When did you start rapping? What got you into it?

I started rapping when I was nine years old. It was just a cool thing to do. In fifth grade I was walking home one day and my friend Nathan spit me a rhyme that he wrote about his little sister. I had this tiny notebook my mom gave me and I flipped it to the back page and wrote a verse to a Ludacris beat and that was my first rhyme. After that, it was sort of inconsistent. It‰’s not like I was writing every day, I wrote mostly if I had to get something off my mind.

Who was your biggest inspiration?

My favorite rapper, back when I started rapping, was 50 Cent and Young Jeezy. So when I first started rapping, I rapped about things I didn‰’t know about. I tried to rap about guns and violence because that is what I heard so I tried to rap about it, but over time the influences changed. When I picked it back up in ninth and 10th grade, right before I went back to boarding school, I listened to Drake. So when I wrote stuff, I wrote just to get girls. I wrote to this song “Throw it in the Bag” by Fabulous, and got a lot of attention from the girls. Back then, though, I didn‰’t like all the attention. I liked rapping, but not the attention from it and I stopped for a while.

Now I don‰’t mind the attention as much. Now I get inspiration from many different artists. When I listen to rap, I don‰’t listen as much for lyrical content but what they do with their raps, how they carry the beat. Jay-Z has always been my favorite rapper, since I was a kid, because the first rap song that I heard was “Hard Knock Life” in 1998. His story-telling ability and his flow are dope. In middle school I started to listen to Kanye West as well. The way he says certain words in his raps and the way he drops a punch line makes his raps hit. A$AP Rocky‰’s flow and the way he is able to carry a beat is dope as well. I take little things from every rapper, little skills, are try to incorporate them into my own style.

Who do you think you sound like?

I don‰’t think I sound like anyone in particular. The beats I rap over (produced by Kojo) don‰’t sound like anyone else‰’s beats so the sound does not resemble anybody‰’s sound. I think I‰’m more of a combination of the rappers that I listen too. When I first started rapping though, I wanted to be just like Drake. I wanted to rap about girls and money, but now I am more focused on just being me. I sound more like myself; I sound like whatever experiences I am going through when I write.

Does Kojo make all your beats?

He‰’s made almost every beat to date. The few beats he hasn‰’t made are “I‰’m Home” which is over a dancehall beat. My roommate, and best friend, in boarding school my senior year was Jamaican so when I was with him we would listen to a lot of dancehall. There was a song called “Summertime” by Vybz Kartel and he encouraged me to rap over it, so I did, and that turned into “I‰’m Home” which is also the most played song on my Soundcloud page. I love dancehall, but Kojo does not and never makes dancehall beats. The “Guess Who‰’s Back Freestyle” is a sample of the song “Guess Who‰’s Back” by Scarface featuring Jay-Z , Beanie Sigel and Kanye West. The last one that wasn‰’t made by Kojo was “Quagmire” which was over a song by The Weeknd called High For This.”

Explain your songwriting process.

I take forever to write songs. I wish I could just get in the studio, hear a beat and lay something down, but I don‰’t like to do that. Usually Kojo will send me a beat and I‰’ll listen to it once, let it sit, and come back to it. The second time I hear it I‰’ll get re-hyped to it and start writing. The first thing I do though is get the flow down, the way I want the rhymes to come out. I do this before I start writing lyrics because I feel like what really appeals to people more than anything, is flow, being able to carry a beat. Once I get that down, the lyrics pretty much just fall into place after that. The topic of the lyrics is never really planned out either. The lyrics seem to create a story as I write, even though I don‰’t intend for that. I do love telling stories though. When I‰’m with my friends, I was always the kid who would be telling stories, so it naturally comes out in my writing. I used to write in a notebook, handwriting the lyrics, but now I find that typing them out works best for me. After that, I memorize the lyrics when I‰’m getting ready to record. If I read of a sheet of paper, I find the delivery gets messed up.

Why are you unique? What do you bring to the table?

Well, I enjoy rap, I‰’m passionate about it. I have good story telling abilities and good flow. I bring enjoyment to the music, and I like to just have fun. It‰’s fun for me and it‰’s fun for the listener.

What can we expect from you in the future?

I‰’m just starting a series called Sleepy Sundays where I will be putting out a new song every other Sunday starting on Oct. 7^th with “Come See Me.” This series will probably go into the winter and stop around late November or December. I‰’m planning on dropping another mixtape in early spring that has nine or ten brand new songs as well. Around Christmas break, I have plans to shoot a music video for “IWY” which will come out around the same time as the mixtape.

You can here more of Toye’s tracks on his Soundcloud page. You can also follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

If you make music, live in D.C. and want to be featured on WVAU.org in our Local Talent column, please contact [email protected] with a link to your music.