Name: Rasaq
Label: Royal Green
How did you get your start in the industry?
I use to be a part of Chamilitary records with my brother, Chamillionaire, but I branched out and started doing my own thing. I accomplished a lot when I started working with my brother, but when I dropped out of school and went on the road with him I met a lot of very smart, degreed individuals. When I saw how we progressed from the bottom, to selling one million copies to winning a Grammy Award, I saw how far I had got on my own. I knew if I applied myself a little bit more and went back to school that I could be capable of so much more. I think that as a black man it was something that I needed to do. I wanted to have stability and so I enrolled at Prairie View A&M University and I started working in the oil and gas industry as an electrical engineer while working on my album.
Tell us about your album.
Premonition is a collection of songs about my life. “Premonition” itself means anxiety about future events to come. With the future of rap always changing artists are always anxious to figure out what’s the next hot thing coming. I’ve seen all of the different angles and stereotypes that can stem from the anxiety of success; from girls hanging on you, labels trying to rip people off to people selling their souls just to get money and fame. So it’s a collection of all my experiences.
What’s your long-term career goal?
So far I’m just focusing on seeing if this will be profitable and worth going forward. I think a lot of artists want to show that they are hard or that they have some kind of credibility from the streets, but for me it’s about the music. I’m not just caught up on being famous. I want to work with people who are really into music and are interested in developing new sounds and starting new trends instead of copying what the next person is doing. People can say what they want to about artists like Drake and Jay-Z, but it’s really hard to stay that consistent. To come out scoring 40 points every game, that’s talent, if you can produce your own stuff and can stay consistent that’s a very valuable tool.
For more information, please visit
www.twitter.com/Rasaq www.souncloud.com/rasaqmusic
