Glass Reflex

Gentleman Contender is adamant about his sound being “not rap.”  In fact, it’s easier to describe his music by what it isn’t: his beats are not quite electronic, he sings but his sound isn’t quite R&B. Rap is just the latest genre he’s pushing into creatively, but Gentleman Contender doesn’t wanted to be painted into a single corner. His first major project,, Blank Narrative, is due to drop in November and Gentleman Contender sat down with Glass Reflex to talk about his music and why we’ve spotted him on stage with Well$ recently.

Glass Reflex: What’s your real name, artist name, and how did you come upon that name?

Gentleman Contender: Holland Gallagher. My stage name is Gentleman Contender. Got it by chance, I used to make electronic music and so the name was kinda arbitrary to me, I just had a bunch of songs and I wanted to put them on the internet so me and my friends in my dorm room went to a random word generator and came up with Gentleman Contender. It was either that or Banded Intellect, but ultimately it was Gentleman Contender.

GR: How much different do you think your career would have been if you’d been Banded Intellect?

GC: If I’d been Banded Intellect, I would have made it by now, I think. That’s obvious. No, I don’t know, I never thought I was gonna rap.

GR: So you kinda got into rap accidentally?

GC: I guess so, I played my first show in my freshman year dorm and it was cool and it was really fun but I realized that no one wants to come and see you play keyboards or fuck with shit on your computer. For me it didn’t feel like I was giving a good enough performance. So I decided to put words into my songs and the first song I wrote was about evacuating hurricane Katrina because that was the most interesting thing that I felt like I had in my life. So I wrote that, and I listen to a lot of rap, so it’s just what came out.

GR: Hurricane Katrina was a significant thing for you and led to you being in North Carolina right?

GC: I was living in New Orleans, that’s where I was born and where I grew up and then Hurricane Katrina hit and we had to leave. I had family in Charlotte so we went there and then we found out that we couldn’t go back. My family had a friend in Raleigh so we moved over there. Weeks had gone by and I had been out of school, and so they put me in school in Durham and we ended up never going back and that’s how I ended up in NC, and ultimately probably why I ended up going to school at UNC.  

GR: So how did you get started recording?

GC: Initially, when it was just electronic stuff it was just programs so I didn’t really need to record vocals or anything. My dad happens to be an audio engineer and ran a recording studio for 30 years in New Orleans and he knows what he’s doing and we have a studio in his basement, so I recorded all of Blue Heron just in my house, in my basement, with my dad. And it was cool but it still wasn’t very serious so we didn’t put a lot of energy into mixing and mastering it. The pivotal point for me was this summer. From that point up until now I have gained 300% more insight and knowledge into the industry, and so I kind of know how to do things the right way now, or know how to go about getting people that do know how to do things the right way. And so on this, Blank Narrative, which is my next project, we definitely weren’t gonna settle to put anything out that wasn’t gonna hold up to anything else that you would hear anywhere else. The goal was to make it as professional as possible. Stylistically I was paying attention to everything I was doing, like if I had lyrics sometime I would rap them and it wouldn’t be right so I would sing them or we would cut them all together. Actually Well$ is executive producing the project so he had some say on it too, so it’s more “rappy” than anything else I’ve ever done but there’s also a lot more singing. Stylistically it’s just more concise even though there’s more rapping and more singing. Leroy is in the industry and so tracking him has allowed me to meet people and understand what goes on behind the scenes.

GR: You’ve been seen a lot lately  on stage is with Well$ as like as a hype man.

GC: People always ask me what I do with Well$ because you see me on social media and it’s kinda confusing. I was opening and he came to me afterward and said, “I fuck with your sound. Let’s hang out. Let’s talk music stuff.” I went to his house and played some beats and he was like, “Yo, come to New York with me I’m about to go up there and do some press runs,” and I was like “Yeah, of course.” So I went up there and from that point on he asked me to be his hype man for some shows, and I make some beats for him. We have a couple songs together that we haven’t released and it’s mutually beneficial because he has a vision of music that’s really different from mine, but it’s a mutual respect thing because my sound is like way out there in one direction and his sound is way out there in a different direction and when we make songs together it’s a different thing altogether. Basically, I’ll hype man for him and he’ll DJ for me every now and then. We’re just two musicians man.

GR: So you said the next thing is Blank Narrative, what’s different? When are you releasing it?

Though the product of Nigerian parents, Alex Affiah — Alex Aff while performing — is Durham to the core. Born and raised in the Bull City, he spent the past year away from college solely to work on music. This year he's back in classes but he's also more committed to his rap career than ever before. He sat down with Glass Reflex's Carter McCall to talk about Durham artists being overlooked, the meaning of his latest album, "Who Knows, Who Cares II," and why his parents don't listen to his music.

GR: What’s your name and how did you get started rapping?

AA: My name is Alex Aff, I’m a hip-hop artist from Durham, North Carolina. I got into it because I think at a young age — I’m the youngest in my family and I feel like some of my opinions and what I wanted to say was overlooked, because I was like the baby in the family. So I think I kind of made that transition into writing, just about all that stuff that I felt like I had to say, and that turned into rap. But I feel like I’ve been writing for a really long time.

I felt that I was really good, and some of the people I was listening to, I felt that I was kinda in that area, lyrically, and I felt like the stuff I was recording sounded similar. So I convinced myself that it was something that I could seriously do if I really set my mind to it.

GR: So you’re Durham, born and raised?

AA: Yeah Durham born and raised. My parents are Nigerian though. But I mean everyone always says they think I’m from New York upon meeting me. I’ve lived in Durham forever so, I’m a really Durham dude. I guess I don’t act like it, but then again I don’t know what that means.

