ASSOCIATE EDITORArticle: Etrus Hunt | Photography: Adolphus Amissah
In Daddy’s House recording studio, among vices and vice grips that help handle the best equipment they’re ambition and day jobs can buy, a small handheld camera is set up. Candy Man and Eazie memorize from their cell phones while an engineer downs a 5-hour energy. After a few moments a message is communicated through eye contact. They’re ready to go in.
After Candy Man spits the chorus, it’s Eazie’s cue to drop. He begins safely, but then the camera catches a different look in his eye. His cadence chops up as tough as the beat. Then, as the smile spreads across his face, he begins to joke. His subtle innuendos to chick on cocaine leave him with no choice but to bounce his shoulders. A few more bounces and he takes off, each punch line immediately making you forget the last. By the time he’s through his fourth bar of double timing the beat, the Contractors know exactly what to do. They pull their tricks with production at the same time Eazie pulls his with rhymes. Now it’s music. The moment Eazie’s been waiting for. The reason he collaborated and compromised. The first step is taken. A God is born.
Originally from Staten Island, and raised in Brooklyn, Eazie Da God has lived all along the East Coast in his short life. From Philadelphia to Miami and a few cities in between, it was this nomadic childhood that allowed him to foster the connections that he uses today. His music and fans stretch anywhere his charming personality takes him.
The proclamation of no one being “bout this life” has never been truer for the rapper. He parties under the guise of a modern day spirit of madness. Yet, when he parties, it’s with a purpose. You’ll see his swag on the videos, but if you’re lucky enough, you can see it in the booth as well.
The Art Moves Collective, a video series from Contractors Music, had Candy Man and Eazie in the studio. The hit-makers for hire put down beats congruent with their earlier work. Their hard work has resulted in exposure on a mixtape by “Fabolous” and rotation on Hot 97 radio. This playlist feature’s East Coast talent brought together in the studio to flaunt their creative process better than most artists’ finished work.
While it used to be cool to compare your cadence with an M16, a rising trend has writing styles lean more towards an automatic shotgun. Eazie’s confidence in this trend shows itself in an impenetrable confidence that perfectly matches in music put with French Montana’s Trap Wave.
In a lot of videos of Eazie, both musical and personal, the class clown he used to be is alive and fully thriving. In this studio, where Professional Boxing is played on a large TV above the booth, we see a different Eazie. He’s serious. He’s not hiding his ambitions like he had to when he was younger. When someone is young and their elders ask them the question “What do you want to do for a living?” Eazie chose flight instead of fight. He never told them he was a rapper. Now it’s the big time and he doesn’t care who knows it.
In a city where making a splash is the only way in, Eazie is still learning to swim. Nonetheless, his contact list of collaborators gets more abundant by the month. Hopefully it forms a ladder straight to the Lupe Fiasco song he wants someday.
Right now, he’s focused on dodging the fake and only working with those that are faithful enough to freely worship hip-hop. He hasn’t yet begun his twelve labors yet, but he’s beginning his period of being a disciple. In due time, we will all witness Da God.