Conversations with One Kay

Today we’d like to introduce you to One Kay.

Hi One, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My legal name is Dontavious Hubbard.
I was born in Chicago Illinois, grew up in poverty highly crime rated neighborhoods as a kid.
My mother “Capresha Flint” tried her best to teach me the proper ways of living in the environment we was in.
My father “Lester Hubbard” was also involved in my life as a kid too I remember always being with him on weekends and at one point I even lived with him for a few years as well.
However being in Chicago is very dangerous because of its high crime rate and gang violence so it’s like part of the culture since the god father times.
Trouble finds you where I’m from just walking outside your house so my parents tried to block out a lot of that by keeping me in sports mainly basketball ball because they both excelled well in the sport themselves.
I remember growing up always playing basketball 24/7 from like 6yrs old I was apart of someone’s basketball team.
I had a great advantage because both my parents was highly respected players in the state of Illinois so I was getting coaching on and off the court daily.
My life to me was perfect I mean I heard gunshots and cop cars all the times and also being in a gang where I grew up was not frowned upon either my older family members used to teach me how to do the gang handshakes making sure I knew how to hustle far as gambling etc but like I said coming from where I came from all this was normal
My mother was a hard working woman but also was a party animal she always outside, clubbing, hanging out with family members, house parties just whatever the fun was she was there.
My father was more like a player type guy either he was working, playing basketball ball with his friends, or somewhere with a female enjoying his company.
Growing up in Illinois your naturally tough but also my mom played a major part of making sure I knew how to properly protect myself when the time comes.
I remember countless of times being in the backyard with boxing gloves on fighting all my cousins or kids my age in the neighborhood.
I was always taught to be respectful and to kick ass if I had to being bullied wasn’t an option.
The older I got the more of the culture grew onto me far as the gangs & crimes I saw.
By the time I was 14 I was off the porch my mother wanted better for me, & my little brother, and also my older sister so she moved to Atlanta GA,
Just a fresh new place and start to try to make sure our lives were better off.
Georgia is where I say I really hopped off the porch for real though because that’s where I was running the streets at on my own.
East Atlanta adopted me from a kid and the culture in Georgia was a little bit different from what I saw my entire life so I took advantage of it fast.
A lot of kids my age wasn’t tough as I was and I took full advantage of it as well I used to get into a lot of trouble and I was promoting the cultural lifestyle I came from onto my peers around me in this new city.
So to hang around me you had to be tough, you had to be affiliated with some type of gang, and you had to be down with fighting at any time.
I still played basketball throughout all of this timing I love the sport too much.
If you asked me then I was going to the NBA easily for my age I was better then the opponents I faced I had to play against kids a few years older to hang with my skill level.
My mom tried her best to push all of us to move in a positive manner, she took us to church every Sunday however the culture of Illinois was already on me to heavy so I’d still get into trouble a lot and I only hung out with people older than me that was into the street lifestyle that I was used to seeing growing up.
My entire family on my mother side was great at music as well can sing at will like they life was dependent on it so I was naturally good with vocalizations.
My father always had a great ear for good music as well anything that was trending around the country hip hop wise he was playing it he used to pick me up from my mother or grandma house I remember hearing his music from around the corner before he even got to the house so I grew up musical inclined.
I never thought I’d be a musician though I was into basketball too much.
My freshman year of high school I was playing on the varsity basketball team against seniors getting ready to go to college the next year so that lets you know how highly talented I was.
My 10th grade year of school my mom sent me to stay with my grandparents back in Chicago for the summer and that’s when I feel like my life changed.
I started smoking weed, having sex, engaging fully into the gang culture, even doing petty crimes with kids my age.
So coming back to Georgia for my 11th grade year I was fully turned out onto the streets.
I remember myself singing to girls late nights on the house phone until my mom cursed me out because I had school the next morning but that showed me I was talented in the music world as well as basketball and honestly I like music more than basketball.
Throughout my 11th grade year I got more into music being around street guys in Atlanta who were trying to make music they way out of the lifestyle that we all faced daily so I used to be in random studios sessions just learning the basics of recording. The more I went to these studio sessions the more I learned how to record music myself and whenever I got a chance too I used to sneak and record myself to the hottest artists beats in the rap scene.
At school I used to rap while someone was beating on the desk or lunch table and people used to gather around to listen and I always got great feedback from it and honestly I liked it more than the support I was getting from basketball ball.
I went to Martin Luther King Jr. high school in Lithonia Ga, one of the lead rappers from the hip hop group “Travis Porter” graduated from our school & a couple good athletes went to the pros as well so my school was a known school in Georgia.
I decided to enter our school yearly talent show. I was very nervous because I never rapped in front of my entire school as well as my mother before.
At the time of this talent show the song “All The Way Turnt Up” by ATL’s Hiphop artist “Roscoe Dash”was the biggest single in the country so I made a remix to his beat.
