Big Zach of Kanser on Music and Arts Education

How did you get into making music, and how did arts education (or lack thereof) affect you and your music?

Like most rappers I started writing raps in high school ninth grade. I got a little jump on making music because I met Ant when I was 16 and he would let me come down to the basement and record my first weak little songs. This was before the days of laptop Pro Tools or high school recording programs where lots of young people have excess to make songs. So having my own recorded songs on original beats was pretty advanced at the time. Ant thought I was weak though, which I was at the time, so he came over to my crib when I was living with my grandmother and helped me set up my own four-track studio (half to be a nice guy and half to get me and my friends out of his basement). By the time I turned 19 I was like “We can sell these songs.”

I didn’t take music in high school, I tried to learn how to play a couple instruments when I was young but didn’t seem to have the knack. I think it’s a positive thing that some local rappers are in the high schools or at community centers teaching rap to young kids but I’m glad I grew up right before that era. I learned how to rap the organic way: freestyling in ciphers, doing shows and sitting at the crib spending hours trying to figure out methods of writing raps. I did learn a lot from emcees I was around when I was young, and I still do. Steel sharpens steel so if your around other motivated fresh emcees your gonna naturally learn more.

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