Feed The Mind. is a Hip-Hop artist / Beat smith / NYC native of Puerto Rican descent pushing the consciousness of Hip-Hop by way of my own expression of my culture. I am Hip-Hop.
What is your background? Tell us where you grew up and some information about your upbringing/experiences as a youth:
I grew up in the west side of the Bronx on 176 ST on Walton Ave a block up from the 4 train. I was never good in school; I used to fight allot and get in trouble with teachers and the deans. My momma had me late so she was older with health issues so I used to hate when my school called her to come in. One time in elementary school my mother punched my principal in the face; I don’t know how she didn’t get locked up. I just couldn’t pick up on what they were trying to shove in my brain. By the ninth grade I jumped in my first cypher in Dewitt Clinton High School and got daps from some of the kids that were there. Man, that recognition meant the world to me. My sister showed me my first dead body when I was probably 7 or 8 maybe younger, it was right up the block from our crib on Morris Ave and through the crowd I seen homey leaking. Years later a friend of mine lost his homey on the same Avenue. This is why I don’t give a shit about guns and I don’t agree with war. The next dead body I saw was my sister’s. We knew she had a problem but no one in this system was available to teach us how to deal with that kind of shit. I followed her into our building once, hid under the steps, waited till she came down and saw her sniffing and liking on some kind of paper. Back then I was too young to know what coke was. She used to fall into violent seizures that scared the shit out of us. The first time she fell she was in the bathroom brushing her teeth; she hit her head on the wall and left blood on it. My mom ran outside screaming “MY DAUGHTER IS DYING!” but she didn’t, it wasn’t her time yet. When her hour glass finally did run out of sand, it was just me and my mom when we got that phone call from my sister’s best friend Francine telling us we just lost her. The way my mom broke down broke something in me. Fuck Reagan! Fuck the system! My past is why I don’t promote violence and the wrong type of drugs in my music. My childhood was still great though, my momma loved me, and I had food, video games, Hip-Hop, a nephew and niece who my sister survived by, them be my niggas. I want to go back to it and relive it. Maybe I could save her. We called her BB, she loved music and she was beautiful but only she really knows what she could have become on earth had she not been corrupted by a slave profit driven agenda. Now she’s the ghost in my songs. Why did I tell you all this shit? It’s me. With that said, I could keep writing but I’ll save the rest for the Hot 97.
At what moment did you know that music was part of your life and what feelings did you have towards making an active impact with your music?
Eventually, all the respect I got from strangers made my confidence stronger to keep going. I remember being nervous and excited about rapping in front of people. My legs use to shake because of the nerves. I still remember my firs open mic, the name of the place escapes me but my niece Yasmin had drove me and my homey June and one of her home girls there. Yasmin was older and had experience from her clubbing days so I was always comfortable around her in that setting that wasn’t an atmosphere I was used to. I went up and rapped over Lil Wayne’s A Millie and bodied it. I know cause when I said mother fucker I’m ill a dude in crowd yelled back “YES YOU ARE!” Those types of reactions were an early sign of an active impact I had the power to make.
I think my first introduction to sound and music was through movies and video games. I remember I think my dad gave me this old cassette tape with all these old ass songs from like Elvis and shit and I use to play it on this big yellow walk man, twenty year olds will never know the struggle. The music on that cassette tape was diverse. It didn’t matter to me where the music came from as long as it hit me and took me away. My niece Yasmin (BB’s daughter) used to play all kinds of music like Counting Crows, Madonna, Staind, Linking Park and creepy ass movie soundtracks like The Exorcist, she was emo. But I loved them all. Then Hip-Hop came into my life, but this part is for the next question.
What artists inspired/influences you and if you could collaborate with any artist (alive or passed) who would it be and why?