CM: Yeah, what’s the identity of the Triangle? It seems like you can’t assign a style to it.

AA: Yeah I mean you can’t. I feel like a lot of artists are still finding out who they are as artists and still developing and evolving their sound to a place that’s comfortable with them. I think the good thing about Durham is like, let’s say if I was in Atlanta or New York, the industry would put pressure on those artists to make an Atlanta sound or a New York sound. If you’re from Durham and you do rap or whatever type of music, you can really do whatever you want and not feel pressure to try to conform to a certain style, because there’s no certain style in Durham.

GR: What’s your full name?

AA: My full name is Alexander Sam Ruben Affiah. And when I came up with Alex Aff — I didn’t want to make up a name that wasn’t my name, because it wouldn’t make sense for me personally because in my music I’m really just talking about me, what it’s like to be a dude like me… so I wanted my name to reflect myself. I think when I was younger, when I would freestyle in my room and stuff, I would say Alex, and just say “Aff” for some reason, and then in high school everyone was calling me “Aff” and shit, so I knew for a long time that would be my name.

GR: Did your parents immigrate to the United States?

AA: I guess it’s the classic story of, they wanted to create a better opportunity for us, you know, because I guess the opportunities weren’t there in Nigeria. I mean, I’ve never even been there so I don’t even know what it’s like. I just have the experiences through them, because they were born and raised in Nigeria, they have the accent and everything. We eat cultural food and stuff like that.

GR: What do they think about you rapping?

AA: They don’t like it at all. I think when I was like younger, it kinda was like, ‘Damn, they don’t support me!’ But I understand because I see them for who they are, they don’t even listen to rap music — in their mind, they just don’t understand the idea of it. When they think rap, they think, ‘Oh you’re selling drugs, you’re killing people!’ I guess they don’t understand the poetic side of it and the positive side of it — which I’m not mad at them, because I get it. So it doesn’t really bother me at all. But they don’t like it. I think it just got to a point where it was obviously like, ‘Alright, he’s obviously not going to do anything else.’

GR: So you wore them out?

AA: Pretty much. It took years to wear ‘em out. But I think they’re kind of sick of fussing me out about it.

GR: Do they listen to your music?

AA: No, they don’t listen to my music at all (laughs). I remember one time I played my dad like one song. One of the first videos I did. He was looking at it really sternly… and I guess he was like I mean, ‘If this is what you’re gonna do, do it.’ And then he was talking about like I should open a studio in Africa and help everybody over there, and I mean that’s how they venture off. It’s just like you should go to Africa and help them and stuff. So no they don’t listen to my music at all, to answer your question.

GR: What is your take on the hip-hop scene in Durham? How did you get familiar with it?

AA: There’s definitely a lot of dope talent (in Durham) — before I knew anybody, when I was trying to get to know people in the circuit, I was just going out to shows and seeing people perform, and I met people like The Koolest, Defacto Thezpian and other artists like that. I think it definitely has a lot of potential to be a really great area for music and the type of area that people look at for music. There’s definitely a lot of work that could be done. I think a lot of artists are ready for the challenge — I see a lot of potential in Durham. It’s interesting being from Durham, you know, because I think every artist in Durham feels overlooked or whatever or like nobody’s paying attention to them, so we all connect with each other because we’re all trying to tell our stories.

GR: Why do you think that is?

AA: People are overlooking… but I can’t get mad at people for overlooking. It’s like a two-sided story, I mean I feel like artists could be doing more to get themselves heard, and I feel like industry people should do a better job in understanding local talent and stuff like that, but it’s on both sides. Myself, I feel like artists could do more to make themselves be taken serious. Like maybe they’re not checking for us because we’re not doing enough to be taken serious. So I think that’s where artists need to decide ‘I need to do more, I need to do what it takes.’

GR: You recently dropped a new project — tell us more about that.

AA: Who Knows, Who Cares II. That’s kinda like been the theme of my life, because when I started doing music I came into it understanding that nobody was going to give that much of a fuck early on, because I didn’t have anything to make people care. So I came into it knowing that I have to work for people’s attention. I never expected for people to really be involved in what I was doing unless I did enough to feel like I deserve you liking my music. That’s why I take great pride in making sure the content is as good as possible, and make sure the videos are as good as possible. So if you check it out you might be interested in more. I give you the opportunity to care but I can’t force you to check out the music. As an artist I learned you can’t shove the music down somebody’s throat — that’s not going to make them want to check you out. I just try to keep it as genuine and quality as possible and make the music sound like me, how I want it to sound. And see how it resonates with people when they peep it. But Who Knows, Who Cares is just an idea, it’s just pretty much my story, me trying to get people to care and knowing that nobody really cares like that but doing the work to actually make people give a fuck.

GR: Is there frustration in that?

AA: It’s definitely frustration because I want people to listen to me, but at the same time, I have a realistic understanding of how much work it takes as an artist to really get heard and get people on you, so that definitely gives me more of a hustlle, I’m definitely willing to do so much just to and put out the best content I possibly can. I mean I used to get frustrated but I understand what I have to do. I feel like the results I get are parallel to how much I do and how hard I work. So I know the harder I work and the better I get I feel like more attention might come my way. So it’s just I feel like it’s just all on me, I put it all on myself.

GR: What’s next for you?

AA: Hopefully next year I’m able to expand with the music and stuff and just take it to a higher platform than I’m currently on right now. But I appreciate the journey and stuff, and people let me know that they really fuck with what I’m doing, and that kinda lets me know why I’m doing it in the first place. It’s more than just rap. I’m actually sharing — there’s a vulnerability with being a creative person period, just kinda doing what you want to and putting it out for people to critique and judge. And I’m comfortable with that because I’m comfortable with myself to be able to put something out that doesn’t sound like anything else, and I feel like people will understand that and want more. Rather than doing what everybody else is doing.

