Tell us where you’re from and what was it like growing up there?
Were I’m from is like 30 minutes outside Tampa, Florida it’s a little city called Tarpon Springs, Florida. There wasn’t much there growing up, the city is really not that big it’s very small, if you want to do anything you have to go to Tampa or Atlanta or a couple or hours away because there’s nothing to do in my city. It was boring and nothing much to do but get in trouble.
Before you became a rapper you were a running back for Tarpon Springs High School, what made you change career paths?
I ended up getting a girl pregnant when I was younger and I have a daughter. So, playing Football was cool but I had to find a way to be able to provide for my daughter. I kind of found the streets through that meaning getting in trouble and messing up my record and I really couldn’t go and play football anywhere. I felt like I didn’t have anything else but rap because I would say working like a nine to five or something like that, it really didn’t fit me! I didn’t feel like it would make enough money working a nine to five or what have you. I had to find something else that was going to make a lot of money and I didn’t have to necessarily have an education and be street smart, so I just thought the music. I focused on music because of the position I was in with my life.
This track also gave you a taster for performing live can you tell us about that?
Every car that passed by in my city was playing that record! It was kinda crazy like, “Why everybody playing the record?” I was actually a teen then and I couldn’t go to no big nightclub, so they had this little teen club round the way. I went to this teen club and when I went there the DJ played my record! Everybody was going crazy for my record. There was a group that performed later that night and nobody was really bothered or feeling them they were like, “Who are these dudes?”? I stood in the front trying to watch these dudes perform because I was really trying to get some interest into doing the music thing a little heavier. I always stand back and observe every body and everything. I didn’t really know these dudes and I wanted to know if I could take from them, a plus or minus, things to do and not to do. They looked at me in the crowd like, oh you think you could do better? Cause I was laughing while they were performing. I was like, “Yeah!” dude gave me the mic so I got on stage and the DJ dropped my track, and I performed. The club went crazy, so I thought this is what I need to be doing right here!
After a while jail you decided that when you came out you would like to take your rapping more seriously, so you started promoting parties and concerts. How has this helped your career?
When I got out, promoting concerts and things like that gave me a buzz. A crazy buzz where people knew my name, I’m kinda having a problem where people are catching up to my name right now! People know my name and think its two people! It’s only one, on top of that nobody know what I look like. So I had to get my visual up, you would hear my name all the time on the radio, whether it be a big DJ having a birthday party or something and I would always make sure I was cool with that DJ, he’d put my name on the list. When I would bring acts I would put my name on the bill and pictures on the flyer for the radio to advertise me and people would get familiar with my name. It gave me a great buzz from my area I was like the hottest dude in my city. You could call me and I’d do a show and it would be crazy packed! I didn’t have a deal, I didn’t have anything going on in Florida like a record label behind me pushing me, so me promoting myself and getting my name out was like the best thing I could ever do for myself.
Well, you definitely turned you life around and you’re now signed to Universal Republic! How did that come about?
Universal Republic I guess caught wind of my buzz and things that I was doing out in my city. My record was getting played late at night on a big radio station, the station was one of the top ten stations in the country. They were playing my record late at night so the lable check those top stations to find out what they’re playing late at night for new talent. The station was playing my record late at night and the lable called them and said, “Who is this dude, your playing late at night?” it was getting like 14 spins a week. They were saying what’s the deal with this record is this something we should move on? The guy at the station was like, “He got a buzz out here, he has T Pain on the record but we’re not sure exactly what he’s going to do, it’s working well for him late at night but not on any mix shows or nothing, we’ll get back at you” So, Republic was the first to call and I ended up going with them because they showed the most interest. Imediately when I had my first meeting with them they wanted to just do the deal right then and there was no walking around the block and talking about what we might want to do. They gave me a real real solid home over there, so I decided just to go with them. They caught up with me for my late night spins and my buzz in the streets.
“She’s Got It” the single featuring T Pain is about independent women, beautiful women etc, not many rappers rap about this subject what made you come up with the concept?
