I moved to Memphis from Chicago in 2013. I had some issues paying for school, so a lot of what I thought my life was going to look like shifted drastically. Suddenly, I realized that all my safe bets were not actually safe at all. The things I built my identity around quickly crumbled, and internally I was at ground zero. But I now know that God was allowing certain things to happen to get me ready for the next part of my purpose. The paradigm shift that came from that experience was that there is no such thing as playing it safe. So if I can’t guarantee things working out, then I might as well give it my all toward the things that matter the most. And that was the mentality that set me up to become ready to meet the person who completely embodies that energy: IMAKEMADBEATS.
MAD and I met at the U of M and had a brief exchange that left both of us with lasting impressions of each other. A couple of years later, two days after my twenty-first birthday, I went to a Masta Ace show because MAD was opening for him and I was curious to see what that would look like. What I saw was a producer on stage playing his beats and being appreciated as an artist. He invited me over to his home the next day. We spoke for a long time, and the conversation ended with me asking, “What do I need to do to be successful as a producer? Where do I start?” After a bit of contemplation, he said, “Just come around.” That’s exactly what I did every chance possible. That spring, he came to me and said he wanted to start a label and wanted me to be the first person to join the journey with him. We didn’t have a name yet, but I had zero doubts that this was my path. UNAPOLOGETIC. was created for people like me. I was blessed because God’s grace & sovereignty put me in the position to help build the very environment required for me to survive as a creative.
The only word that comes close to describing what it feels like to be here celebrating a decade of UNAPOLOGETIC. is simply THANKFUL.