Ace Henderson has had a tough year. The smooth-spitting Raleigh artist was diligently working toward his third EP , Allen EP 2, in early 2014when his grandmother became sick and passed away. Shortly after he lost the entire project to a hard drive crash. These events caused Ace to do a serious evaluation and with the help of a monk and an Apple store he was able to find some much needed motivation. Ace sat down with Glass Reflex after his City Session to talk about the evolution of the project, adaptation, and much more.

Glass Reflex: So Ace, you've been busy lately.

Ace Henderson: Yes. I have an EP coming out on August 27 and it has been a really long process putting it together. I had the project completed in July but  I ended up losing everything because my computer crashed. So it's really been a process of trying to remake original products and still keep that same kind of integrity. But that's been two or three weeks of recording and writing everyday, rearranging because this is my third project I'm releasing. I said its a huge day because Aug. 27 is the birthday of my late grandmother. She passed in April. She was diagnosed with cancer in December. It was pretty much a ritual. School starts on the 25th and her birthday is on the 27th so I would always call her on the 27th. She'd say "how's school going? You started a new grade!" things like that so I wanted to do it as loose tribute to her. She was one of the closest people I've had in my life and also 27 is a perfect cube of three so with this being my third project it I've had three times the experience, three times the time to get everything together, it just represents the completeness of myself as an artist and as a person.

GR: What type of person was your grandmother?

AH: She was very crass, very mean to a lot of people. She had a set schedule of things she liked to do. She played bingo everyday at 7 p.m. smoked her cigarettes and lived life doing what she did and I was lumped into those core group of things. I'm her youngest son's only son so we had a really unique bond, like really tight. I would call her my girlfriend. Her legit first name is Baby, so I would be like "Oh that's my baby girl blah blah blah" and it was really just a very unique bond I've never shared with anyone else.

GR: How has your grandmother passing away driven you to complete the album?

AH: Learning about people, learning about how the world works. Sometimes you will get beat up but if you persevere and get through everything it will be O.K. At times I lacked faith in myself with music. I was upset with the music I was making for awhile after I lost everything because it wasn't full enough. In the project I talk about things I've talked about before with my friends that dealt with the drugs to help their family rather than just doing those things to be cool. I talk about my father. My father got sick for awhile. He got hospitalized the day before my 20th birthday, missed my first concert at the Lincoln Theatre. I just tied all that in emotionally.

GR: What does album mean to you?

AH: A new beginning in the sense that I've taken a lot of risks musically, but they were all things I knew I was capable of but I wasn't comfortable with myself enough yet. It represents me coming into myself with me naming it my first name, the name I share with my father, it has a different connotation if I was going to name a project with a different off-kilter name or something like because its so indicative of me with my name on it, it has to be authentic. It has to be original even down to the beat selection. Things like that.  This project is, for lack of a better way to put it, about me. I did a project earlier that was a little more conceptual about being a suburban American, Suburbia, and how people perceive everything to be perfect.

GR: You have a very philosophical approach. Where do you draw your life lessons from?

AH: It took a lot of people exiting my life to realize the absence of people isn't a really bad thing. It kind of forced me to become one with myself because some of my actions weren't the best.. I went to the Buddhist temple and a lot of the teachings are about self-preservation and everything within self because I've learned that the world's vibrations will coincide with how you move because everything you do resonates, whether its between us here or whoever else is outside. Good karma really does exist. I'm all about trying to establish my permanence via the things that I do and that I love. There's no better way to spread your purpose than just through love.

GR: How'd you become a Buddhist?

City Session, Episode 21 - Ace Henderson

City Session, Episode 20 - Wally Left

UNC-Charlotte sophomore Wally Left is ready to be a college dropout and pursue rap full time, but the young lyricist has a natural flow and talent that could make him North Carolina's next up-and-comer. All he needs is a album to put him out there and his upcoming EP, Sour Grapes, might just be the album to put him on the map. Wally sat down with Glass Reflex after his City Session performance to talk about how old hip  hop heads and new school kids need to calm down and learn to enjoy music again.

Glass Reflex: Tell us who you are and how you got started. Let’s start basic.

Wally Left: How I started rapping? Well, my name is Wally Left. I first started in middle school. I had a few friends who had started rapping. This was back around the time when TI and Young Jeezy were really, really popular. We all started rapping. I had a friend named Sidney — she was really good, the only good one in the crew. With her help, I got to the point where one summer, I started writing a verse a day. That was how I got to the point when I got moderately nice. From then I just kept with it and developed my skills.

GR: That’s some dedication.

WL: Yeah, it wasn’t like, the Kanye beat-a-day, but I was writing a whole bunch, though. I remember being on YouTube, writing to different beats.

GR: This was in Wake Forest?

WL: I went to Wakefield middle school, but I lived in Raleigh at the time. But over the summer I was in Oklahoma. My dad lives in Oklahoma, and that’s where I was doing my development.

GR: When did you decide to really take it seriously?

WL: I first started on YouTube — I was the typical “YouTube struggle rapper.” I would post my videos, but I would do a whole bunch of promotions in the comments. That brought in one thousand, two thousand views. That’s why I hate when people shit on the guys who put their advertisements in the comments, because it really does bring in views. I first started doing that, and then I got a little fan base and just picked up. I figured if you can get 50 people to fuck with you, you can get 1000, so I just kept with it.

GR: What do you think they saw in you?

WL: I got a lot of the hip-hop heads because they like the 90s beats and straight flows and bars. I picked up those guys, but I’m trying to develop to be more musical and not just “90’s beats/digest the raps.” They came to me for some of the more old-school stuff.