I recorded the song and rehearsed the song multiple times before the day of the talent show but on the night of the show somehow some way my flash drive wasn’t working to play my song.
So at this point I was faced with 2 options either quit the show or wing it by only playing the beat and rapping my lyrics raw.
So I decided to just wing it and see what happens.
So the host comes to the stage and announce my name and the beat start playing.
The crowd was filled like Roscoe dash was there himself preforming I’m talking about all seats filled and people standing up.
I was outside the auditorium so when the beat came on I had to walk through the the crowd to get to the stage.
Soon as I saw the crowd my mind went blank and I couldn’t remember my lyrics to the song but the hook I made for it.
So as I’m rapping the hook walking to the stage everyone is screaming and cheering for me because they couldn’t believe it was me rapping.
By the time I got on the stage the crowd was going crazy and it was time for the verse but I didn’t remember it so I just freestyle a verse till the hook came back but soon as I started rapping the hook again the entire crowd was rapping it with me and this is what made end my basketball ball dreams and further my music dreams.
My mother still wanted me to play basketball ball but she knew deep down my heart wasn’t there anymore.
I started going to recording studios making covers to all the trending hiphop songs and was getting great feedback on the mixtape websites then boom my little brother “Antonio Lil Guap Butler” started telling me he been hanging out with the rapper “Future” little cousin “Guap Tarantino” and he’s been going to club events with “FBG” “FREEBANDZ”.
I never believed him though but then he used to come around me with the clothing on and used to show me pictures & videos of him being around “future” cousins.
One day I’m sitting in the living room and my brother walks in the house in say “aye I want you to meet someone come outside” so I come outside and as I’m walking up to the white Lexus I see like 4 people in the car and my brother tells the driver “aye guap this my big brother I bet he rap better than all yall”
“Guap Tarantino” comments back hell naw yall hop in let’s see if he can.
So me & my lil brother get in the car and guap turns on some random beats and said we all gonna going on a circle.
Guap raps first and he was good, then another guy goes he’s good as well now it’s my time to go and let’s just say by the time I was done “Guap Tarantino” said “aye bruh let’s make a song together” so we went to his house where he had a home studio set up like just a computer & a mic in the closet.
At this moment I had a song that someone sent me to feature on that just had a hook only so I sent guap the file he loaded it up and jump right on the verse then I took the 2nd verse as we played it back we all knew the song was gone be a hit for the city.
So we went to a professional studio and re-record it and drop it on “SoundCloud” within days we was seeing 50k views and everybody playing the song in our area.
From that moment “Guap Tarantino” told me that he was starting a rap group called “YFBG” “YoungFreeBandzGang” basically the younger generation of Future’s FBG label and Future already co-signed it so it was official.
He asked me to join the group with him & 3/4 other artists he already picked up and I told him hell the fuck yeah.
From point on we was going to bigger studios hanging out with all bigger artists in the industry and future was bringing us out to his shows all the time so my name & face got labeled as “Future” lil crew of homies coming up after him.
From that just came a lot of recording, networking, and countless nights of no sleep but it paid off when “future” actually came to us with a contract to sign the rap group “YFBG” to his record label “FBG” and that open the doors to the entire industry.
“Guap Tarantino” dropped his album 1st and made a buzz for the group with his song “Block Boy” and built a foundation for the rest of us to jump from.
However I was still heavily involved with the street lifestyle so I got arrested and did time in jail while the group was still pushing forward.
When I returned everything was at an even higher level “Future” was even bigger than he was before and everyone knew who YFBG was as well.
I decided to move to California to start fresh and focus on my career after being released from jail right into the studio I went and I kept recording & networking until I was ready to drop my album.
“IWAB2” was my official debut album under the FREEBANDZ/EPIC RECORDS umbrella and it preformed extremely well on all platforms and “One Kay” was officially born.
From there I have had a few kids and I’m still recording and dropping new music I’ve touched over 6 million streams throughout my first album drop and I’m ready to drop more for the fans of hiphop

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The road was not smooth at all me being apart of the street I could never focus on just music I left the house at 16 so I was in dog eat dog state of mind.
On top of being an active gang member police gang unit was always chasing me around for something.
The biggest problem was me trying to convince my mother I could make it in the music industry rather than playing basketball

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I specialize in the ability to make music without having to write it down,
I’m very fast paced as well I can make a song in like 10 minutes where most artists takes very much longer.
Also what makes me different than the rest is I’m not a gimmick or industry plant.
Everything I rap about is what I’ve seen or currently doing in my actual life.
I’m most proud about the fact that I know I’m better than my peers I see it everyday from my styles they copy and apply to they own artistry

Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
To never take anything personally it’s just Buisness, these people are here to get what they need to feed their families just like you are.
No real friends in this type of work while you hot everyone loves you.
When your not relevant your not relevant

Pricing:

• Features: 2500/5000
• Interviews: only if I like your platform
• Shows: travel fee included 3000 minimum

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Dareal1kay
• Twitter: Dareal1kay
• Youtube: One Kay