How would you classify yourself as an artist, or what genre do you think you move most within?

- I feel like my music is more like conscious.

Like I speak about a lot about like what's going on in my environment, what's going on with me, what's going on with people I'm around.

I feel like I'm like a conduit to my environment.

So like whatever I'm taking in, I'm trying to put back out a lot of like transmutation with my music.

So I would definitely say like a conscious self-aware hip hop artist.

- Like a conscious rapper.

- Basically.

- Conscious hiphop artist.

So what does a conscious hiphop artist mean to you?

If you were to give more details?

- Like I said, like someone who's just willing to be a journalist to the environment that they're in.

You know, just speak on what's going on.

Speak on what's going on with yourself, how are you maneuvering through society, how is society maneuvering, adjusting to you becoming the person that you are?

How are you growing as an individual?

What are the things that you're learning?

And it always, there's a lot of people confuse conscious rap with like just having to be this, oh, you not woke type of thing.

But it's not, it's not always like that.

It's more or less about just being self-aware.

- And why do you think being self-aware is important within hiphop?

- It, you gotta be, you have to be self-aware when it comes to like what you're saying, your message is very important as a hip hop artist.

If you don't have a message, you're really not, you're not doing it for nothing.

- Do feel like hip hop is lacking a message in this modern time, or do you think people aren't just looking deep enough to find the people who are showcasing the message?

Or do you think everything has a message from drill rap to just like conscious rap?

- I feel like it all has a message.

It just, it's, you know, 'cause I feel like with the drill rap, it's just their environment.

You switch their environment, they'll talk about different things, but that's just their reality.

You know what I mean?

Like, but how you conduct this like how different styles of art.

There's expressionism, there's one of my favorites is Afro Surrealism.

Like there's different styles of art and there's always gonna be different styles of hip hop going on.

It's just the environment that certain artists are in is what brings that out of them.

A lot of them are angry, you know what I mean?

So like I can only respect it and, you know, give my wisdom and my knowledge from my perspective through my conscious art.

- Oh, I love that.

- Thank you.

- So how did Ohzhe the Rapper happen?

Like what, how did you get to where you are today?

Like what was your journey?

- My journey was just trial and error, bro.

And traveling and meeting different people and learning from other people.

I started at like, I'd say 13.

- Wow.

- With creative writing.

And it was like ways to combat my nightmares.

So I would take different horror figures and try to change them into being good guys so that I wouldn't be afraid of them.

And that led into poetry.

And then LimeWire came out, and I got into downloading the instrumentals, downloading beat tapes for me and my friends to rap to.

And you know, just ciphers at the table, beating on tables.

It's, you know, the classic way of getting into hip hop, and getting, becoming an artist.

And studying.

Studying hip hop was a another big piece of where I was, how it made me to become the person I am today as a hip hop artist.

- Do you remember your first performance?

- Yeah, I do.

- [Jade] All right, give us a little details about it.

- It started off with like, just doing like family events like for cookouts and birthday parties.

My uncle, my cousin, they kind of like put me, DJ Al B, shout out to Tif.

They were the ones that really put me, put the mic in my hand and like, let me rock the crowd and rock and see how it worked.

And then eventually that led into me meeting different people, walks of life.

Swain, Mojave, they ended up bringing me to this performance called UGT.

I had my very first performance, and I made a song about a girl who I got my heart broken by, and it went really good.

So like, from there it was just like I knew performing was something that I wanted to do.

Like at that moment I was like, this is something that I want to keep going with.

- That's beautiful.

And then you had your other show.

I think the "Art of Alignment."

Was that your first like big show or- - Yeah, because it was tailored to the album that I was putting out.

And I was like, I wanted to create an experience for the music that I was doing and I wanted to bring people in and like I said, just walks of life.

Like, I was just meeting different people along the way and they were allowing me to use the band and Corey with Troy Kitchen at the time.

And they, people believed in me, and that helped with that.

So "Art of Alignment" was still a staple.

Like people still talk about it to this day.

- It was amazing.

So what, can you give us a little detail of what was the process of "Art of Alignment?"

