Today we’d like to introduce you to Ayo Sk3tch.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Ayo. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’m originally from Boston Massachusetts, born and raised, but I lived all over the country. When I was really young, like maybe three or four years old, I stayed in Daytona Florida for like two months, and then when I was six, I stayed in Toronto Canada for a whole summer, and when I was a teenager, I lived in Connecticut and New York City for months at a time. I moved to Los Angeles a few years back, and I just decided to stay because I really vibed with the energy out here.
Where I’m from originally is pretty crazy. When I was really young, I lived in a section eight apartment complex with my family in a town literally 2 minutes walking outside of Boston. When I got a little older, my mom saved up to get buy a house because she was tired of living in the projects, so she bought a house in a borrough within Boston called Mattapan. I was really pissed when we moved from the projects into a house because I wanted to be with all my friends, and I didn’t really know kids in the neighborhood we were moving to. I knew maybe like two or three kids that lived in the area before we moved there. It was also extremely dangerous. In Boston, people call Mattapan “Murderpan” because of the large amounts of violence that goes on in that area. Growing up was crazy, I heard gunshots basically every other night when I was trying to sleep, and sometimes I would be so tired at school because I was up all night getting woken up to gunshots as a kid. I started hanging out with the kids in the neighborhood, getting into trouble, risking our lives and freedom on the daily, doing things that I’d rather not talk about, but you know, it was typical hood shit basically. The messed up part about it was it all seemed so normal to me. It didn’t seem crazy until I got older and realized that’s not what life is about. When I was fifteen years old, I became a victim of gun violence. Someone chased me down in front of my house in Mattapan and shot me two times as I was running away.
One year later after I had recovered, and I got caught selling weed trying to save up money for a studio so I could begin my music career, and the situation that got me caught was the fact that I had tried to sell to someone who stabbed me and another classmate of mine with a switch blade and tried to rob me, and then obviously the police got involved. My high school school expelled me, and I took a break from my part-time job as a weed dealer. Luckily for me, I had saved up enough money to then buy a home studio, and I now had nothing but time on my hands after being expelled from school at sixteen years old. I taught myself how to record myself with the equipment I bought from guitar center and I made a low-quality mixtape that I sent to all my friends through Facebook. The high school staff realized I was trying to turn my life around and then called me in for a meeting. I told them I would stop getting in trouble, I would get better grades, focus on my music and I would graduate. I typed up the principle a four-page letter promising I would stop selling weed and I would get decent grades, and then they allowed me to return. When I got back to school, I was basically famous at school. A lot of people were listening to my music and became fans as I was gone. I made a few songs that kids were vibing with, and then out of nowhere I started getting opportunities to open for big artists at that time, like Ahser Roth, Waka Flocka and Jim Jones. Once I got my little spark, I just kept going. Coming from my city, breaking into hip hop isn’t easy. There’s less than a handful that managed to actually get any mainstream success.
When I was living in Boston, I was going hard as I could, and I eventually met one of my good friends, his name is Dan. Dan happened to grow up in Los Angeles and had a background in the entertainment industry due to his family. He really believed in what I was doing, and knew how bad I wanted to make it out of the situation I was placed in, so he decided to speak with his family and he let them know what I was doing with music and how hard I was working, so thanks to the good energy of the universe, they decided to basically “put me on” and my life was never the same. Before I came to California, I was making a lot of noise in the city as far as music, but I also happened to catch a charge selling weed to an informant, so I was also on probation for a year and it ended basically four months before I came to California. My life had changed overnight. I went from being paranoid, running around in the streets on the daily, to living in a mansion next to the beach. I made a promise to myself that no matter what happened, I would never go back to living in Mattapan ever. I was finally living the good life.
Since I’ve been in California, I’ve been through many good and bad situations, but I’ve also accomplished a lot. I’ve had times where I was broke with literally no money, I’ve had people I thought were my friends turn on me over clout, and I’ve had record labels get my hopes up over and over again, just to end up wasting my time in the end, but although I’m still not where I want to be, I’m still very proud of what I’ve accomplished because things could definitely be a lot worst. I’m unbelievably grateful for the life I’ve been blessed with. Since I’ve been here, I’ve worked with many big-time major artists, I’ve been interviewed on BET and Sprite, I’ve had a music video placed on No Jumper, I’ve had my single, No Reception premiered on Young California, Power 106 by Dj Carisma, which is the basically the biggest radio station in the world, and I’ve had my music placed on numerous magazines and websites like The Source, Complex, and Hot 97. As of now it’s 2020, and since this year has started, I’ve released four music videos and a new mixtape called, While We Wait… I’m really glad I dropped this mixtape because I’m gaining a lot of new fans from it and I’m also converting people that weren’t sure if they liked my music or not, into new listeners and people that are gonna listen to my songs for life.
My goal isn’t to be the biggest artist of all time, or be the most famous or have the most money, although that would be great, but as long as I’m able to impact people with my story and let them know to not give up, follow your dreams, and don’t resort to violence and crime even though that might seem like the easy way out, that you don’t have to go that route. You can do what you love and if you believe in yourself and have faith, you can make it happen. I came from “Murderpan” Massachusetts, and now I pay my bills off music, I have a nice place to live that I’m able to afford every month, by the beach in Los Angeles, and all I have to worry about, is expanding my fanbase and keep creating the greatest art that my mind can create. Shout out my fans and everyone who rock with me! It’s still Get Cree for life!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Recently things have been smooth, it wasn’t always like this. I had to change my surroundings and who I put myself around. I learned not to trust everyone and go with the vibe.
Can you give our readers some background on your music?
I’m an up and coming music artist, and I’m proud of everything I’ve accomplished and excited to see what the future holds.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I just dropped a mixtape called, While We Wait… so within these next two months, I’ll be dropping a lot of music videos to go along with it, and then I have an EP coming right after this summer, which will be available on all streaming platforms instead of just YouTube and SoundCloud.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ayosk3tch/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ayosk3tch/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ayosk3tch
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