video premiere + interview: rapper city james discusses his purpose, his new project & reveals debut video

Flashback to June 2013 and it is my first time at Da Poetry Lounge in Hollywood, California. I am a fresh faced, 100% newbie poet, just excited to watch others grace the stage. Cue City James walking to the mic, poignant, reserved, yet powerful. That night, he performed a poem about his grandmother that was probably the sole reason I came back to visit DPL for a second time. He was clearly close to my age but commanded the stage with such a presence, all eyes were glued on him. Now, we are older, I’m no longer a teenager but 21 and City James is 22, an aspiring rapper, with goals to take the LA scene by storm with his new project NINETYSIX.

By KiNG, AFROPUNK Contributor 

Q: What is NINETYSIX?

A: My current project is this song I wrote NINETYSIX prod. by Fatir. I feel like it’s weird to call a song a project but at the same time as my first drop I wanted to make sure that it serves it’s purpose as its own entity. The thought process between the video is showing a cat who is tryna make his paper by a by any means necessary approach to live large like them boys on the tv and to provide for his family. Problem is in rap we always hear about the fly shit that pops off when taking that risk never the downfall of what could happen. So I’m just giving another side to tell the full story.

Q: What is your purpose?
A:I found my purpose at 13 and have never looked back which is to serve for real for real. And I think in this life I’m destined to do that via art. Art dead ass saved my life and I want to implement that same type of force and save somebody from themselves one day. Being a human in general I feel it’s our responsibility to have some form of social commentary especially in our art. We art prophets in a sense so if we’re not speaking the people’s truth we will never have them on our side. I think it’s how you go about it that is the tricky part because you don’t want to be the man always preaching but you do want to be the man that’s always putting people up on game, there’s a difference.

Q: What is your best quality?

A: My best quality I would say is not passing any judgement but my worst would have to be me never backing down from anything. It often times leads me into shit that I can’t control and it’s like I know I need to shut up but the other half of me is like naa son keep it going. I’m proud of never giving up on my dreams. I never have and I never will.I want to be an EGOT winner, I want to give back to the streets, I want to provide my fam with generational wealth, I want to teach kids that being true to the person you are is the realist shit you can ever do

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Q: Why should we care?

You should care about me and my music because I will always be a reflection of you. I’ve been where you are. I quit that job before, I got fired from that job before, I was at that bus stop, I got ran up by dem boys before, I lived with nothing before, I lived with what felt like everything before. I really feel like I can relate to the masses and my voice is supposed to be used to tell your story. God got us all, believe that.

You can find City James on social media:

Instagram: @City.James

Soundcloud: CITY JAMES

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* KiNG is a 21 year old gender fluid, bisexual, biracial, spoken word poet, as well as co-founder of SLiM Poetry (an open mic at the Container Yard in the Arts District). Through writing and performing, I seek to create dialogue and develop a rapport with readers/audience members. I also intend to shatter stigma pertaining to mental health, feminism, racism, and anything social justice related as well as encourage creative communities to integrate and innovate. 

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Instagram: @king.among.men