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Thinking Out Loud. Three simple words, one idea, and the best way to describe Harlem bred rapper ESSO’s approach to making music. An observer of life’s contradictions, ESSO is by his own description a contradiction himself. A former NCAA athlete and alum of Howard University, ESSO doesn’t subscribe to many of Hip-Hop’s cliches. In fact, music was an afterthought. The kid from Harlem that walked on to the Baseball team at The University of Michigan and then went on to play at Howard University had his sights on playing for the New York Yankees.
It was at The University of Michigan that ESSO met Disco D, a young DJ and aspiring producer. ESSO and Disco instantly began working together, and forged a friendship that would prove to change ESSO’s life. 3 years later, Disco landed a placement on 50 Cent’s second album The Massacre and called on ESSO to come work with him in his Brooklyn studio.
ESSO and Disco D parted ways before Disco’s untimely death in 2007, but ESSO’s fire for music had been lit and he starting writing and performing at venues around New York City. At one such venue, he made another connection that would open more doors for the young artist. The next weekend he was introduced to then mixtape DJ Sickamore. ESSO and Sickamore began working immediately on his first mixtape ESSOcentric Volume I: History in the Making which would go on to win “Best Mixtape” honors at the 2007 Underground Music Awards. Sickamore would go on to become an A&R Director at Atlantic Records.
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