Today we’d like to introduce you to Kendrick Allen.
Hi Kendrick, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Born & raised in Los Angeles, the city everyone comes to blow up and sit in traffic. I been taking this music thing serious a little over a year ago but this been something I’ve wanted to since I was in like 6th grade. There’s a A$AP Rocky line that goes, “My whole life I just wanted to be a rapper.” That’s me in a nutshell. I love love love love music. As a kid, I was part of that generation that was watching 106 & and park, mtv, vh1 with my friends and cousins and thinking to myself how dope it would be to be one of these rappers I’m seeing on TV. When I got to middle school, I had this friend named Kevin Porsche. Lemme tell you, he was the man. Dude had to be one of the most popular kids at school, I mean cmon his last name is Porsche.
Anyways for whatever reason, we ended up being good homies and he was the first dude that I knew in real life that was kinda on that “I’m rapping and doing this shit” tip. I ain’t never told no one or showed anyone but seeing him do that made me start to try and to create my own songs- nothing that was dope honestly but just writing some lame lyrics really helped give me some type of purpose. All my homies were either good at hoopin’, football, or good at talking to girls, aaaaaaaaaand I wasn’t. No sob story shit or pity party just calling it like it is. But yeah fast forward to high school, 10th grade or so I start getting close with another dude who was out here trying to rap. So me and him start going back and forth on myspace statuses and messaging about making songs and blah blah and of course nothing comes of it. But this whole time, I’m just writing man. I’m downloading beats off limewire and just trying to make songs. Another couple of years go by, 12th grade, and by this time a lot of the people I was kickin’ it with was down to make music. We had this homie named Cope and he had access to a studio and he said he was down to have us come and record. The moment I was waiting for was finally here. I was gon go to the studio, lay this verse down, the song would get me famous, and boom I’d start getting paid.
So we get to the studio and make this song, and I go to bed with my Grammy speech already thought of. Fast forward to a week later we’re at Cope’s house and there’s some girls over, so I’m thinking we play the song and these girls go crazy and start really feeling us cause we rappers now, right? Nahh we play the song and one of the shawties says something like “what is this? It’s straight trash!” Confidence straight 187’d. Felt like I got hit by a bus or something. And that ended my high school rap career. I mean I still downloaded beats and wrote songs but after that, I never sent them to anyone but Cope. Let’s fast forward one more time to 2018 and here we go again- same story got another group of friends who wants to do music so we start messing around and actually make a song that I was proud of! It was a great feeling like some euphoric shit. So here I go thinking this my new thing, we gon make songs everyday. But of course after that we stop doing music together cause they didn’t really want to take it serious.
After that, I kinda fell into a funk. Day to day life just kind of lost its spark you know? I was going to school not knowing what I was going to do with my life, going to work my 9-5 just going through the motions. Life kinda lost its purpose. And that was the wakeup call I think I needed. I had to stop relying on other people because I’ve learned no one is as hungry as me, no one is gon put nearly as much work in as me. I started to realize that music is the thing I should be doing. Problem was my whole life, I was too scared to put myself out there by myself. I had zero confidence in myself that I could actually be a rapper so I never gave it my full effort. I was scared to fail, shoot I still am sometimes, but I was tired of that mindset and told myself to commit to music and chase the thing that makes me happy. Annnnnnd a whole essay later here we are. Finally doing music on my own, finally exploring who I am in this world and it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’m still finding my way, still growing, but one thing I do know is to me, music the only thing that makes sense in this world so imma keep going foreva. – please check out my
newest single New Life as well as my most recent EP ‘Rappin 4 My Sanity’
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
The biggest struggles for me have always been mental. When I started making music, the two biggest struggles were my confidence and worrying about what others thought of my music. It took a lot of practice and patience before I got comfortable enough to really feel like I was making music that sounded good. I’d spend time before sessions going over words, flows, delivery just trying to find what worked for me. The whole time I’d be asking myself things like “Oh, I hope so and so likes this” or “Nah, you can’t say that, what if your family hears this.” Then I’d head to the studio and the whole time, I’d be stressing over hoping people like my stuff. I had to start asking myself why I was doing music, was it for me or was it for other people? Cause at the end of the day no matter what you do you can’t please everybody and somebody isn’t going to like things you say, do, or feel. And that was a big step for me because my whole life I’ve been a people pleaser, the type of guy who wouldn’t say no to anything asked of me because I never wanted to let anyone down. But whatever you doing in this world, whether it’s music, art, fashion, etc., you gotta be doing it for you.
So now I’m getting to the point where I’m like ok I’ma make what I like based on how I feel, hopefully someone can take something from it and if someone doesn’t like it then that’s fine too. You gotta be ok with not being liked by everyone. It’s easy to say, hard to do but to me that’s the energy and mindset you gotta have behind what you do. Something I’m struggling with recently is being more appreciative of the process. I gotta work on living in the moment. I’ve been going 100 mph trying to get this music stuff right and I keep expecting instant results and gratification. I start looking around at other people who I know that do music and I start to get in my head about where I’m at in my music career and feeling like I should be way further ahead. I gotta stop comparing where I’m at and just walk my path. Because I do feel like I’m slept on, I do feel like I’m one of the best out here. But so many people want to do things and never do for whatever reason so I gotta really be more appreciative of the fact that I’m out here actually trying something cause some people don’t even get that far you know?
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m Big Irie honestly all I do is rap man, all day that’s where my mind is at. I do a little modeling on the side but the music stuff is plan A, B, and C. I wanna keep creating and expressing how I feel about this world we live in and music is my outlet to do that. I think what sets me apart from most other up and coming artists is my versatility. I feel like you can scroll down my catalog and listen to a whole variety of different things that I bring to my songs. As for what I’m most proud of, it’s got to be that I’m actually chasing my dream. Making music is one of the few things that really makes me feel alive and I’m so damn proud that I actually have songs out. Like legit songs that I worked on and created from start to finish. It’s a great feeling to have knowing that you create something and can call it your own. Coming this far from where I began, it’s like I’m a whole new person. And the best part is that this is just the beginning, I’m still growing and I am ready to see how far I can go with this. I’m ready for the Big Irie takeover that I know is coming. So yeah, I’m just proud that I’m doing this, proud of how much I believe in myself. MY NEW EP “RAPPIN 4 MY SANITY” IS OUT EVERYWHERE DECEMBER 4th! GO RUN THAT 1 TIME.
What does success mean to you?
Success to me is a mindset. Because learning from your failures and mistakes is success to me. If you take something positive from what you call failing then really how can you even call that failure? Success to me is you continuing to build towards your dreams and goals. Everyday, I’m successful because I put time and energy into my craft. I tell myself I’m hungry I want this so I’m going to cut out unnecessary things that ain’t feeding into me being better. To me, it isn’t something that can just be measured by a dollar amount or shit you can afford. It’s about growing and just becoming better with what you do. Your own growth is your success.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://lnkfi.re/bigirieraps
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigirie_/
- Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/bigirie_
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy_0mw64V5Hh4UiFcBphWOg/featured?view_as=subscriber
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/ykwszn
