You can see a sense of Darwinism happening in the growing pool of Los Angeles rappers. A certain good kid from Compton currently rests comfortably as the king of all he surveys on his coast, but the list of talented, local wordsmiths span way past him and his TDE Clique. With that, we place a scope on Kid Ink, a not-so-up-and-comer not that accomplished much on the underground front, but hasn't quite permeated mainstream radio.
Fairly young, the LA native hopes to rise Hip-Hop's ranks with his major label debut, My Own Lane. With a December release date reportedly set in stone, you can rest assured that Kid Ink is straddling the line between a rapper's expected confidence and the stomach-turning uneasiness of first album jitters. But he's up to the challenge, nonetheless, and rests assured that he has records to back it up.
Who: Kid Ink, 27-years-old, is a Southern California resident that's deeply entrenched into music. However, lyric penmanship wasn't always his hustle. But rather, he's a producer-turned-rapper. No, he didn't take Kanye West's route either. Kid Ink was once dedicated to manning the boards, and has work with the likes of Sean "Diddy" Combs, Nispey Hussle, Sean Kingston, and more to prove it. But this changed after a few years of helping other artists craft tracks. He officially caught the rapper bug, and it was, as they say, "all she wrote."
Credentials: Kid Ink got right to work when he introduced himself on the microphone in 2010 via his World Tour mixtape. But it was a follow-up project titled Crash Landing -- released the same year -- that garnered him a buzz. With a group of fans and other onlookers' interests piqued, the rhymer would have a constant progression that included three more mixtapes, his recently released Almost Home EP, and a spot on XXL's 2012 Freshman Class.
Fun Fact: As you may or may not know, his rap alias is more than a moniker, it's a lifestyle. Kid Ink prides himself on his tattoos, and currently has too many to count.While speaking with Kid Ink, we noticed that he's extremely self aware of his artist identity, what he wants to achieve, and how that greatly differs from the general public's perception of him. That's an admirable trait to have during an age where some rhymeslingers get gassed like they won a Grammy after garnering a few thousand Twitter followers.
Much of his humility stems from the fact that his power moves thus far have all been from the muscle. "Honestly, I don't have anyone who is at the top of their game that's giving me extra info," Kid Ink explained. "It's really just me and DJ Ill Will [who] started from scratch and sticking it out as fans, and just working from there and grinding it out." The bubbling MC admits that it would be nice at time to have that mentor at times, but he describes his road to success, so far, as a "learning experience."
Based on his YouTube hits, which have surpassed 60 million in total, you wouldn't think such was the case. Fortunately, his aforementioned business partner so happens to be the founder of HotNewHipHop.com, but even with this platform at arms reach, Kid Ink says his grind has been more difficult than most.
"People try to discredit your numbers and your grind," he said, succinctly. "Every mixt ape that I release up until my independent album, I've sat and recorded myself in a closet, in the house. I've mixed it myself. I've written all my own records."
He continued, "Any songs that I put on the Internet, I don't look for anything; I don't over-promote or do anything like that. I'll release a song, and it'll be on Hot New Hip-Hop or any website, at the top numbers. You'll read the comments, and people will be like, 'Oh, they put this one here. They cranked his numbers up.' I don't even know how to begin to do any of that stuff."As his career progresses, Kid Ink will learn to completely ignore the rap peanut gallery that frequents the blog sphere. Besides, his talent was enough to earn himself a major label deal at RCA Records, a space with a growing roster of MC including A$AP Mob. Now, the intangible aspects of his career — branding, promotion, and the like — are as integral to his hopefully impending success than ever before. "It's a struggle trying to do the album thing and the label thing, and then still also be a viral artist too at the same time." Through it all, Kid Ink has managed to adamantly work on My Own Lane as it nears its deadline, awhile prepping and releasing four visuals for songs from Almost Home. He looks extremely comfortable rapping alongside Casey Veggies in the video for "I Know Who You Are" and kept his bravado similar in the small screen adaptation for "Sunset." To be frank, he has all the makings of a star. But to some, his heavily tattooed exterior and clothing choices — much of which are from his crew Tha Alumni — make his look similar to artists that are already commercially successful. Ink could easily be compared to Wiz Khalifa if you're comparing body ink. Separately, street wear has been a consistent style choice for rappers these past few years. That's why, for him, it'll always boil down to the creating good music. "From the album, I definitely want the fans that know me and rock with me to see the growth. I feel like I've definitely grown from what people see as a mix tape artist or an underground artist," Kid Ink said. "Listening to the music, I hope people get and understand the grind and hard work." He continued, "People are definitely going to get that more from the music, than judging me off a look or one song that's on the radio or the single, or something like that." December is when listeners can gauge whether or not Kid Ink delivers with My Own Lane. There's no concrete date yet, but according to the rapper, fans will be unwrapping the plastic before Christmas. Here's to hoping that Kid Ink can efficiently display his humility, maturity, ability to appeal to commercial radio, and producer background on wax. If so, we'd say that he could be around for years to come.
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