The record is a welcome reminder that Swifa is a wizard with beats, but he's also more than a producer. Eventually he had enough for an album, Enigma, Swifa's nine-track solo debut that came out in May. He also started making music again, tinkering with songs that had been in the works and writing new ones. “Just knowing I wasn't taking care of that at that time, I felt really bad. He needed that transition to get grounded again, and to remind himself of his biggest responsibility. Reflecting on that tough summer now, Swifa is grateful. I felt like I was 15 again, but they were like, ‘What are you doing?' That was a coming-to-God moment.” … I went back to my parents' house at one point, and they sat me down. It was a hot summer in Columbus, and I had no car, just riding the bus everywhere. “I was staying at homies' houses, moving couch to couch.
“I was definitely depressed coming back here from New York,” Swifa said. So he moved back to Columbus in the middle of 2016. Swifa moved to New York for a bit but music ventures didn't pan out there, either. Fly Union released Small Victories in 2014, then called it quits toward the end of 2015. A deal with Interscope soon followed.īut things didn't go smoothly with Interscope, and tension began to build within the group. LeBron James hyped Fly Union's breakout 2011 album, TGTC (The Greater Than Club). We got kicked out of like three or four labels.”Ī more mature version of that hustle paid off later when Swifa and Iyeball (also known as the production duo MnkeyWrench) teamed with rapper Jerreau to form Fly Union, which turned heads well beyond the outerbelt (an early incarnation of the group also included Vada, previously L.E. The office is all quiet, and everybody is looking at us. I remember this one time we walked into Def Jam South, and Scarface was the head of the label, so we walked in there like, ‘Is Scarface here? … We have a meeting with him.' Then my dude hit ‘Play,' and we just start rapping. “We used to go knocking on doors at record labels,” Swifa said.
During his freshman year at Northland High School, Swifa's dad agreed to go halves with him on an Ensoniq ASR-10 synth/sampler, which came in handy when he formed the group Basic Element with friends Jerreau, Mon B and Trek. I made sure nobody else ever said it after that.”Įarly on, Swifa was part of a 10-person gospel-rap group, traveling and sometimes performing for thousands. It crushed my world, but I appreciated it. He used to tell me my shit was wack he was the only person who told me that. “When I was young, I used to go to Rashad's house after school and watch him make music. He was the reason I was into all that underground hip-hop,” Swifa said. So he started seeking out mentors, who all turned out to be local luminaries in the scene.
Swifa also started making beats at age 11, and by 13 he knew hip-hop would be his life.
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