Like how did it, like what's the name?

Like how, like, what is it?

- So "Art of Alignment," it started with I was thinking about how I wanted to release the album and then like, I went to go pay a ticket 'cause I had traffic ticket or whatever.

And one of my friends that I went to elementary with, Zach, he was there and he was like, "Yo bro, are you still rapping?"

And I'm like, "Yeah, bro."

And he was like, "Yo, I have a band, let's do something.

Let's get together, let's work it out."

And from there it was just like...

I had no business.

I chose to get up that day, but it was storming out.

I was like, "Nah, I ain't gonna go out and go pay that.

I'm gonna pay it tomorrow."

So I felt like that was just the spirit of what I wanted to do just pushing me to be there at that time.

So I was just like, "Art of Alignment."

Yeah.

- All aligns together, right?

- [Ohzhe] Yeah.

- So I know you do a lot of community work.

You do like youth groups, you work for gun violence, you run music programs at our local libraries.

Does your community work have an impact on your music?

- Yeah, a hundred percent.

Like being able to be an inspiration to people it is very important especially as a hip hop artist.

All the greats say that.

It's just that's the most important thing is when you have that type of power being able to control crowds and convey your message through a song, it's only right that you're able to inspire the people that listen to you.

So I just try to like make that my ultimate goal is to always inspire.

- And does inspiration really have...

I know a lot of your music from listening to it, is very inspiring.

So how important is that piece to your music?

Are you focused on making sure folks are inspired by your lyrics or et cetera?

Or is that just something that just happens?

- It just happens, I don't like sit down like, "I have to inspire people."

It is like I'm just speaking my truth and speak where I'm at in life and I already know it's gonna resonate with someone because I know I'm not alone with the experience.

It's just I convey my message differently to others.

So I can inspire an artist.

He doesn't have to be a rapper or a singer.

He can literally just do graffiti, and I can inspire that out of that person I feel like.

- That's amazing.

Yeah.

- So do you have a goal with your music?

- Right now is just to learn more about the business and study the business 'cause the business is the most important part.

- And so with that said business is that your version of success?

What's your version of success within this art?

How would you define success?

- To be able to inspire man and to take care of my family and do things that bring people together.

And success is not always about material gain.

To some people it may, but that comes and goes.

I feel like being an inspiration and just being yourself and being who you are, it should be enough to qualify as success.

Of course you want the money.

- Yeah.

(laughing) - But you have to have the discipline to keep it.

And that comes with like a whole bunch of other things too.

So that's where I'm at with it.

- What are some of those things?

- Educating yourself, financial literacy is important.

If we don't have the tools to utilize or understand financial literacy, then it's just all going out the window.

We'll just keep getting money to letting it go.

We wanna take money and we wanna build it and we wanna turn it into something.

And then I'm not saying don't do things that you wanna do with it, and I'm not a financial advisor either, but I feel like in order to get out of the certain situations that we're in it requires a lot of discipline and financial literacy and mindfulness.

- If you were able to give an emerging hip hop artist one piece of advice, just from your standpoint being so experienced as you are, what would that be?

- Study the business, bro, study the business.

It is the most important thing.

You can be creative all day, but if you don't know the business, you're gonna work yourself into some messy contracts.

You're gonna work yourself into situations that aren't favorable, that don't serve you.

We hear it from hip hop artists all the time, from the greatest all the way down to the lowest, they know that the business is the most important part.

So on your publishing, ASCAP and BMI, make sure you have your own distribution which is DistroKid, TuneCore, all of that cool stuff.

Get you a song trust, get you all of these things that are gonna protect you as an artist.

Because if you don't, you're just gonna keep failing and learning and failing and learning.

There's nothing wrong with failing, but just protect yourself as an artist and study the game all facets, not just the creative.

- Yeah, you don't wanna see your song on HBO and then you get no rights.

- Right.

Right?

(laughs) Like that will suck.

- Yeah.

All right, well thank you Ohzhe for chatting with us today, I appreciate it.

- Thank you for having me.

Cool.