Louis could turn itself into a physical human being and start recording a rap record, it would probably look a lot like me in the flesh…”- Tef Poe Capturing the rock energy engrained in the city’s roots, Poe incorporates live instruments into his sets to feed off the energy of a genre we are connected so intimately with. Given his love affair with music, Tef Poe credits a lot of his sound to his interest in the city’s musical history. Not afraid to test the waters with sound, the artist perfected his style that he says is a combination of southern music, soul, funk, gospel and trap. Until I dropped Black Julian, I felt like people struggled to understand this about me,” he stated.Įquipped with a sound he says comes from his gut, the rapper conforms his nervous energy into powerful and explosive lyrics. “I am vocally influenced by someone like MJG, but also heavily influenced by Mos Def. Heavily influenced by a host of rappers and music genres, Poe used this to his advantage as he curated his own style of music. Though, losing his first freestyle battle, he later went on to became one of the undefeated battle rappers in St. With complex rhymes and influences like Rakim and Nas Poe figured freestyling was the best way to show off his skills. By the time Poe was thirteen, he dove head first into battle rapping. If it wasn’t for him there would most likely be no such thing as a Tef Poe,” Poe said. “I owe my musical identity solely to my older brother Black Spade. Unsure of what is gift truly was at the time, he continued to hone in what would be his craft. Finding his musical identity early, Poe began writing around the age of 6 or 7 years old. Louis native and hip hop artist, Tef Poe reiterates this with his latest release, Black Julian in which the battle rapper shows everyone we are on the map and here to stay. Louis was going to fade into the back, you thought wrong. Tef Poe was as authentic as they came and if you thought for one moment St. His style was different, his sentence flow was complex and his truth was served as raw and you could possibly ingest it. Then let’s fast forward to three years ago, when he became center stage as one of the voices of this generation to speak out against what was really going on amongst Black Americans and the police forces around the word. Let’s rewind to when we first heard the name Tef Poe step onto the music scene. Born Kareem Jackson, though known to us as Tef Poe, the hip hop artist gives DELUX an intimate look inside his thoughts on what hip hop means to him, what he really thought about the Ferguson fiasco, being appointed a civil rights leader of our time, and his latest release to the music world, Black Julian. His political commentary, gritty street style mixed with just enough advocacy swagger is what makes him stand out. His raw, yet truthful lyrics that often cause us to stop and contemplate what he said. We all know of his reputation as a battle rapper. So, I had to kick freestyles to show my skill level…” – Tef Poe “I used to write rhymes that were far too complex for me to try and remember.
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