In today’s oversaturated music environment, it’s rare for a rapper to get signed off a demo with no proven sales records or radio spins. But that’s exactly what happened for Slip N Slide artist Bud. Now preparing for the release of the follow-up to his popular mixtape, Heart of a Hustla 2, he aims to give the streets of Liberty City and beyond what they’ve been fiending for. How did you get started in the rap game? I really stumbled upon it. My friend had a studio and I ended up doing like ten, eleven songs, just freestyling or whatever. We ran into an A&R from Slip N Slide Records in the streets and just gave him one of my CDs. They gave me a call and ever since then I’ve been doing my thing. Are you born and raised in Miami? Yeah, born and raised in Miami. Liberty City, to be exact. I went to Liberty City Elementary, Martin Luther King Elementary, you know. My grandma stays in the heart of Liberty City. Is your music similar to what we’ve come to expect from other Slip N Slide artists? It’s hard to categorize it, you know? It’s reality music. It’s based around current events; things going on in my city. What I know. What I see. The environment I was raised in. Why do you think there’s such a disparity between the tourist perspective of Miami and the actual reality of someone who grew up in Miami? South Beach is made for tourism, like any other place that’s made for tourism. They’re going to show you what they want you to see. But in Liberty City – Dade County in general – on the other side of the bridge, it’s a whole other world. I guess it’s the mentality of the people. Liberty City and South Beach have a whole different mentality. What are some of the topics you discuss in your music? I speak on the streets. I speak on jealousy. Jealousy breeds envy. A lot of times it’s crabs in a barrel. When a person sees that you’re trying to do music, they want to pull you back to discredit you or whatever. That’s just how it is. And a lot of the violence stems from jealousy; that’s the root of it if you get down to the core
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of the problem. What do you have coming out now? I dropped Heart of a Hustla 1.5 and now I’m getting ready to release Heart of a Hustla 2. My first mixtape got me a buzz; it got me a lot of shows from here to Georgia back around to the Carolinas. Heart of a Hustla 2 is an amazing mixtape. I really just call it a street album because I don’t jack tracks; I do original tracks. Jacking beats is kind of played out to me. I mean, people want to hear new ideas. As soon as you hear a jacked track, okay – next song – you know? That’s where I see Hip Hop going. People don’t really want to hear that; they want to hear beats and lyrics. That’s what I bring to the table: original music. Do you have features from other Slip N Slide artists on your mixtape? Yeah. Mike Bless from Slip N Slide is on there. I have a few other artists also, but I don’t really have too many features because I wanted to premiere myself. I worked with artists like Brisco and Piccalo on the first Heart of a Hustla, so I wanted to do me on this one so people could see who I am. What about on the production side? Any big-name producers we should be looking out for? I worked with CP Hollywood, Trackology, Zaytoven, and a few others. That’s all I can think of off the top of my head, but there’s some good music on there. Is there anything else you want to add? Bud is the new face of Slip N Slide Streetz. Right now the rap game needs to be ready for me. What I’m bringing to the table is crazy. It’s going to be a movie. Things are moving faster than a lot of people expected. We keep it moving! Twitter: @BudMusicSNS Facebook: Bud, Slip N Slide Streetz Web: Budmusic.net or SlipNSlideRoyalty. com