I feel that female’s buy records, in this world that I’ve lived and grown up in I feel that dudes only do things that females want them to do anyway. Everything I think that a dude do is for women. Whatever I buy, if I buy a big house, with the pillow cases and the sheets and all that, yeah I buy it because it’s soft and it’s nice but it’s more re less what a female wants. So I feel like if I cater toward the females and get the females on my team first then the dudes gone follow. When I pack my show, it’s full of nothing but females so the dudes gone come. If a dude riding around the city playing a CD that the females really really like then most likely you gone pull up to the lights and you’re playing some music that she likes she gone get in the car with him and talk! I kept my street foundation with mixtapes but females buy records and I just catered for them first.
In June you release your album “Death before Dishonor” what can we expect to hear on there?
It’s a very well rounded project I have five or six top ten radio singles on there so you get your radio records. Obviously I catered towards the females on it, I also give you me and I express my life where I came from, two or three months before I went to jail throughout my thought process to the position I’m at right now. Making nothing to something, know what I mean? It’s my whole come up from the beginning till now I give you all of that in my album. You actually get to see me who I am where I come from, there is really nothing that’s fabricated everything that I talk about is me. 100% real. I titled it Death before Dishonour because I wanted it to be something that summarised my life and I think I’ve been living by that code a little bit more than a lot of people that’s around me. I’m just being 100% with the people who I’m affiliated with. I get done nasty or done wrong by the people I’m in bed with so Death before Dishonour makes me pay attention and woke me up to what’s really going on around me. I feel I reach out and get down with people and be cool with them and do what ever I gotta do. I feel like if I got $10.000 and my right hand man who’s riding around with me should at least have $5,000 in his pocket and I mean I want people to have half of what I got, I don’t know I’ve got a big heart for a lot of people and that’s the code that I live by Death before Dishonour. So that’s why I titled the album that because it means everything that means me.
After the release of your album, what’s next?
Hopefully touring, I want to go and see other countries. I hope I can get to overseas, any overseas market that really want to see me and except me and give me an opportunity to come over there and don’t just look at my name as 2 Pistols and think that I’m promoting violence or something. Like bring me to your country your city, where ever you know? Let me have a good time and you have a good time and we make money together if you’re a promoter. I want to do al lot of travelling and getting away from the US and reach other countries and see the world!
Were I’m from is like 30 minutes outside Tampa, Florida it’s a little city called Tarpon Springs, Florida. There wasn’t much there growing up, the city is really not that big it’s very small, if you want to do anything you have to go to Tampa or Atlanta or a couple or hours away because there’s nothing to do in my city. It was boring and nothing much to do but get in trouble.
Before you became a rapper you were a running back for Tarpon Springs High School, what made you change career paths?
I ended up getting a girl pregnant when I was younger and I have a daughter. So, playing Football was cool but I had to find a way to be able to provide for my daughter. I kind of found the streets through that meaning getting in trouble and messing up my record and I really couldn’t go and play football anywhere. I felt like I didn’t have anything else but rap because I would say working like a nine to five or something like that, it really didn’t fit me! I didn’t feel like it would make enough money working a nine to five or what have you. I had to find something else that was going to make a lot of money and I didn’t have to necessarily have an education and be street smart, so I just thought the music. I focused on music because of the position I was in with my life.
This track also gave you a taster for performing live can you tell us about that?
Every car that passed by in my city was playing that record! It was kinda crazy like, “Why everybody playing the record?” I was actually a teen then and I couldn’t go to no big nightclub, so they had this little teen club round the way. I went to this teen club and when I went there the DJ played my record! Everybody was going crazy for my record. There was a group that performed later that night and nobody was really bothered or feeling them they were like, “Who are these dudes?”? I stood in the front trying to watch these dudes perform because I was really trying to get some interest into doing the music thing a little heavier. I always stand back and observe every body and everything. I didn’t really know these dudes and I wanted to know if I could take from them, a plus or minus, things to do and not to do. They looked at me in the crowd like, oh you think you could do better? Cause I was laughing while they were performing. I was like, “Yeah!” dude gave me the mic so I got on stage and the DJ dropped my track, and I performed. The club went crazy, so I thought this is what I need to be doing right here!
After a while jail you decided that when you came out you would like to take your rapping more seriously, so you started promoting parties and concerts. How has this helped your career?
