West Coast rap has always been male dominated from Snoop to Kendrick to DJ Quick. But, that is slowly changing. More and more females are picking up the mic and showing up for the West. Tspokes is one of them.
She has the ability to cultivate new school with old school in her music.We recently caught up with Tspokes and she shared with Home Grown Radio her plans for new projects and the musical influences that has shaped her career.
Home Grown Radio: Tell us about yourself? Where are you from?
Tspokes: My name is Tspokes I was born in Long Beach California and later on moved to San Bernardino, California at the age of 3.
Home Grown Radio: How did you begin rapping?
Tspokes: I’ve always loved music nobody else as far as my parents or family rap so it came as a surprise to them too. I started rapping as early as 7. It just came natural to me.
Home Grown Radio: How would you describe your style musically?
Tspokes: My style of rap is west coast and east coast influenced. I definitely have my own sound. Listening to my music you’ll feel a wide range of emotions. Some songs make you want to dance and others cry. I love lyricism and cadence. I’m a real hip hop head. I love the art of being able to express yourself lyrically. There’s nothing like it honestly.
Home Grown Radio: Who are some of your musical influences?
Tspokes: Dj Quik, Lil Wayne, Kendrick Lamar are just a few of many influences that inspired me along with females like Left Eye, Lauren Hill, and Missy Elliot. I admired Left Eyes vocabulary and her ability to put words together. It blew my mind as a child. Lauren’s versatility, and Missy’s originality and style. They all paved the way for female artist like myself and that’s just a few on the long list of game changing female artist. Wayne’s wordplay and metaphors always caught my ear as a kid. It made me want to be more clever in my delivery of wordplay. Quiks slick cadence sounded so smooth on a track it was like he was floating on the beat, and Kendrick inspired me to push my pen with my lyricism. Bar for Bar Punchline for Punchline.
Home Grown Radio: What do you hope people will gain from your music?
Tspokes: I hope people can listen to my music and feel inspired or at least feel like they heard something in the song that they could relate to. I hope they find comfort in knowing that I’m no different than them. We all go through things and it’s ok not to be ok sometimes we’re human.
Home Grown Radio: Any Upcoming projects?
Tspokes: I have a couple of singles lined up to drop along with my project I’m working on for next year.
Home Grown Radio: When did you know rapping could work for you ?
Tspokes: I knew rapping could work for me when one of my first songs I dropped “ Wop” hit over 10k streams in less than 2 weeks. I always knew I could do it but actually watching the numbers grow naturally it was like ok I can do this.
Article by: Kerrington Dillion