZ
By: LINDA HOBBS - VIBE MAGAZINE
MY NAME IS: Streetz
STRAIGHT OUT OF: Bahamas (resides in Atlanta, Georgia)
THIS IS MY STORY: I grew up around a lot of hustlers; everybody is going to get it however they got to go get it. I watched my mom get shot five times right in front of me, at the age of 12. My pops is a street dude. A lot of the stuff that rappers were talking about, we were actually out there doing . . . the big cars, the crew, the money, and all that stuff. [So it was] better for you to say you're going to be a drug dealer than [become] a rapper or something because people would laugh at you.
THIS IS MY INFLUENCE: In the Caribbean you listen to everything: Bob Marley, Sizzla, Nas, Jay, Big, Pac. You couldn't wait to get they albums cause you wanted to hear what they were going to say in each song and I think that's what's missing right now [in hip hop]. Jay-Z had his way of talking about stuff and it would relate to my dudes, what we were going through, and me and he wasn't even there.
When Streetz was in his late teens, friends and him would bring famous rappers out to perform in his homeland. At the age of 17, he met the late rapper Big Pun and, seizing the moment, decided to spit Pun a verse: "I'm the type to ask you to vibe and get crazy/ I can fuck the earth and make the sky have a baby."
THIS IS WHY I'M HOT: I'm going to say how I feel; I'm going to make those records that allow you to walk with me. Like, this is my life I'm giving you. People aren't buying records any more. People are buying into movement(s) and the records are secondary, that's why the sales are not showing. If you look at any successful artist, T.I. to whomever, they are selling records due to the fact that you bought into them. This situation that I'm bringing to the table, it's going to be the truth again. I'm never going to hold my tongue. I feel like that's what's missing now 'cause when we had artists like Tupac, he gave you everything about him. That's what made you love him, and that's what I'm bringing to the table again. I'm giving you the whole story. I didn't just come out here with, "Oh, I just got the biggest money in the world." I didn't want to give the people that. For every year that [a label] didn't let me in, I'm going to make them see why they should've let me in.HIPHOP WEEKLY NEXT TO BLOW
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