My fondest memory of Hip-Hop was hearing DMX in junior high. My principal at the time used to sing the lyrics to Slippin with a mic in his hand in the auditorium, you know, to try and relate to the kids. He was black and coolest principal I had ever seen. Too bad he didn’t stay. Once Hip-Hop took hold of me it never let go. It loosened its grasp for a while but it always ended up taking my back. It unlocked something in me that never went back in. It was the emotion that charged me up. The flows, the word play, the anger, the aggression. Then Eminem dropped and splattered my brains on the wall. I was in the 7th grade and I remember my friends playing The Marshall Mathers LP on the computer in class and I was addicted to Hip-Hop ever since. I once rewrote Eminem’s The Real Slim Shady and made a rap dis out of it about one of my homies we used to make fun of. I always loved Big Pun too like That Nigga Shit! RIP to the God, he probably up there in thugs mansion with Pac. There were a bunch of songs on Eminem’s classic album that I learned by heart but when Jay-Z Dropped the Blue Print I knew the lyrics to every single song on that joint especially ‘Renegade’. My homey CJ was black and we use to skip school and rap the lyrics to Renegade; CJ always did Jay-z’s part and I was always Eminem because I’m a light skinned Puerto Rican, not fair. That’s when I fell in love with that Jay-Z shit. 50 dropped and hit me with a full clip in the chest. I memorized all the songs on his fist album too especially Many Men. It’s crazy how music influences us because I was never a thug or ever tried to be but I still was captured by 50 Cent’s music. I was and still am hugely influenced by Drake, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, J Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Mr. West, Mac Miller, Big Sean, Fobolous, and my new favs Chance The Rapper, Vic Mensa Joey Bad A$$ and School Boy Q and many more. I would love to work with all of them.
What do you think about the current state of hip hop/mainstream music?
Either there’s an agenda behind all these songs promoting stupid ignorant and violent lifestyles and mentalities or the people with real decision power have horrible taste in music. Who knows? But we do have artist like J Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Vic Mensa, Chance The Rapper and Feed The Mind so It isn’t all bad even though we need way more mainstream artist setting a grown up positive example that a demographic outside of the average Hip-Hop fan can relate to in order to give Hip-Hop a new fan base. That’s what I want to do, give Hip-Hop a new fan base just by being me.
Currently, what projects do you have in the works that you are most excited about?
I’ve been slowly putting my second mixtape together. I might call it The Freedom of Power. Honestly, this is a Franken Project made out of body parts of my past and present. I just hope God hits it with the right lightening to make it come alive. It just needs that one record that’s the exclamation mark at the end.
What are your short term career goals within the next 6-10 months?
My short term goal is to build a loyal fan base and give myself to my audience. It’s kind of now or never for me right now and I don’t listen to Hip-Hop must of the time unless I’m making it. A fan base is the foundation and you can only build as high as your foundation is deep.
What are your long term career goals within the next 2-5 years?
I aim to be living completely off my music doing shows, touring, merchandising, having fun building my brand with good people who believe in me by then.
If you had one song out of the catalog you have created to show a person what song would it be and why?
It would be “Before You Say It” which is not really a song just a long verse with a hook at the end because it’s where I’m at right now mentally. I think it’s an official example of my delivery and who I am. It’s a song that I can see being easily digestible to a wide demographic. It’s honest, it’s grown up, it’s inspirational to me, it’s my own little blue print and reminder of how to think and the sleeping giant that is my potential. I think it’s waking up.
To the person who had never heard of you what is it about your music and story that you would tell them to entice them to be a supporter?
Every bar I write I’m one step closer / every verse I finish I’m one mile further / climbing the ladder is that the haters on my legs / gotta kill these parasites before they lay eggs / I kill’m with this smile I kill’m with this walk / I kill’m without a word as soon as the money talks / I might move slow but I’m the biggest tortes in the race / your running out of gas rabbit I’ve been sticking to my paste / for the little guys who don’t have a choice / I turn my mic on so I can give you a voice / I turn my mic on so I can give you my pain / I turn my mic on so you’ll remember my name / we might be brothers and sisters despite were we came / but everyday there’s an Abel murdered by Cane / the biggest Cane wears a suite / and he sits in the tube sending out troops / to aim and just shoot / the mindless recruit / the mind must reboot / in a city running low on fathers / and every hood has a carter / and its fair share of martyrs / bet you know some kids killing themselves / all too typical of a boy lost in himself / bet you know some good people still in their jails / just another reason to tell you the system has failed / rat race rat traps / you’re a slave Noe or a fat cat / you got to be a glitch in this monetary system / or life can be a bitch and mediocrity sets in / now let that shit sink in / bet I got ya’ll niggas thinking /
If your music could be described in five words what would those five words be?
