Today we’d like to introduce you to Hassan eL GG Allin Ginsburg HoBo.
Hassan, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I began rapping around 5th grade, but I didn’t take it as a serious outlet until high school. I’d always been fascinated with rap and the culture of Hip-Hop, as well as being into more obscure and eccentric pop culture things, so a lot of my early inspirations were rappers I found on the internet. By the time I had enrolled in college, I knew rap was a focal point if my life, and I ended up meeting Rey Morado around that time. Later on, we became acquainted with the other members of Reigncloud and decided to become a collective.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It’s definitely been difficult, balancing school, relationships, wack jobs and a dry creative scene with our music. We’ve had to deal with shiesty promoters, envious “colleagues,” stifling spaces that did not protect our brand of creative outlet as much as other safer, and traditional types of expression, along with all of us being Black, subversive bodies in an overwhelmingly Whitespace. But we’ve been supporting each other the whole way and still found hard-fought success throughout all of that, individually and by proxy, as a collective. When one of us wins, we all win.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Reigncloud – what should we know?
As rappers, we endeavor to be the best we can be at speaking truth to our lives. We each have similar and differing perceptions of the world that we attempt to coalesce through song. I know I personally seek to build new realities through language and forsake the current disjunction between the reality we all inhabit, the realities that people like I inhabit, and the future that we all desire. So in that regard, I jokingly refer to myself as the Research and Development arm of Reigncloud. Overall, we seek to be able to find success for ourselves through music without sacrificing our creativity to the homogenous musical environment we see.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Yeah, big shoutouts to our in-house producers, Riddle C and DJ, our connections to Intalek Uno The Consiegliere and Vast Moyie, also upper echelon musicians. Huge props to Carla for being dope, Kali too. My big brothers Troy and Jordan for their musings on my work and their sharing of their own work with me. I gotta show love to the people who have let us share our art in multiple spaces. Shoutout to Dream Entact. My wife Asya, and of course my cohorts in Reigncloud.
Pricing:
- My verses are $100 unless I like your music. Otherwise, I’m taxing.
Contact Info:
- Website: elhobo.bandcamp.com
- Instagram: @zatoichiban
- Twitter: @bosukokujin
Image Credit:
Shot by camnimbus
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