I Really Wanna Be

Rap, if no one has noticed, has it's central hubs. Favorite J. Cole, although from Fayetteville, North Carolina, got signed to Roc Nation while he lived in New York City. NYC is known to be a central hub for music as well as the birthplace of hip hop.

Kendrick Lamar, although from Compton, California blew up from L.A. Our hometown hero Big K.R.I.T. hails from Meridian, MS which I dare anyone to locate on a map, moved to Atlanta to get his career to take off.  Chicago has hosted and helped launch several careers also. Houston has always taken care of its own, as has the Bay (San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, etc.), Miami, Detroit, Memphis, New Orleans,  and other cities.

As rap is universal, it is not confined to the above cities. To keep a long story short, some of the rappers I have admired most throughout life are from across the map. Rap has not always been kind in some cities however, maybe contributing to a lack of knowledge of these individuals. The rappers featured in today's Throwback Thursday are indeed from Sacramento, CA and Las Vegas, NV respectively.

Trade Voorhees and Illecism (now know as Xuice Hades) were in a collective (prior to the rise of collectives) known as Fly High. They garnered a lot of attention on the Internet through various releases. Illy has remained in the shadows of hip hop since his name change to Xuice Hades, and has relinquished his social media presence to sporadic mixtape and EP drops.

Trade is continually working, although his pace has slowed also. He seems to have focused more on his productions ability.

Regardless of this, these were two rappers that I highly favored and spoke of highly when I stretched my small legs into the pool of hip hop.

Today's tracks come from Mr. Mike Televisions solo release Trade Voorhees II and the joint EP released between Illy and Trade, Child's Play. Enjoy, and if you dare, ask Trade what happened to Illy. I'm curious to know.

I Wanna Be... is dedicated to the people who have a dream bigger than them. Continue to pursue it.






Trade Voorhees - Water ft. Illecism (Xuice Hades)