Hip hop, either you love it or you don’t. For Solomon Childs, it was infatuation at first sight.
“I fell in love with hip hop when I was young. I didn’t know too much about it,” he says. “My mom was a pop queen and her thing was Madonna, Whitney Houston, Pat Benatar and Sade. My dad loved country music.”
Solomon didn’t learn about the elements of hip hop until he hit high school. “A few cousins of mine were at the lunchroom table—I had snuck into their lunch. They started singing “Ain’t No Half Steppin" by Big Daddy Kane. I wanted to know what they were singing because I never heard that before.”
Solomon was under a trance by their beguiling flow, and he needed more of that sound. So, he rushed home from school after speaking with his cousins that day, who informed him that he could watch rap videos on channel 31... “I went into another time zone, and music just started playing from the television,” he recalled. “The first video that came on that day was Special Ed, I Got It Made… I fell in love right then because it was something I never experienced.”
The rhymester grew up in an archaic era where, smart TV’s didn’t exist, and neither did cell phones. There was a certain order in households, where children were seen and not heard. Once Solomon saw the shift from children that were his age, speaking confidently and brash on TV, he wanted to do it too. “That’s when I fell in love with hip hop,” he says.
Solomon Childs is a native of Staten Island, New York. He’s an affiliate to Wu-Tang Clan through direct connects Cappadonna and Ghostface Killah. His lyricism is canny, conclusive and smooth flowing. He’s collaborated with Wu-Tang stemming from the late 90’s including verses on RZA's Bobby Digital and Ghostface Killah's Supreme Clientele, just to name a couple sparks. Solomon joined Theodore Unit[Ghostface Killha’s group]. He’s released numerous albums and mixtapes over the years. In 2017, he released “Don’t Ask Permission, Ask for Forgiveness,” after getting shot in the neck in 2016. The song became his stoic script from that life altering encounter.
Solomon is also a celebrated songwriter, who penned hits for RZA, Alicia Keyes, Ashanti, Mary J Blige, and Destiny’s Child to name a few icons.
Since Solomon discovered hip hop during the golden era, where music influenced and activated sensitivity, it was fair to ask him his thoughts on the state of the industry today. “I think that hip hop is elevation, and hip hop constantly elevates each and every day. One thing about elevation is change. That’s the keyword to elevation, it’s change. Nothing will ever stay the same. It’s not going to remain where its at. It’s going to enhance. I believe that it’s a style. It’s a culture, and right now, the younger generation is giving a culture of hip hop from where they see it. Sure, when Afrika Bambaataa came out with their style and the Treacherous Three, they weren’t feeling when Rakim and Big Daddy Kane came out. It’s going to evolve everyone, and that’s basically what it is, it’s elevation. The way that MC or an artist delivers their lyrics is just… it’s in the matrimony in itself.”
Speaking of the culture, Solomon is working on a new album called King Kong of New York Vol. 2: The Return of Kong, produced by Ghostface. “It’s that music that gives you that feel, and makes you remember hip-hop,” he says.
Solomon is releasing two buzz singles from the album called Your Dreams and How You Want Me to Behave. He considers them forward-thinking pieces that’s outside of the box from his previous projects. “I’m releasing the album probably towards the end of fall. The fun and games is over,” he remarks. “Let’s get back to the real culture of hip hop.”
The wordsmith released True Definition, a sublime ode to the hip culture. Solomon said that he was motivated to write and perform that song because, “I’m very observant and I love to write. That’s one of my strong points,” he says. “I’m actually writing a book right now. I just love writing and that’s where I’m at right now. I’m going to continue to always be inspired. Anything really inspires me, a good book, a news article, a fist fight, unfortunately. Whatever it is, things always spark a battery in me to come up with some kind of song or lyric. It could be one line, and it will charge me, and generate me into dropping a whole album.”
Solomon believes that rappers should read more, and they should do their research… “Reading builds up your vocabulary and it extends your vocabulary,” he explained. “Again, hip hop is whatever it is that you do with music, whether it’s a girls song, a positive song, a negative song, shoot’em up song, a dance song, or a booty shaking song. You need to actually know what you’re talking about to make it sound the way that it needs to sound.”
Outside of the music, Solomon works with the youth and he serves as a counselor to the homeless. “I feed the homeless and I mentor the less fortunate. I let them know that we all fell and we got to get up. We all fall, but the object is to get back up. I’m also doing movies. I’m trying to do that as much as possible. I have my SAG card. I will be filming a new movie with Sigourney Weaver and Michael B. Jordan December 2020. I’m definitely trying to get to the top.
‘I gotta do something. It’s a constant elevation to keep my mind focused on a straight path. It’s almost like the old theory, that trouble is easy to get into, and hard to get rid of. When you’re not really focused on staying positive and keeping out of trouble, you find yourself in trouble, living with regrets. Instead of worrying about the what if’s, I’d rather stay focused on doing what I got to do.”
Solomon is concentrating on the positives. He journeyed to Australia, as part of a campaign to speak with students at different schools about life and evolving. He loves to travel. In fact, he said that it’s one of his major accomplishments. “I traveled all over the world by myself without an entourage. I put something together on my own. No one made it happen for me. It made me feel like the sky was truly the limit.”
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