Words by FSD contributor Leland Bonner (@lelandbfresh)
Chicago. The city of ‘Broad Shoulders,’ hella haters, and up-and-coming rap sensation Rockie Fresh. The 21-year-old rapper originally out of Homewood-Flossmoor, Illinois isn’t doing too bad for himself these days. After the release of his debut mixtape, Rockie’s Modern Life, back in 2009 and promptly followed by a successful sophomore release, The Otherside, Rockie has since been named one of BET’s newest Music Matters artists, traveled on a national tour with Fall Out Boy’s lead man Patrick Stump, and is even in contentions to be named of one XXL’s Freshmen 10 of 2012. And with a new mixtape entitled Driving 88 released today, he’s confidant that he can put the city of Chicago on his back and breath new life into Hip-Hop. Not too shabby for a kid who got his start winning rap battles in the parking lot of his old high school.
“ As corny as it may sound, my actual rap career started in the parking lot of H-F. Towards the end of my junior year of high school after just messing around freestyling in class, I had went ahead and battled against this pretty well known rapper around school. I ended up beating him and winning a few bucks from it and the rest was history. That’s when I realized I could do a lot more with this rapping thing.”
As schoolwork struggled to keep the attention of the aspiring MC and the possibility of becoming a successful artist became more of a reality, Rockie made the conscious decision to concentrate his efforts more on his rapping instead of his books.
“I always understood the whole concept of school, and actually when I was a bit younger I skipped a grade so I’ve always been a bright kid, but around 7th grade I just knew school wasn’t for me. I knew I wanted to be successful in life, but I just wanted to find a way that I could get to it without having to go to school.”
A lot easier said than done most would argue, but with his strict Christian upbringing and an unmistakable drive, young Rockie began paving the road to his own success, but not before doing a semester at a junior college in which he describes as “one of the worst experiences in my life.”
Equipped with talent, drive, and a cult following, you would think that would be enough to start somewhat of a decent rap career right? Well…not exactly. Mr. Rockie Fresh had a few things going against him as well. He kinda goofed around in high school a lot so nobody really took him seriously, he wasn’t from “the hood” and went to a pretty decent high school in the suburbs, and in addition he was a regular attendee of Salem Baptist Church of Chicago. Overall good kid, but not your typical rapper type.
“Mannnnnnn, when I started rapping there weren’t a lot of people who took me serious due to my Christian background and the fact that I went to H-F. I really just used my Christian upbringing as a way to keep me grounded as an individual and being in church all the time really taught me how to command a setting and really get my point across.”
And get his point across is indeed what he’s done.
Boasting lyrics like, “Lil nigga in XXL and I ain’t tambout baggy clothes,” has caught the attention of record execs as well as numerous media outlets.
When asked was he “secretly” signed to a major label, he responded: “Labels have definitely been at me. I have real big dreams with this music and I know what the music is worth. We’ve been negotiating some things but it’s nothing official yet.”
We may have to wait a while to hear a major label debut from Rockie, but in the meantime our ears have been blessed with his new mixtape, Driving 88.
“My focus with Driving 88 is it to be a gateway for people who wanna be successful and to motivate them to reach their goals. The whole concept of the tape is based off of Back to the Future and the speed limit the Delorean had to be at in order for it to get where it wanted to go. That being 88 miles per hour. I kinda wanted it to be a metaphor for progression and really getting to where you wanna go in life at your own pace and at your own speed.”
The mixtape has been well received so far and is indeed his best work to date. “I’m hoping the tape will definitely help me in the race for the XXL cover. I feel like I’m a good representation of Chicago and if given the opportunity to be apart of that group will get a lot more people knowing my name a lot quicker. I really wanna put on for my city as well as help others in Chicago. I’m definitely doing some work with King Louie and I’ll just leave it at that.”
Rockie ‘s got next and there’s no doubt in that. Time, effort, and a lot of rapping has got him to this point.
“There’s always a point in life where a boy really makes that transition into becoming a man and I’m there now. I’m not in school and I don’t have a 9-5, but I’m using this rap music to really support my lifestyle and get to a comfortable place where I can really make the music that I’ve dreamed about for a very long time.”
Download Rockie’s Driving 88 now, and purchase tickets to his release party at Reggie’s Thursday night (1/26/12).
very grounded individual..wish him the best