GR: So what is your style like now?

WL: The best part to me is writing. I don’t make the beats, so what else am I going to focus on? I’m not just going to bullshit the lyrics. The writing is really fun for me. Usually I just hear a beat and hope some lyrics come from me, just go from there. I like to have a topic. You know how trap guys write a verse about some bullshit? I try to do that, but I can’t bullshit a verse for the life of me. So I need a solid topic — if I have a topic, and I’m in the right mood and don’t have writers blocks, it just comes out.

GR: What makes hip hop good? What makes a good rapper?

WL: It’s different things that make a good rapper and a good artist, but I think you’re a good rapper if you have your own unique flow and lyrics. If you have flow and lyrics, you’re pretty solid.

GR: What makes you a good rapper?

WL: I’ve got flow and lyrics, so I’m pretty solid.

GR: What do you want people to come away from listening to you with?

WL: I think they walk away with a piece of me. My next project coming out, it’s really personal. And I told y’all I can’t write about bullshit, so everything comes from a personal space. People like it, or if it makes you feel good, or if you like the lyrics...whatever you can pull from it to apply for yourself — if it works for you, it works for me.

GR: What’s the next project?

WL: It’s called “Sour Grapes.” It’s produced by Hannibal Cane, a producer out of New York. That’s my man.

GR: So what’s some of that personal content? What are you focusing on?

WL: I wrote most of it in high school. Maybe winter of my senior year, which was two years ago. It’s just now coming out. I had girl problems back then, insecurities. The regular high school teenager stuff.

GR: But you don’t have girl problems or insecurities anymore?

WL: Not really, nah. I like to think I’ve developed in that area. I don’t really stress over stuff like that anymore.

GR: When’s that coming out?

WL: September, October. I’m trying to get some videos done. It’ll be out later this year. It’s an EP, it’ll be out on eight tracks. Definitely more developed musically than World Series. That was my last tape.

GR: What’s the hardest part about making music — not just rap music?

WL: If you put on a beat, you can just rap about how much better you are than guys. But I like to have a topic, and then I like to freestyle the hook or the chorus, and then I like to have a topic for the verses.

GR: Are you tempted to say “Fuck it” and go do this rap stuff, or are you committed to going down the college path?

WL: I think it’s a good back-up plan, a college degree is something good to have. Me rapping now isn’t something I have to choose between both at this point. It’s much better to do both at the same time. I’m going to graduate a year early, because I’m doing summer school. I’ll be out in two years anyway, and I’ll be 21, so I can do whatever the fuck I want.

GR: Let’s talk about the rap game.

WL: I’m really opinionated on this kind of thing.

GR: Let’s get into it. What’s the state of the rap union?

City Session, Episode 19 - Newman

Raleigh-native Newman brings an eclectic sound and introspective lyrics. His latest project, TheTRIP. focuses on the reprucusions of youth culture that is always "Turnt up". Newman sat down with Glass Reflex after his City Session to talk about his latest project.

GR: Tell us your name, what you do, and you started doing it.

Newman: My name is Newman, and I rap, I guess. I’ve always written, but as far as rap goes, I didn’t really start until the sophomore year of high school. My brother, he raps too, he got a microphone one day and we started messing around making tracks in Audacity.

GR: What kinds of stuff did you put out when you started?

Newman: So it was in high school and we were just hobby rapping, but toward the end of high school, we ended up being a little more serious about it. I just released my first real project earlier this year — it’s called The Trip, and I put it out on May 25. It took about a year or so before it really came together. That’s my first real thing right there.

GR: It seems like your stuff is pretty conceptually driven and eclectic.

Newman: It was real conceptual. The first part of it came with just the idea of a metaphoric trip, like leaving a place of comfort and going somewhere that’s unfamiliar. For me, that was leaving my home state of North Carolina, my home town of Raleigh, and traveling to Virginia where I’ve beenin school. It was a new experience for me. When you go somewhere that’s not familiar, you lose that sense of comfort and you become a little more vulnerable. Everything you thought you knew is tested. The other side of it is me observing my surroundings basically, the lifestyle of our youth. I feel like, in a sense, we’re wrapped up in “turning up,” you know. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. I’ve had a lot of debates with myself. But it’s the world I’m trying to explore, not with being addicted, but with being bound to a certain lifestyle. It doesn’t even have to do with substances. it can be people, places. But it started with the journey of leaving the comfort and addictive qualities of our youth.

GR: What was the transition of going to college like? You went to Virginia Tech, right?

Newman: I was excited to leave home. I hadn’t traveled a lot until I left for school, so I was just excited about a new experience. Quickly, in more ways than one, I discovered there are a lot of difficulties associated with leaving a place of comfort that’s familiar. That’s where a lot of the songs come from. They talk about the growth I’m still doing that happens when you leave home.

GR: What are some of those experiences, specifically?

Newman: I don’t want to make it sound like a revolutionary idea. They’re things we all deal with: there are the relationship aspects, the schooling, just being around new people that are different from people you grew up around. You have to mesh your lifestyle with theirs, and it’s a whole new environment. I knew it was going to be a challenge in a way, but I didn’t understand the extent of what that really meant. That’s what I’ve tried to delve into.

GR: And what’s it like being back in Raleigh?

Newman: That’s the dopest part. When you come home after you’ve been somewhere, you have so much respect and gratitude for where you come from. You appreciate it a lot more. I’m proud of Raleigh, of being from here. But now I’m only here around the holidays, so I cherish that time with my family and my homies so much more now. As we’re trying to shape our lives, it’s so much harder to be home as we’re trying to accomplish things. It’s about appreciation and trying to accomplish what I set out to when I left.

