Willie The Kid : The Crown Prince
Picture, if you will, the future of street music. The coming of urban culture led by an artist who was born to do it. A messiah, of some sort, destine to recharge and accelerate the pulse of rap music. Inspired by the essence of the craft, Willie the Kid is that artist. Born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, his is not the typical rappers tale. Located two hours West and East of Detroit and Chicago respectively, West Michigan didn't have much to offer in the early 1980s. Like many urban areas, it offered underprivileged African-American people nothing but the stark contrast between their lives and that of their upper class counterparts. With limited outlets for the urban youth, fast money became the common alternative.
Yet rather than fall prey to the convenient access to drugs and violence, Willie The Kid uses the bleak landscape of his childhood stomping grounds as inspiration for his music and motivation for his career. The son of a DJ who was down with the culture from its onset, Willie grew up in a home where Hip-Hop was the ideology of choice. My father never did anything else, he says, wasn't big on religion, wasn't big on sports. Wasn't big on anything, but the music. In my house, that's what we grew up to. We never got in trouble for throwing footballs in the house, we got in trouble for scratching a record, or playing a rap record and saying the cuss words. The result was a 4-year-old who became king of the playground by memorizing Rakim and KRS-1 rhymes, knowing that none of his friends would have ever heard the music to which he was exposed at home. It was only a matter of time before Willie and his brother starting coming up with their own rhymes, making microphones from a pair of broken headphones, which they connected to a boom box. Around the age of 12, as his brother, La The Darkman, got his industry break through a deal with Wu Tang, Willie the Kid got his first notebook and truly started writing. This happened during the late 1980s, early 1990s, to which he refers as the Golden Age of rap music. With influences such as Nas, Wu Tang Clan, and Jay-Z, Willie the Kid is a true writer, a story teller who's word play and vivid descriptions put his listeners in a zone.
With the support of his Atlanta-based Aphilliates Crew, Willie the Kid continues to bypass the norm as he releases his music independently and build his very own brand--something which he has done since moving to Atlanta and linking with fellow Aphilliates member DJ Don Cannon. You can catch the young street visionary making appearances on ever release from DJ Don Cannon's 28 Grams to DJ Drama's Gangsta Grillz series. The future is here, right now: Pay Attention!
