Isang

My name means journey. It sounds asian, coincidentally, and (I found out later) means “the one” in Pilipino. I was born in Northern VA but spent my first few years living in and out of Childrens Hospital in DC. So I was only around adults as a kid. As a result the nurses and doctors had me talking and reading by 2 years old. So by 6 years old I was doing my first performance on the kindergarten playground. Rapping kris kross lyrics and subbing my name in. Around 9 years old I was writing rhym...

My name means journey. It sounds asian, coincidentally, and (I found out later) means “the one” in Pilipino. I was born in Northern VA but spent my first few years living in and out of Childrens Hospital in DC. So I was only around adults as a kid. As a result the nurses and doctors had me talking and reading by 2 years old. So by 6 years old I was doing my first performance on the kindergarten playground. Rapping kris kross lyrics and subbing my name in. Around 9 years old I was writing rhymes for my school projects and jumping in the ciphers with high school kids. From middle school on I was rapping in talent shows and in and out of different groups and cliques. I enrolled in and dropped out of community college 3 times before they wouldn’t let me in anymore. It just moved to slowly to keep my attention. The whole time, though, I would skip out of class and listen to instrumentals in the computer lab. Its impossible for me to not be brainstorming at any given time. My father is immigrated from Nigeria and graduated from Howard University in DC. Hes the smartest person I know. He pressed me hard to do well academically and learn about the world. Every day he had me watch the news and tell him what I thought was important in current events. So now Im like a sponge with information I have an immense love for knowing. Not for knowing any particular thing, just for the feeling of knowing anything. I never grew up as far as my interests go. I always liked fantasy, sci-fi, superheroes, ninjas, japan…etc. I figure “why leave anything that originally interested me?”. That was the purest form of my personal opinion, with no outside influence so I kept it. So that influences how I talk, how I dress, everything. Another prominent influence in my music is the high end streetwear scene. I love gear from japan and Im a huge sneaker head. And being from the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) area, narrows me down to a nike head. Rarely caught in foot locker or mall shopping. I stick to sneaker boutiques, online stores, and skate shops. I also love --“love”. The concept of love and the thoughts, actions, and inexplicable forces that it has, make it some sort of being. Like an energy, but a living energy with untraceable origins. So you trap it in the music. Relationships come and go, so the love comes and goes with them but the song keeps playing so that doesn’t go anywhere. My art is inspired by the meeting point of music, intellect, love, and the surreal. Somewhere in space, those things all instersect and that’s where I go when I create. It’s a far away place that I can get to faster than regular people. So I come back and give it to you and that’s why some people think its “weird” or “out there”. When you see a star in the sky, its light years away. That means that what you see is actually what the star was doing 10 years ago. When you hear me, this is where I’ve been, Im already back and gone again.