GR: What kind of sound have you been able to cultivate?

Newman: I haven’t been able to find the exact sound or the voice that I want yet. For me, it was about trying to experiment and show a variety of things that I was capable of from the get go, or at least attempt to. I wanted to be as eclectic as possible and experiment with different sounds. Even if I never do find a specific sound, I kind of like it that way, to be able to tackle different realms and exist in different mediums in terms of rap music. I like the whole genre-blending thing. My boy, he goes by the producer name Bougie, we work for most of the project, and he does a good job with experimenting with different sounds and pulling from different genres that might not be typical hip hop sounds. It’s cool.

GR: We’ve noticed that the sound of this area can be kind of hodge-podge. What’s your experience been with that?

Newman: North Carolina artists, or maybe even east coast artists, because on the west coast you have that distinct sound, and further down south, there’s that real slow, screw stuff. New York has their sound. Here, we’re allowed to experiment and find different links. That’s something I love to do, and I’m all for it.

GR: What’s the process of trying to find a sound like?

Newman: For me, it’s almost just like it’s allowed me to put a mirror in front of me, and when the song comes out, I try to listen to it and hear the character and make sense of what I’m saying sometimes. I want to find part of myself through that. Figuring yourself out through the song, basically. It’s been very self-revealing for me.

GR: How so?

Newman: I can look a lot of the stuff I attempted earlier on and then everything I wrote after the fact and it’s surprising to me sometimes that it’s the same dude.

GR: What’s changed?

Newman: The Trip, it’s a story with a progression. In the middle part, I can see myself where I became the most vulnerable, but I can see toward the end of it, there was maturation and an understanding of what’s necessary to get through it. As far as being better as a son, as a brother, and just being a better person. You see those faults in yourself along the way and you can only try to correct those.

GR: It’s almost a bold move to take that approach. It’s not as braggadocious as a lot of rap, at least.

Newman: That’s what felt natural when I was making songs. It was my way of explaining to myself sometimes what was going on. And i have to give credit to my influences. Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco, those two guys were the ones who really got me to start rapping. They always have some kind of message they wanted to convey, so that was in the back of my mind throughout the project. I always wanted it to have some substance to it.

GR: So do you have any other influences in your work that people might be surprised to find out about?

Newman: Outside of rap, I’ve always been a big Beiruit fan. Beachouse, too. I’ve always like alternative lyrics, because hip hop can be very direct. But they take a kind of vague approach to what they’re saying, and that can apply to a lot of different situations. I like that style of writing, and I try to incorporate that.

GR: What are you trying to say with your art, then? What do you want people to take away?

Newman: With The Trip, I was trying to describe my environment, what’s around me. I talked to my friends, and they thought that addressing the issue like this doesn’t always work. But I always feel like the first step to addressing anything is to talk about it. I’m hoping someone else feels the passion behind it and starts a conversation that helps them solve something. All the homies, we have a collective we’re trying to grow called TSA. We’re all based in Raleigh. I have some homies who are based in Virginia, but we’re all trying to work on our craft and get better. The “s” is a dollar sign, too. T$A. They’re all funny as shit. All of them. I can just sit back and listen to them. But it’s still competitive when we get into it — we’re actually heading to Greensboro tomorrow to have a little bootcamp thing.

GR: What are you working on?

Newman: A lot of collaborations. That’s the cool thing about having a lot of people around you. Everyone has as different perspective to bring. We like to push each other and have a good time.

GR: Does “T$A” stand for something?

City Sessions, Episode 18 - Drique London

Raleigh rapper Drique London has made some rookie mistakes. Coming up he thought the only way to get noticed was talking about how fly he was, then reality hit, hard. Needing a way to vent and motivated by his family, he hopes his next project, Sound of the Rising Sun will show a more genuine side of the rapper.

Glass Reflex: So, Drique, tell us who you are, what you do.

Drique London: I’m Drique London, and I’m an artist from Raleigh, North Carolina. That’s pretty much it, man. I listen to music, collect sneakers, pretty much chill. I do a lot of chilling.

GR: How long have you been rapping?

DL: I’ve been rapping since I was a kid. I started actively doing it for real in 2007. Dropped my first mixtape in 2007, chilled for a little while, got back into it in 2008 and haven’t stopped since.

GR: What got you into it seriously?

DL: A lot of it is that it was something I always wanted to do. I say I always blame Snoop. If I’d never saw the “Gin and Juice” video, I’d have never wanted to rap. I don’t know anything else to do but music. I don’t know anything else but this. That video was so cool, man. There was something about it. I thought, “if he’s doing it, I want to do it.” You can’t tell me anything.

GR: How’s it been since then? Take us through your career.

DL: I started by putting out The Monster in 2006. I did that in my sister’s bathroom. I put that through my high school, and they thought it was cool. Then I put out the Uncool volume one, which started this whole thing. Since then it’s been like 10 tapes, but I dropped my first album in May 2011, which really opened me up to the blog world. Now I’m working on my next album, Sound of the Rising Sun.

GR: What’s the inspiration behind that?

DL: I’m finally at that point where I’ve found that sound I’ve been looking for. That’s the sound. It also represents the fact that every time the sun comes up is a new day, a new opportunity.

GR: So you’ve found your sound. What is that sound?

DL: I don’t know, just...In my early stages, I only rapped about stuff that I thought was cool: girls, sneakers, hanging out, being fly, stuff like that. But now I’m using this to speak on my issues like a diary. I’m really opening up. I just feel comfortable with it at this point.

GR: People talk about how there’s no real sound in this area, in central North Carolina. What do you think about it?