Multilayered
Honest
Intelligent
Emotional
Diverse
What do you bring to the game that is unique and different?
My sense of melody, my honesty, the variety in my music just speaks for its self. My personality, the fact that my music is so personal augments the feeling I get when someone genuinely tells me how it moved them. To be honest, I don’t know if I have my signature sound pin pointed, I should put my catalogue together and really see what I have. Yeah I’m going to do that ASAP!
I took it upon myself to bump this question to an old familiar stranger named Wayne who’s a fan of my music and this is what he said.
“I’ll begin with your style man when you make a song you put your personality onto that song. When you talk, the moments you laugh. The listener is getting you. When you listen to a lot of people who make songs you can tell they were trying to make the song, similar to acting. You don’t want to be able to tell that the actor is acting. You want the expression and the interpretation to feel like real life. In some way instead of acting their channeling different sides of themselves making it come out natural and genuine. Your songs no matter the topic no matter the subject or mood I know their getting you. Bro your music in other words is straight authentic. The listener knows who you are but not only that, how you are. You make art they can’t compare to. That’s what that actually means for an artist to stay true to who they are. That’s what makes the greatest the greatest. We knew who they were through their music. Not only through their lyrics but they’re expression on that musical canvas.
Bro, that’s just one side which to me is a HUGE percent. You’re Lyrics!!! Bro your lyrics are AWESOME DOPE PERFECT. I swear it’s like I’m listening to one of my favorite artist and not Mikey my old friend. It’s strange. Every time I listen man it’s like, damn he did this?! I swear bro! Lol”
“And to that I say thank you Wayne. To that I say alright, alright, alight!”
To the aspiring artist who is considering a career as a musician what lessons or advice would you give them to inspire them or to uplift them in the journey?
The inspiration to write comes as an impulse that’s fueled by pure emotion. The right beat at the right moment gives you that impulse. That impulse is you. Act on it ASAP. Set it free. It’s like the beat choses us and gives us the words. One can also say the right beat is a key which unlocks that magic inside of you that opens up the flood gates allowing that dope ass flow to rain down on you from the ether. I call that God and that’s a blessing. Jay-Z said to never force your music because that’s never good. I knew that way before I heard him say it so I know I was right on path. That’s why I don’t care how dope the beat is, if it’s not moving me emotionally, physically and spiritually I’m on to the next one on to the next.
When you play your music for people pay close attention to their face expression and body language, those signs will tell you if they are genuinely moved by your music. I tend to hold the compliments of strangers in high regard because they don’t owe me anything, let alone respect. Don’t feel discouraged if your family doesn’t give you the support you think you deserve, most people are too busy in their own worlds and dreams to notice yours and are waiting for you to take initiative and show them how important and possible your dream really is. Think Big! Act BIGGER! And you’ll find the magic in that.
What are your social media profiles and where can people purchase/download your music?
You can find everything you need to know about me below
Twitter @ feedthemindbars
Sound Cloud here: https://soundcloud.com/feedthemindbars
Instagram is @feedthemindbars
Face Book www.facebook.com/Feedthemindbars
My Mixtape first Thanks For aying No on DatPiff http: http://www.datpiff.com/Feed-The-Mind-Thanks-For-Saying-No-mixtape.552000.html
What are your final words you would like to say to people that you have left out?
I want to let them know that they occupy a special place in my heart and have reservations for future songs in their names. I want them to be proud about what I made it through. I want to impress them. I want them to be proud about what I leave behind. The ones who love me before they say it, they know who they are. What I do is for me but once I release a song it isn’t just mine no more, it belongs to whoever finds it. So, I hope they find at least one they can own.