My first influence for music was my dads 45's and wax albums. From sam cooke to otis redding back to masters of ceromony all I thought was in musical notes and tones. I even wanted my computer to make music for me it wasnt ready for me though. I would zone out and listen to those albums all day and nite. I had to have the stereo, the next thing I started doing was making mixtapes and selling them on cassette to friends. I would listen to all the hot tracks and then use my moms one turntable double cassette deck to record them and sell em for 4-5$ I dont think anything was like once I discovered Hip-hop through LL Cool J and Slick Rick though. I started memorizing their rhymes and then I started to add my own words and it sounded cool, but I didnt really think much about it, until one morning in my second alternative school my english teacher Mr. Cohen told me "You have to write something, this is an english class. Write a poem", I didn't want to because I thought poems was soft, to my suprise he sent it to the village voice and it won second place! Now I was a published poet @ 15 but I didnt have any guidance so I left it alone. I wrote a bunch more but I didn't know who to give it to because by then i was kicked out of that school. I still was writing poems though, but I didn't know what to do with them, then around my friends Reece, K.K. and Lavare (RIP) they showed me how to make them into hip-hop songs. We would rap anywhere people let us in the mall the roof the trainstation in your house in the park. Everywhere nobody's place was taboo. I started hanging with my dawg Shareef (RIP) more, he introduced to some party throwers, they used to let me get on the mic and rock out everytime they had a party. So I became addicted to mic and the crowd loving what was coming out my mouf throu them speakaz. We became hood celebrities, people would come for blocks to hear us rap and battle. So thats it peoples, gents and ladies my first 5 influences into this game, Comment ask a few questions wassup!!! O Rakeyz YRAC