DL: I don’t feel like North Carolina has a sound. Everybody has their own way of making music. We’re not like New York or Atlanta where everybody’s got that one thing. We don’t have that thing that separates us.

GR: Do you think that’s a good thing or a bad thing?

DL: It’s good in some ways and bad in other ways. It’s bad because some people don’t know who they are, they’re just doing whatever is hot. It’s a good thing because you really can’t pinpoint us — people can’t say, “Oh, that guy’s from North Carolina!”

GR: How are you making a niche for yourself, then?

DL: I’m Madrique, basically. My real self. The drums are harder, the sounds are harder. I’m my honest self. Right now it’s at that point where I’m really going to let the music really speak for me.

GR: You said it’s been rapping about what you’re supposed to rap about, but now you’re getting into more personal stuff?

DL: Yeah, the independent weekly did a review of my album. They said “Drique is dope, but he made some freshman mistakes; he’s bragging.” It taught me I needed to sit back and figure out who my target audience is — who am I rapping for? What am I doing, and why am I doing this? Is it to brag and boast, or am I here for the long run?

GR: Even in the session, you hit on some pretty heavy stuff. Where are you drawing from?

DL: A deep place, man. I have a problem with opening up. It’s an issue. I hold everything in. Music’s my only way I can actually vent. I won’t tell my family, my girl, or anything. With this album, it’s about the death of my brother, how that affected me, how me falling out with my friends. I’m touching on past, deep issues in a way I’ve never done before. When they get the project, they’re really going to know Madrique and not just Drique London.

GR: How long ago did your brother pass away?

DL: Last year. It sucked, but it motivated me. It taught me life it short. It wasn’t just him, either. My grandma died a month later; my Aunt just passed like a month ago. My mom died three years ago. It sucks. All those deaths in the last year freaked me out, so I’m like I need to do something, I have to get out of here. It’s not just for me or my passion anymore. I’m the youngest of my brothers and sisters, but I have the tool to make us better, to do something. In my family, everyone had talent, everyone tried music, but nobody took it there. I feel like I’m the last hope. The curse has to be broken.

GR: You said “get out of there?” What do you mean?

DL: Get out of Raleigh. Get out of that mindframe of just going to work, having an apartment, a car, a job as a way of living. That’s not living. So I have to get out of that mindframe of rap leading to money, cars, and clothes, or thinking drugs are the only way out. Stuff like that.

GR: What’s the next step?

DL: I just want to touch people, to tour, to travel. I sit at my 9-5 and look out the window all day thinking, “I have to get out of here.” I probably do more writing than working. I just really want to do it. I want to build opportunities for my family, just take things to different places.

GR: What’s the timeline for the album?

City Sessions, Episode 17 - DURM Hip Hop Summit Group Cypher

Toon and The Real Laww's 3rd Annual DURM Hip Hop Summit was held August 16th, 2014 at multiple venues throughout downtown Durham, including Intrepid Life, American Underground and Motorco Music Hall. As a special edition to "City Sessions" we caught up with 11 MCs involved with the summit in between sets for an impromptu cypher at Mercury Studios, broken into three episodes.

Cypher #1 featured four young NC-based rappers: Cosmoe (@Cosm0e), Cayso (@incaseyousayso), Lord of the Fly (@L0rdofthefly) and J Rowdy (@RowdyLife).

Check Cyphers #2 and #3 below, featuring C. Shreve the Professor (@seeshreve), Mike L!ve (@LongLiveLive) and Tucson (@HIPHOPTU)... 

City Sessions, Episode 16 - Josephus III

Josephus III believes spoken word poetry should be in every classroom in North Carolina. As director of the Poetry Project in Greensboro, NC, Josephus mentors local high school students through spoken word workshops to help find their voices. He sat down with Glass Reflex after his City Session performance to talk about the important role poetry can have inspiring kids.

Glass Reflex: Is your stage name Josephus III?

Josephus III: It is. It’s actually just Josephus, but I am the third. Josephus was a famous writer, a historian, actually. So when you Google “Josephus,” he’ll come up first, because he wrote Antiquity of the Jews. It made me easier to find if I was Jospeheus III.

GR: So how did you get involved in spoken word?

J3: In school, I think, like everyone else. I tell people I remember writing an essay about my father in the fourth grade, and I won a fourth-place prize for it. That was my first time receiving a positive accolade for the written word. That was when I knew I had something. It wasn’t first, second, or third, but it was something, a cookie from the cookie jar. In high school, I wrote more poetry, and in college, I went to my first open mic, and I thought, hey, I could do that! Back then, we were reading from trapper-keepers, your poem was in a plastic sleeve. That was before memory came into play. The art grew inside of me, it was a great way to express myself, and people were able to accept me for who I was, what I thought, and how I felt. I thoguht it was a beautiful feeling.

GR: What was the transition — how did you get from poet to teacher?

J3: That’s an interesting question. I was volunteering.  A friend of mine, who was also a poet, started teaching after she graduated from college, and she asked me to come volunteer with some of her students. I saw how poetry made their eyes light up and how it was part of the curriculum, so I started thinking about how I could use my work and my words to influence them to want to read and write. How better to encourage them than to use song lyrics, hip hop, and their own feelings and emotions? Too often, students can’t relate to what they’re reading, which makes it difficult to understand or summarize, but if you can relate it to their lives, it makes it a lot easier.

GR: Curriculum  in North Carolina is kind of a hot topic with the Common Core debate. Why do you think poetry is something important to learn for kids?

J3: it allows you to express yourself. A friend told me there are two ways for your stories to be told: by you, or by someone else. So our voices, our ideas, are important. The sooner we’re able to relate to that, that makes us a stronger person, period. It goes outside creativity or literacy. It allows us to express ourselves.

