Meet Atlanta rapper Issa, an accomplished lyricists with an impressive following of hardcore fans on social media. Signed to independent record label, Good Life Music Group, Issa has been grinding it out on the underground scene nurturing his talent to perfection since just six years old. Here, in an exclusive sit down interview with Hip Hop Enquirer we learn more about who Issa is, what his story’s about, and why we should be listening to him.
In part one of our interview with Atlanta rapper Issa, we learned in detail about who he is, where he’s from and his detailed retelling of his musical influencers, from the streets, to his sound and style, right down to his spirituality. In part 2 Issa expands on his story and makes his case for why he’s someone to be looking out for…
On his influences…..
BOB MARLEY
Like with Bob Marley, it’s more a spiritual level for me. I love his music as well but a lot of the things he represents, a lot of things he stands for and things he talks about in his music are a lot of things that I believe and that are true and that I stand for as well. So I definitely feel like spiritually, it would be Bob Marley who I would look up to, that’s inspiration. And that’s a man who I look up to as a person even outside of music.
LIL WAYNE
Wayne, I grew up listening to Wayne, I always say he was like the Jay Z of my era. That’s always been my favorite rapper. People would make comparisons to me and Wayne all the time and I used to hate it. I used to be like “nah I don’t sound like him” but I think I’ve grown to understand that it’s something that’s just natural, it just caters to my voice because it’s kind of second nature cause I’m so used to listening to him so it’s not like a situation like a lot of other artists, where I’m trying to sound anything like him but I think I get those comparisons sometimes.
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DMX
As far as DMX goes, he played a big part early on when I first start listening to him. When I first got into rap music that was the first rapper I really loved and looked up to.
TUPAC
Tupac, that’ll probably be that last person I talk. Tupac used to confuse me. But I never understood him until recently. Never understood why he would make music and it would be contradicting in a couple ways because sometimes he would be talking about street stuff then the next moment, he would be make uplifting music. I realize I’m more like Tupac than any artists that came after him because I go on different I can talk on a street level and still make uplifting music and I think the reason for him doing is he that is because he had to catch people’s attention. He had to get people’s attention so he had to put out certain music to get the attention of the streets and get them listening and then once you get people listening, you can say what you really want to say. And that’s same thing I’m doing and that’s what I talked about in Makaveli if you listen to the verses, and basically giving the streets what they want. And then being able to talk about what I really want the world to know. I don’t think everybody’s ready to hear what I have to say just yet so I have to…ya know…do it in little!
Stay tuned for part 2 of this exclusive interview coming soon.
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