Posted by For readers new to BISON.FC, tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from, and when did music first begin to play a significant role in your life?
I was born in the Bronx, New York, and moved to Tampa, Florida when I was nine years old. Tampa is where I was raised, but music has been part of my life for as long as I can remember.
Sometimes I joke that I started making music in the womb because I was born into a family of musicians. Before I was old enough to understand what music was, it was already part of my life. By the time I was four years old, my family had me on stage performing in church.
How long have you been creating music as an emcee, and how has your approach evolved over the years?
I wrote my first rap when I was nine years old. At eleven, I joined a Christian rap group, and by fourteen I was performing with a neighborhood rap group. As my life changed, so did my music. I drifted away from the church and began writing from the perspective of the streets and the experiences I was living.
The name Bison was born in 1998 when I was fourteen years old. A year later, at fifteen, I recorded my first mixtape, “The Gold Tape,” on a karaoke machine my cousin found at the Salvation Army. Looking back now, that tape wasn’t just my first project, it was the beginning of a journey I’ve been documenting for more than twenty-five years.
So while “Bison’s Revenge” introduced many people to my music in 2021, I’ve been creating music, writing, performing, and telling my story since I was a kid. The work people are discovering today is built on decades of growth, failure, faith, perseverance, and ultimately redemption.
Who are some of your biggest musical influences, and what have you learned from them that helped shaped you as an artist?
Growing up, I was inspired by artists like Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, DMX, Tupac, Nas, Jay-Z, The Notorious B.I.G., Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliott, 50 Cent, Ja Rule, and many others. Later on, Kanye West inspired me to stop being afraid of experimenting creatively, while artists like Drake showed how different genres and styles could be blended without losing authenticity.
Influence is reflected in an artist’s style and technique, while inspiration is about what drives them. Who would you say has been your biggest source of inspiration throughout your career?
The person who inspired me most was Rob Nice from Rap Seminar, who I know simply as my cousin, Bobbi.
I loved music as a child, but Bobbi introduced me to hip-hop. He was the first person I ever heard rap in real life, and he made me believe I could do it too. He would play music for me and expose me to artists I didn’t even fully know by name at the time. I just knew the music moved me, and I wanted to be part of it.
The funny thing is, Bobbi was always the true student of hip-hop. He studied artists, producers, albums, and the culture in a way I never did. I wasn’t trying to become a hip-hop historian. I was listening, absorbing, getting inspired, and spending most of my energy developing my own voice instead of trying to sound like someone else. That philosophy eventually shaped “Bison’s Revenge.”
Bobbi intentionally wanted the album to capture the spirit of what people now call the Golden Era of Hip-Hop because that’s the era when I created my first mixtape, “The Gold Tape,” back in 1999. Ironically, when I made that tape, I had no idea I was living in what would later be called the Golden Era. I was just a fifteen-year-old kid making music because I loved it.
Years later, everything came full circle. “Bison’s Revenge” adopted the same golden aesthetic. Not only in sound, but in its artwork and overall presentation. Looking back now, it almost feels like that first mixtape was unknowingly laying the foundation for an album that wouldn’t exist until more than twenty years later.
So the honest answer is this: My cousin Bobbi gave me the spark. Hip-hop gave me the language. Life gave me the stories. And God gave me the reason to keep telling them.
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