GR: And spoken word poetry, in particular? Why does that appeal to young people so much?

J3: Spoken word is very close to hip hop. It’s a combination of theatre, creative writing, and the power of your voice. You can literally jump up and down, scream, love, feel, grow, all at the same time. The audience can feel what you wrote and why you wrote it. People don’t listen enough, but on that stage, all ears and eyes are on you. If you only had your 10 seconds of fame, would you want to do it loud, bold and proud, or meek and quietly? You only get one shot.

GR: Tell us about your involvement with teaching poetry in Greensboro.

J3: The Poetry Project in Greensboro is something I started, probably about seven or eight years ago.

GR: Why did you want to start it?

J3: I thought there were a lot of basketball courts, soccer fields, tennis courts, but if you wanted to be a poet or a writer or a rapper, where did you go to hone your craft? So we created the workshop, a place you could go to learn how to enunciate, how to pronounce your words and emote your emotions. Kids flocked to it. It was their chance to be heard, to show what they had to offer their community. So we started open mics, workshops, and working with teachers on how to use poetry in their classrooms to promote literacy. That’s snowballed into some great opportunities just in the last year alone: We performed at the Special Olympics. We got a chance to go up to DC to work with the National Leadership Conference, and just came back from being in Philadelphia. Once you realize you have something positive to say and the world is listening, it changes your perspective on life.

GR: So what kinds of impacts have you seen on kids?

J3: Countless, but the most important are validation and acceptance. Sometimes we’re our own worst enemies. Once we start to believe in ourselves, in our voices, that changes how we stand, how we look, how we speak. Once that confidence and clarity begins to show, it changes your mannerisms and the way people perceive you because of how you speak about yourself and hold a conversation. Once the youth start to get a better sense of who they are, it makes them more confident, and with confidence comes so many things.

GR: What was the poem you performed for us?

J3: That was called “Dear You.” It was a letter to the youth on my team this year, about what I’ve seen them go through and come from. It doesn’t matter where you started: there’s no lid on the jar to where you can go. There are infinite possibilities, but you have to start to see past your limitations and dream, and imagine, and create it. If you can write it, you can believe it, and you can achieve it. We all forget that sometimes. We just want to be seen and recognized and remembered. The poem lets them know that I see them, that I believe in them, that I care.

GR: How long have you worked with them?

J3: Some of them, it’s their first year, but others joined when they were sophomores, juniors, in high school, and now they’re sophomores, juniors in college. Sometimes I like to not show up on purpose and see if they’re still going to write, if they can lead in my absence. I’m not going to be around forever. The way to know your impact is to see how they act when you’re not around. Can they teach the lesson you taught them to someone else? Can they use their poetry, their god-given gift, to change themselves and the people around them?

GR: How does one get involved with the project?

City Sessions, Episode 15 - Joshua Gun

Joshua Gunn is Durham through-and-through. Growing up in the Bull City and making a name for himself as a freestyle assasin as early as 11, Gunn has been trying to take Durham mainstream for almost a decade now. He sat down with Glass Reflex after his City Session after returning from recent trip to Europe to talk about the lack of a trademark North Carolina sound and the difficulties of toeing the line between being yourself and commercially appealing.

Glass Reflex: So J. Gunn — tell us who you are and what you do.

Joshua Gunn: I’m a hip hop artist from Durham, the Bull City, and I make people’s dreams come true.

GR: And whose dreams are you making come true lately?

JG: Mine. Lately, I’ve been making my dreams come true in the sense of spreading my music around the world, doing some international gigs and radio. My dreams are coming true right now.

GR: Yeah, tell us about the trip you took to Europe.

JG: It started off as a leisurely trip, but some producers I knew over there were like, “why don’t you do some gigs while you’re over here?” I was just going for vacation initially to see my family in Berlin. Shoutout to DJ Duquesne in Germany for helping put the vision together. I was able to latch onto what were essentially open mics and turning them into real gigs.

GR: Tell us about your humble beginnings and how you got from there to Berlin.

JG: Berlin, Germany, is home to me. So that’s a big thing for me and my family to go back there. But Durham is where I grew up, and that’s home to me. I came up battle rapping, and I wanted to be a super huge star. That kept me hungry, not matter what, but my love for hip hop, or for a certain type of hip hop, might limit my appeal in the United States. But I see a very large market for the type of shit I do internationally. I’m working my best to network over there, work with DJs and producers over there to make that happen.

GR: So you grew up battling? What was that like?

JG: I’m a short, light-skinned guy, and I started rapping when I was 7 years old, and so I’ve got to find a way to make people think I’m dope, because I think I’m dope. I’m making tapes at home, so battling was the natural progression for me. And I realized I was kind of funny, that I could hit ‘em with a couple punchlines. Coming from a 10- or 11-year-old, it’s even funnier. I did a battle at WXDU up at Duke. They had a battle called “The Duel of the Iron Mics” at the time, and I was 13 when they did that. I had never officially battled before, just played around with my homeboys. I didn’t write anything — but I got there and realized everyone had written raps. But that actually played to my advantage, because they’re not ready for this little kid to be on the stage. I’m just picking them apart: “You’re old, you’re fat, you’re ugly.” And the crowd was just eating it up. Their punchlines couldn’t work, because they weren’t ready for a 13-year-old kid. Anything they said about how they’d shoot me up or they sell more drugs than me, that wouldn’t work, you know what i mean? I loved it. I realized I was onto something, and it changed my life, really. It’s followed me for almost 20 years now.

GR: One of the things we want to do with City Sessions is showcase the talent in Durham and the Triangle, which isn’t really on the map. Tell us a little about your view on the Durham and Triangle hip hop community.