When I got out, promoting concerts and things like that gave me a buzz. A crazy buzz where people knew my name, I’m kinda having a problem where people are catching up to my name right now! People know my name and think its two people! It’s only one, on top of that nobody know what I look like. So I had to get my visual up, you would hear my name all the time on the radio, whether it be a big DJ having a birthday party or something and I would always make sure I was cool with that DJ, he’d put my name on the list. When I would bring acts I would put my name on the bill and pictures on the flyer for the radio to advertise me and people would get familiar with my name. It gave me a great buzz from my area I was like the hottest dude in my city. You could call me and I’d do a show and it would be crazy packed! I didn’t have a deal, I didn’t have anything going on in Florida like a record label behind me pushing me, so me promoting myself and getting my name out was like the best thing I could ever do for myself.
Well, you definitely turned you life around and you’re now signed to Universal Republic! How did that come about?
Universal Republic I guess caught wind of my buzz and things that I was doing out in my city. My record was getting played late at night on a big radio station, the station was one of the top ten stations in the country. They were playing my record late at night so the lable check those top stations to find out what they’re playing late at night for new talent. The station was playing my record late at night and the lable called them and said, “Who is this dude, your playing late at night?” it was getting like 14 spins a week. They were saying what’s the deal with this record is this something we should move on? The guy at the station was like, “He got a buzz out here, he has T Pain on the record but we’re not sure exactly what he’s going to do, it’s working well for him late at night but not on any mix shows or nothing, we’ll get back at you” So, Republic was the first to call and I ended up going with them because they showed the most interest. Imediately when I had my first meeting with them they wanted to just do the deal right then and there was no walking around the block and talking about what we might want to do. They gave me a real real solid home over there, so I decided just to go with them. They caught up with me for my late night spins and my buzz in the streets.
“She’s Got It” the single featuring T Pain is about independent women, beautiful women etc, not many rappers rap about this subject what made you come up with the concept?
I feel that female’s buy records, in this world that I’ve lived and grown up in I feel that dudes only do things that females want them to do anyway. Everything I think that a dude do is for women. Whatever I buy, if I buy a big house, with the pillow cases and the sheets and all that, yeah I buy it because it’s soft and it’s nice but it’s more re less what a female wants. So I feel like if I cater toward the females and get the females on my team first then the dudes gone follow. When I pack my show, it’s full of nothing but females so the dudes gone come. If a dude riding around the city playing a CD that the females really really like then most likely you gone pull up to the lights and you’re playing some music that she likes she gone get in the car with him and talk! I kept my street foundation with mixtapes but females buy records and I just catered for them first.
In June you release your album “Death before Dishonor” what can we expect to hear on there?
It’s a very well rounded project I have five or six top ten radio singles on there so you get your radio records. Obviously I catered towards the females on it, I also give you me and I express my life where I came from, two or three months before I went to jail throughout my thought process to the position I’m at right now. Making nothing to something, know what I mean? It’s my whole come up from the beginning till now I give you all of that in my album. You actually get to see me who I am where I come from, there is really nothing that’s fabricated everything that I talk about is me. 100% real. I titled it Death before Dishonour because I wanted it to be something that summarised my life and I think I’ve been living by that code a little bit more than a lot of people that’s around me. I’m just being 100% with the people who I’m affiliated with. I get done nasty or done wrong by the people I’m in bed with so Death before Dishonour makes me pay attention and woke me up to what’s really going on around me. I feel I reach out and get down with people and be cool with them and do what ever I gotta do. I feel like if I got $10.000 and my right hand man who’s riding around with me should at least have $5,000 in his pocket and I mean I want people to have half of what I got, I don’t know I’ve got a big heart for a lot of people and that’s the code that I live by Death before Dishonour. So that’s why I titled the album that because it means everything that means me.
After the release of your album, what’s next?
Hopefully touring, I want to go and see other countries. I hope I can get to overseas, any overseas market that really want to see me and except me and give me an opportunity to come over there and don’t just look at my name as 2 Pistols and think that I’m promoting violence or something. Like bring me to your country your city, where ever you know? Let me have a good time and you have a good time and we make money together if you’re a promoter. I want to do al lot of travelling and getting away from the US and reach other countries and see the world!
