Today we’d like to introduce you to Hype South.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was born and raised in Houston and I have much love for Atlanta. Over the years, they have served a big part in my ambition but it started at home looking up to guys like J. Prince and the Rap-A-Lot movement and what DJ Screw was doing. I was a youngster paying attention to em. It’s an understatement how impactful those two were to my life coming up. It was the hustle in them that caught my attention, even Master P and Birdman. I was just studying them not knowing I was studying them. But anyway, I met a guy when I was about thirteen or fourteen that could rap his ass off and I started recording him in my room on a cassette player-stereo system-karaoke machine type of thing I rigged up with a mic hanging from the ceiling by a screw and cut a piece of the window screen into a circle, cut around the edge of a CD and glued the window screen to it to make a popper, lol yeah that shit was ambitious. But that’s the type of person I’ve been, the type that makes something out of nothing and never let a hard time stop me. When I was sleeping in the park parking lot with my mamma that didn’t When I didn’t have money for lunch and would stand at the soda machine in middle school asking for the other kid’s change and then take that lil money and go in the restroom and shoot dice to flip my lil bread to get something to eat. I never let anything stop me. We later on started touring the state and the region with Beltway 8 Records he exposed to the real music industry and I just took what I learned from being around him and observing along with the rest of the stuff life show me along the way and keep going.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Like I said, it’s the typical story being from the hood, single-parent household, momma working 7 in the morning to 7 at night so me and my brother taking care of ourselves everyday, getting into stuff we ain’t got no business getting into. But the biggest obstacle that I think I have faced in my life was early on when my Paw Paw died and my momma went into depression and couldn’t work. I remember coming home plenty of days and having the lil lock thing on the doorknob so you couldn’t get in when she was late on the rent but we would always leave the window unlocked so we could get in the house and unlock the door from the inside out. So the lock was already on the door one particular day, I came home from school and they was moving our shit out! This was the first time this happened so I know shit had gotten real. We slept in a car for a couple of weeks that my uncle lended until one day she asked me what did I want to do come with her and sleep at a family friend’s house or go back to my stomping grounds and do my own thing and I chose to go back to the hood and make the best of it. That time of my life even after I had overcome it hung like a dark cloud over my head for a long time until I decided to move on with it and not talk about it again until I was free from it completely. So like now, I’m able to talk about it because it’s truly behind me.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I create. I don’t know how else to put it. I hate to paint myself into a box or when people try to put limitations on my life for they own convenience. If I want to make a rap album tomorrow or get out and march for justice, that’s what I’ll do. If I want to learn how to play a guitar and create a country band that’s what I’ll do. I’ve put on successful shows with unique concepts, started a media company called Chowtime that was nationally recognized within the first year of its creation, managed Comedians, created a podcast, and currently writing a book. God is good.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
You become what you think about if you think you can then you will and you will work however hard you need to because you truly believe that you can, if you don’t truly believe it then you won’t.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://chowtimetv.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/hypesouth http://instagram.com/chowtime_tv
