Yah-Sin
What's in a name? For Yah-Sin, the multidimensional rapper and song writer on the verge, so propituously named, is constantly reminded of the weighty responsibility to provide music and lyrics not just for the twerkers and two-steppers, but a music tutoring the culture to a better space. Yah-Sin mines his lyrics from a complex and fluid world providing endless color, context and substance.
For the uninitiated, Yahsin is the title of the 36th Chapter of the Holy Quran. The name, Yahsin, translates into English, "O Thou Human Being." Yahsin, informally, is an endearment, a welcoming of one favored. I'll ask again, what's in a name?" In this brother's case, possibly everything.
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If all the above doesn't move you, Yah-Sin was born in the land of the Wu, Staten Island, Stapleton Projects. His father is a seminal figure from the early aughts of the movement that became Wu Tang. With all the metaphysical overtones and connective tissue attached to his name, Yah-Sin just might lay claim to the lyrical inheritance of the 36 Chambers taking it to the next level in the Twenty-first Century.
Yah-Sin was born to parents who were just teenagers themselves, both of whom answered the call of materialism, that for all intentions and purposes is the American Dream, even if accessibility to the Dream isn't the same for all people and has certain consequences for many of its Dreamers on the other side of the divide. "When I was young I was around a lot of drug trafficking. My father spent some time incarcerated when I was little. We moved around a lot." Yeah, early on it was Jay's proverbial "Hard Knock Life" for his parents, but both parents found their way to stability and purpose for themselves and their children.
As a child he took it all in, life, both at home, and outside his front door. The the then, precocious little boy would cycle through his teen years into manhood equipped with the lessons and experiences to navigate the pratfalls that would have swallowed a lesser man. Yah-Sin states that early in his life, "My family hustled to make ends meet, but my parents are two of the most creative and intelligent people I know. No matter what was going in my parents life, my three brothers and I always felt like we came first and knew that we were loved." Those qualities of intelligence and creativity are resonant in both the man, Yah-Sin, and his music.
Yah-Sin's early musical backdrop was the 1990's Hip Hop and R&B, a cross polination of the two genres. It was a time when the music was fresh, fun, and fly, demanding you rushed to the dance floor. It was a time when Hip Hop was just a teenager. Yah-Sin points to Bad Boy's best, Biggie and Mase, as his earliest musical inspirations, Mase in particular, being his favorite rapper and early inspiration for what would become his passion for rapping and song writing. Yah-Sin boasts proudly, "I've got an old soul. When I was seven years old I asked my mother to buy me a Jackson Five record, I use to listen to it all the time." Yah-Sin has been writing songs ever since.
Early musical influences aside, Yah-Sin refuses to 'jack' someone else's wave. "I'm carving my own lane, others are welcome to follow, but my music comes from a place insides me and I follow its path. Yah-Sin's music is a hybrid of his sonic inheritance, the radiation of spiritual energy and a reading of the tea leaves of his time and space reality. When asked who he'd like to work with, "Whoever is ready to make great music, but on the production side, I'd love to work with Kanye or Pharell." In attempt to get a less than cagey answer from Yah-Sin about his greatest influence, he states without preamble, "Allah."
Yah-Sin is truly a Millennial. He's been grinding professionally since the age 18, and as digital opportunities have expanded, so has his portfolio of investment and visions. Under new management and taking the creative authority necessary to stamp the the culture with his own inimitable musicality, look forward to inspiring musical content as well as the signs of empire building from a variety of entrepreneurial endeavors on Yah-Sin's horzon.
Yah-Sin carries on his shoulder salutations from the Creator, the awareness of a woke black man in America, and the clear eyed vision and direction. He is self charged witn providing lyrical commentary informed by the weight of his name, and the obligation to honor it through the lens of his understanding, individually and collectively, parsing the joys and pains of life in the 21st Century.
