Stardust into soundwaves ✨🍃

mgmt:
peter@ambushartists.com

Innovative beats are at the heart of 25-year-old rap artist Bou’s cutting edge music. With his extensive percussion skills, Bou initially thought that his gift was production. However, an interesting turn of events quickly ignited his passion for artistry. With two mixtapes under his belt, Bou has created a major buzz in DMV as an independent artist.

Hailing from Silver Spring, Maryland, from a young age Bou was involved with and took an interest in music. He went on to play percussion throughout his school years which peaked his interest in producing music. Upon graduating from high school, Bou was accepted to Howard University where he studied communications. During his freshman year though, an incident with law enforcement resulted in him being on house arrest for five months. While still able to attend classes, his 5 p.m. curfew limited his social interactions. At that point, his friend Jason Harris aka JHarrisBeats would come visit and play Bou some of his beats. After one of their casual meetings, Bou requested that his friend send him some beats and from the moment he opened the email and listened to them, Bou knew he wanted to become an artist.

A few short months after his initial inspiration, Bou released his first mixtape, “Rough Draft” in 2012. From this platform, he began to pursue his career in rap. With positive feedback and support from his community, Bou released his second mixtape, “Thesis” in 2013. Since catching the attention of listeners, Bou has created a buzz in the DMV Hip-Hop community.

Bou counts Tupac, The Notorious B.I.G., Fabolous, T.I., and J. Cole as his musical inspirations. He was also heavily influenced by up and coming local rapper and childhood friend Frank Diggy, who was murdered in late 2012. Bou describes his music as “raw rap, authentic, and from the heart.” He raps about his life experiences in the streets in combination with what he has learned in the classroom.

https://soundcloud.com/darrenbartlett For lots more songs.

An underdog from the underground, Buffalo-bred rapper Westside Gunn brings the sounds of '90s hardcore rap into the 21st century alongside his brother and fellow emcee Conway. With their tales of street life, drugs, and gun violence, the pair have employed sample-heavy production in the gritty East Coast tradition of the Lox, Mobb Deep, Capone-N-Noreaga, and the Wu-Tang Clan. In addition to his work with Conway and their Griselda labelmates, Westside Gunn branched out on his own with a series of Hitler Wears Hermes mixtapes issued in the 2010s, as well as solo albums such as Flygod (2016), Supreme Blientele (2018), and Pray for Paris (2020), the latter of which cracked the upper half of the Billboard 200. The lengthy, guest-heavy full-length And Then You Pray for Me appeared in 2023 and reached the Top 30 of the same chart. The EP 11 and a mixtape, Still Praying, were released almost simultaneously in 2024.

Born Alvin Lamar Worthy in Buffalo, New York, Westside Gunn started rapping at a young age. In high school, he joined with Conway (born Demond Price) and fellow rappers Benny the Butcher and Machine Gun Black as the Forerunners. They stuck together over the years and in the early 2010s, they founded Griselda Records. In addition to output as Westside Gunn & Conway, Worthy began issuing his own mixtapes, including the Hitler Wears Hermes series, which kicked off in 2012. With his strong, steady rhymes and often laid-back production, he released five installments of the Hermes series into 2017. 

His debut studio full-length, Flygod, arrived in 2016 and featured appearances by Benny, Conway, Roc Marciano, Danny Brown, Action Bronson, and more, as well as production by Statik Selektah and the Alchemist. In 2017, Griselda inked a deal with Eminem's Shady Records, which graduated Westside Gunn to the majors. That same year, he hopped onto a collaboration with MF Doom titled WestsideDoom, and a year later he issued his sophomore LP, Supreme Blientele, which featured many familiar faces from Flygod, as well as new guests Jadakiss, Busta Rhymes, Anderson .Paak, and producers Pete Rock and 9th Wonder. 

After Griselda hit the Top Ten of Billboard's R&B/hip-hop and rap charts with WWCD, Westside issued the solo album Pray for Paris in April 2020. DJ Premier, DJ Muggs, the Alchemist, and Tyler, The Creator were among the contributors to the set, which entered the Billboard 200 at number 67 and the R&B/hip-hop chart at 39. A second Gunn album, Who Made the Sunshine, was initially set for release that August, but it was delayed following the death of longtime Griselda Records collaborator DJ Shay from COVID-19. The album eventually appeared in October 2020 and featured appearances by Benny, Conway, Slick Rick, Black Thought, and others. Two tracks, "Julia Lang" and "TV Boy," arrived in March 2021 as the first songs released off Gunn's mixtape Hitler Wears Hermes 8: Sincerely, Adolf. Hitler Wears Hermes 8: Side B followed. The mixtapes Peace "Fly" God and 10 (the final installment in the Hitler Wears Hermes series) appeared in 2022. The studio album And Then You Pray for Me arrived in 2023, boasting guests like Rick Ross, DJ Drama, Denzel Curry, and Boldy James. It reached number 29 on the Billboard 200. In 2024, Gunn issued the EP 11 as well as the DJ Drama-hosted mixtape Still Praying. ~ Neil Z. Yeung, Rovi

All good feels here, just want to connect with you through sound and rhythm 🪘

Breathe, be yourself, and treat everyone how you'd like to be treated : ) 🌳

Kept a lot of old material so you can hear the journey I've been through with sound! Haha some pretty okay and some not so okay songs but hey we all start somewhere 🎶

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