Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Siders, Jay Carter, and Ivan Anderson.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Christopher, Jay, and Ivan. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
WISE: Music has been around me my whole life. Legit, majority of my earliest memories are based on the music that was being played at the time. Like I can remember when Miseducation of Lauryn Hill dropped me, my sisters and my dad were going to a wedding bumping that album front to back then we get to the reception and they doing the same thing lol. But first, it was my dad’s musical taste that made me fall in love with music. It was a bunch of R&B and Gospel. I fell in love with that before Hip Hop actually. It wasn’t until my parents divorced and my sisters, my mom and I moved to Inglewood that I became emerged in Hip Hop, Soul and a bunch of oldies. Prior to that I got my Hip Hop sneaking and watching BET when I got home. It was Rap City the basement and 106 and park.
But when I moved to Inglewood, I heard Tupac’s “shed so many tears” for the first time and everything changed. I was seven at the time but by the time I was nine, I started rhyming and looking up to my older cousins and they were hip hop heads. Honestly just overall music heads and one of them rapped himself so I looked up to him. Long story short he got locked up and it made me want to rap. So by the time 9th grade of high school came around I was a rapper but hardly any of my classmates knew only my friends. I don’t know what it was but one day I saw Chris in the hallway and told him I rapped but didnt show him nothing. I just wasn’t ready I guess but mid-school year I showed him and the rest is history.
Siders: In 2007, Me and Wise linked up. I was a sophomore in high school at View Park Prep High School and he was a freshman. We met a year prior at a summer bridge program at View Park ICEF school. I remember him saying that he wanted to be a rapper, and he could spit. At the time my homie, Keliief made beats off of FL studios 10. So I thought it would be dope to make something happen. I had no idea how to produce. I just started to learn how to write poetry, and I didn’t rap. I took my iHome boom box to school and told him to meet me in a classroom to play the beats so he can rap. Everyday, I downloaded 9th Wonder beats off the internet, and found instrumentals from classic songs/albums and brought them to school. We had rap cyphers before school, during lunch, and after school in the parking lot or in the classroom. Everyone in the high school would jump in the cypher to spit and listen. Those were legendary times. Shout outs to Mike The Poet for providing the space in the classroom for everyone share their work.
Jay Stevens: When I was a child my mother would play Gospel, my pops would play Jazz/Blues and my siblings Hip-Hop/Rap and R&B all the time. My earliest memories of music fall with artists such as Michael Jackson, Sam Cooke, and B.B King to name a few. They were the most consistently played throughout the house. They’re obviously not Hip-Hop artists but they played a part in my loving music so early on. I recall my first inclination to start working on music was when I was about 9 or 10 years old, I had received a hand-me-down Xbox from my cousin Garrick in Detroit. It came with a few games like Mtv Music Generator 3 & Halo. I was most intrigued by Xbox Music Mixer because it came with a microphone as well. I would start freestyling over the stock beats and eventually over time began using beats from all of my favorite Hip-Hop/Rap CD’s like Kanye West’s “College Dropout” & Juelz Santana’s “What The Games Been Missing?”, etc. I would freestyle during recess during middle school at View Park Prep, begin writing verses and forming a sense of flow. Eventually, I would meet up with Wise and Chris during High School, rapped over 9th Wonder beats along with Wise and the rest is history. Shadows became the rap faction and the home base. These were the moments that helped shaped me as an artist.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Clearly, no road is smooth. We had several trials and tribulations as a unit. However, our biggest issue as a unit has been time management and creative differences.
Around 2011, we was a 13 man group. As the years continued on, some individuals couldn’t make the sessions and made other things a priority. Also, since we was split up literally all over Los Angeles from North Hollywood to Carson it became difficult for everyone to meet up.
From late 2017-early 2018, during the creation of Nosediving In The Fountain Of Youth, more members left due creative differences and lack of dedication.
Please tell us about ShadowsOfSociety.
What sets us apart from other groups is that we like to capture the energy of the moment. Siders would provide the production, Jay Stevens, and WISE provide ideas for song structure on the spot. Then we go into the process of writing.
We are still in the process of figuring out our business. However we would like to branch off into other forms of entertainment with music being the root of what we do professionally.
For example, aside from music, Jay Stevens is getting into Music Supervision for film and designing artwork. WISE is getting into painting and screenwriting for television. Siders is getting into Gender Queer Modeling and writing books.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
To put actions to our words. Take more chances and risks on ourselves regarding our art and vision. In essence, to trust ourselves more.
Contact Info:
- Website: wearesos.weebly.com
- Phone: 310-749-4674
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: instagram.com/shadowsofsociety
- Facebook: facebook.com/ShadowsOfSocietyMusicGroup
- Twitter: twitter.com/shadows_society
- Other: https://linktr.ee/ShadowsOnTheRise
Suggest a story: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