JG: I think we have one of the richest scenes. I’ve had the chance to perform in every major market in the United States. I’ve been to New York City, Atlanta, D.C., LA, Dallas. And I’ve seen these scenes, and each of them has a mainstream artist that’s come up. But I feel like Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill have doper artists than those places I’ve just named. But I don’t feel like the industry really respects us as a marketplace, and I know this for a fact because I had the chance to get my albums to two major names in the industry. I don’t know if I should say the names — but you know what, I will: I met Lyor Cohen and Kevin Liles at Q in downtown Durham, randomly. Apparently they were here for a funeral. James DuBose, I was once signed to his old label, he’s a mutual friend with Kevin, and he passed me the music. And he tells me Kevin listened to my CD the entire ride up to New York, and he loved it. I said “that’s great, that’s dope! Something’s going to happen!” But  I was told Kevin said, “Nah. North Carolina’s not big enough to have two big artists.” And because you already have J-Cole, who is pretty similar to J. Gunn with respect to that surface shit, he said he didn’t think there was any way you could market two artists from North Carolina. And that hurt me, individually, but it made me realize that’s how people perceive North Carolina, as this tiny marketplace. But we’re the 10th-largest state with a huge hip-hop scene, and more importantly, a huge college scene, which is driving hip hop artists across the world. I used to always say artists and people weren’t collaborating and were pulling each other down, but I don’t think that anymore. My shows always sell out, and part of that is because artists and people I know come to every show. So I don’t think it’s that, I just think the music industry is stupid. Why can’t you put a bunch of North Carolina artists on when you’ve got so many universities who are going to pack their shows and become stars just like Cole did? So that’s my thought on North Carolina hip hop: We have the dopest scene in the country. The music industry needs to stop being fucking stupid.

GR: So what’s it going to take to get there?

JG: Somebody, and this is my current goal, is going to have to pop off in the way that artists like Houston do. Somebody like Zero, who people nation-wide haven’t heard of, but is selling hundreds of thousands of records around the state. The problem we have is our radio sucks. Houston radio plays Houston artists, five out of 10 records. That will never happen here, because our radio sucks. I just left a meeting with Brian Dawson [from K97.5], a great guy individually, and I’m very good friends with a lot of people at 102 Jamz, but their playlists suck, they won’t play your records, and they won’t support local artists. It’d take an incredibly good artist here to start selling records here. A lot of people adopt the notion that they’ve gotta go to Cali or New York. But that’s not going to do anything for the state. Until someone can make some money and create a marketplace on their own, no one’s going to respect us.

GR: Is that why you say if you’re going to make it, you’re going to make it in Durham?

JG: Yeah. I went to Cali for a little bit. I was trying to get my break, but I realized everyone in Cali is trying to get their break. I was working with James DuBose. The thing people kept asking me while I was there was, “What does Durham sound like?” When people hear me, they hear East Coast hip hop, which is what I grew up on. So I decided I should come back here, feel the city, and develop a sound that sounds like Durham. I don’t really know how to do that, but I’m trying, you know.

GR: What are some of the characteristics that make Durham what it is?

JG: Good question. I named my last album Broken Glass Half Full. What that meant to me was what I see in Durham. Durham is the epitome of perseverance. Everyone outside of Durham says, “Don’t go there.” A lot of businesses have turned their backs on Durham, but the city, the spirit of the city is that no matter what happens, we’re going to keep hustling and keep pushing and keep striving so that the eternal optimism is the spirit of Durham; the pride in our grittiness, our warehouse districts, our history. But how do you take that and turn it into a sound? We don’t necessarily have an accent or a sound of music because of our college scene. People come here from all over. It’s a melting pot of cultures, so it’s hard to find a unique sound. My music is honest to who I am, but trying to speak for a whole city is much harder.

GR: Some of your verses are about how record deals don’t matter. You’re distancing yourself from what the mainstream world thinks about rap. What are some of the ideas, the influences you’re wrestling with in your music?

JG: That is a timely question, because I’m wrestling with a lot of political ideas, with everything that’s happening in Israel and the Ukraine.I’m very passionate about an alternative version of history. I’m getting a new understand of people like Castro and Qaddafi, and just realizing that the western education we get is just one side of history. But I’ve always been told to tone that down a bit, to not be overly political. But I asked, what if my next project I focused on those themes and made it intentionally deep, intentionally intellectual, intentionally heavy, and used that to differentiate that from my peers. But even that is difficult for me because I’m not just an intellectual. I like going out drinking and parties and girls, and all those other parts of hip hop, too. I try to put all of that in my music, but I think when I do that, it lumps me in that same boat with everybody else. So maybe going in the political space, because that’s where I’m most comfortable, maybe that’s what I’ll do.

GR: So what do you want people to take out of your art, in the end?

GR on IG: Strangers on a Train

Watching them hope. Watching them complain. Watching them pass.

This is the mantra of Francesco Nati’s @Project_Passengers project. For Francesco his daily commute on Rome’s metro is almost a sacred experience. The 33-year-old PR & event manager was curious about his fellow passengers. Like many instagrammers, he wanted to photograph them, study them. But he was equally interested in what they were thinking. Within those confined train cars, Franceso imagines the most personal and profound that might be playing out between the earbuds of his fellow passengers.

Francesco took over the @glassreflex instagram account last week to share some of his photographs. Above are some of his best.  Click through to view the passenger’s thoughts as imagined by Francesco. “I wonder what people really desire. I'm curious about hope and faith. I'm curious about God among us.”

                                                                                         —Francesco Nati

Franceso Nati is a PR & event manager based in Rome, Italy.