Behind the Mic

Chase Wohrle and Brooke WeissSports Editor and Staff Writer  Ben: With a look of white Jewish boy meets laid-back rapper, Ben Brady (’14) exudes an aura of free spirit and carefreeness. He puts his unique and non-uniform ideas into what seems like a large and complex machine in his head and pumps out lyrics for his songs. He has the ability to create these pieces of art out of what seem like a few words or simple concepts.Having started writing music in fourth grade, Brady’s perspective on rap has developed through the years. He was inspired by and around music, typically Hip-Hop played by his father. As he grows older, he is now motivated and influenced by rapper Pharrell Williams, but specifically his ability to mix art and music into a unique style while always achieving something new and different. Brady translates his motivation into raps about his personal philosophies and spiritual ideals along with exiting events and milestones in his life that he believes people can relate to.Brady releases his music on Sound Cloud, a website that puts together a community of artists and bands that share their music. This allows him to share his music with other artists and listeners, getting feedback and comments on his work. It’s fast, easy and helpful for Brady to make his upcoming songs with new ideas.At the start of his talent and performing in a small room being the only white boy rapping, Brady felt he had something different to bring to the table. He is always vibing out with his headphones in one ear, hoping to promote this form of art to others who need to express themselves with certain feelings and emotion. Brady believes rap is a lifestyle and a poetic art form. He thinks rapping can serve as an outlet to “lose yourself” and let loose.Benz music is Brady’s rap alias. On Sound Cloud (soundcloud.com/benz-music) Benz has released 11 tracks in total. On his page he has achieved roughly 5,200 plays in total.As a rapper Benz music fits more into the realm of alternative hip-hop than the genre’s mainstream counterpart. His beat selection is musical in essence, often incorporating classical instruments such as the piano and violin or samples from Jazz. In addition to this some of his tracks include periods without rapping, instead containing singing by female vocalists or just raw instrumental for the listener’s analysis and dissection.  All of his selections are original productions; notably he works closely with friend and peer Skyler Young (’14) , or Skyman, for his instrumentals.His lyrics consist largely of personal experience, beliefs and aspirations, which make his songs seemly like a loosely-threaded but highly enticing story. He strives to remain grounded in everyday life, rapping about progression as an individual by analyzing personal faults and focusing on improvement. His desire to succeed within the music industry is apparent on every track, commenting frequently on the current state of hip-hop music and his future place in it. He is consistent with his rhyming patterns and sounds more comfortable and natural when recorded.  His songs are too dense, lyrically and instrumentally, to be fully comprehended and appreciated with a single listen. New gems of cleverness and insight are revealed with each additional listening of a track, and this only benefits Benz by beckoning listeners to come back.On stage, Benz is focused. His movement, while not aggressively energetic, is calm and collected and energy is mentally devoted to provide flawless recitation. He is backed only by his instrumental which is outright ballsy and artistic; he is confident enough to ensure no performance slip ups and is so meticulous and thoughtful in lyric creation that he needs no extra vocal backing. He could probably recite all of his rhymes in his sleep. Atlee: Atlee Gallimore (’13), while seemingly more shy and reserved, his passion comes out through his singing and music. Atlee lives on freestyling; if someone gives him a beat and a crowd, he will not hesitate to burst out into song. Poetry was Gallimore’s fountain of inspiration. His complex yet meaningful lyrics with similes and plays on words are inspired by Tupac Shakur’s poetry and music. He focuses on the process of writing and performing music; Gallimore writes multiple drafts of his music before he is satisfied with the result.He lives a life of eat, sleep and rap. He creates and writes his music in his studios, and, taking his passion one step further, creates music videos. You can tell how engrossed he is by music through his music videos on YouTube or by simply listening to it.Viewers throughout Los Angeles and beyond watch Gallimore’s videos. Gallimore uploaded his first YouTube video, “I’m A G” over one year ago and received unexpected praise and acknowledgment. His first public display of rapping got him hooked as he describes the “priceless” feeling of getting positive feedback for his hard work. Gallimore felt that YouTube was the best way to spread his material fast but also the best way to gain a fan base from viewers other than Samo students.Gallimore strives to show a new style in the rap world. He wants to be known as the rapper who is versatile and unique but who can relate to his viewers in multiple different ways.At just 18 years old, Gallimore is already releasing music that naturally fits into hip hop's mainstream, American culture. His hub of distribution lies on YouTube, channel name AtleeTV, where 10 freestyles and two original songs have granted him approximately 31,200 total views.In March 2012 he released his first, twelve track mix tape "Built to Last," via hotnewhiphop.com. Like his freestyles on YouTube, Atlee's beat selection is familiar to any modern hip-hop listener. Featuring productions popularized by industry giants such as Drake, Tyga, French Montana and DJ Khaled, Gallimore uses these instrumentals to back his own personal talent. In a live performance Atlee is dominantly energetic with his movement and shouting serving to stimulate the audience. He is more focused on self-promotion, dropping single verses over a variation of beats in order to provide a varied display of his talent. Additionally, he raps over his own pre-recorded vocals to ensure a smooth show.Atlee's freestyles are songs without a centralized lyrical topic, not songs with unwritten and unrehearsed lyrics. On tracks, he is predominantly a punchline rapper. His voice is smooth and suave, serving to build his witty lyrics up and follow through with a clean cut delivery. Throughout his music, his flow is uniform and doesn't change in pace. Commonly, his subject matter is persistently about his swag, apathy towards haters, money, personal arrogance and Los Angeles. On songs with softer instrumentals, such as his "Diced Pineapples Freestyle," (since removed from his channel) he supplements a motif throughout his music regarding female relationships, and the heartlessness that often exists within them. Additionally, he is a self proclaimed gangster, not in a gang related sense but rather a cool interpretation of the term, evident in his initials being A.G.cwohrle@thesamohi.combweiss@thesamohi.com