Rated R Superstar: Kxng Prince

"Constantly studying the culture and trying to improve myself in every way possible."

- Kxng Prince

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Behind the Artist

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Irvington, NJ. Kxng Prince is a man of rare taste and through his projects this deems to be true. As a kid,he considered himself a phenomenal storyteller and was super skilled at creative writing years later this has transformed him to produce creative works such as WonderWRLD to the up and coming Rated R Superstar.

Interview

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Who is Kxng Prince and where are you from?

Prince: Growing up, my pops played nothing but hip hop and rap music absurdly loud in his pick up truck. Everyday to and from school he’d be playing a lot of the same exact songs from the same exact artist like The Lox, DMX, Camron and Dipset, Wu-tang the whole nine. Hearing this music over and over I guess subconsciously was turning me into a poet myself without me really knowing it and I fell in love with hip hop culture.

Give us a little background on your upbringing and did/has your hometown held any influence on your path?

Prince: If you noticed, I named all East coast artist that I grew up hearing because of my dad but ironically I didn’t actually want to start rapping until I was introduced to Lil Wayne who is a southern artist. A Milli was the first song that made me write my first freestyle.

What sparked your musical journey? And how would you describe your sound for those who may not have heard you yet?

Prince: Over time, a lot of my favorite rap artist in fact were not from NY. They ended being mostly from the south such as Gucci Mane, Weezy, 2 Chainz, oh and a lot of Kanye (even though he’s from Chicago).

Who held musical influence on you coming up?

Prince: As a kid I was already a phenomenal storyteller and was super skilled at creative writing such as short stories and poems, and that easily poured over into my song writing ability. To create my own character and identity, I took bits and pieces of different traits from all my favorite artist and dumped them into myself sorta like using ingredients to make one dish. Wayne made me want to rap, Kanye made me want to be an ARTIST and explore deeper, and another top favorite of mine Young Thug simply gave me the extra confidence to not give a fuck about anything I wanted to do or say.

Where do you think the industry is flawed at now? Among many what is the biggest?

Prince: As of right now I believe the biggest problems in the industry, are the people in position to find new talent. They don’t actually care about talent at all anymore, it’s more about who’s popular on social media. Another major issue is that more than half of the newer artist will admit to not really having love and respect for the culture or the actual act of RAPPING. It’s just a quick money grab to them, countless times I’ve heard a rapper say “I’m not a rapper” and that’s appalling to someone like me who really lives and breathes hip hop.

What do you think separates you from the other artist on the market?

Prince: Honestly what I believe separates me from the rest of my peers is my work ethic, my genuine creativity, and my habit of constantly studying the culture and trying to improve myself in every way possible. Not a day goes by where I’m not thinking of new ideas, watching interviews, or just anything music related. I also pay close attention to my competition and what their doing, as far as my city goes almost everyone who wants to rap sounds exactly like everyone else from Chicago. They don’t really push themselves to talk about anything other than “drill music” and their visuals and artworks are never anywhere near my levels.

What was the Journey like creating Wonderwrld Adventures? Did the project receive the feedback that you were looking for.

Prince: For example, my latest album WonderWRLD I went above and beyond on several levels. The cover art was a hand drawn cartoon, the tracklist was changed a thousand times before its release, It took me about the entire winter to finish it, and i even did a trailer as a promo for the album which i never did before. It all paid off too, because it’s now my most streamed project ever with over 6.5K streams. That’s honestly not even that good on a large scale but it’s a huge leap and improvement for me because a year or two ago I was barely getting over 50 streams in songs.

You've been working and dropping quite a bit lately, in particular the cover art for Rated R Superstar Cover art, what should we be looking forward to with this project?

Prince: With my new project dropping September 6th, Rated R Superstar is going to be different from everything so far. This time around I’m using much less auto tune and focusing more on bars and creative flows. It’s much more gritty and hood, compared to my usual happy sing song melodies.

What's next for Kxng Prince and where do you see yourself in the next five years?

Prince: From this point on, I plan on focusing more on visuals and performances rather than the actual music. I have close to 8 full length albums, that’s more than enough. 10. In 5 years I’ll definitely have transformed into the international star I know I am, and will have reinvented hip hop as we know it.

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For more on Kxng Prince, tune into WonderWRLD available on all streaming platforms and tune into all social media platforms as well:

Twitter: @KxngPrince

Instagram: @1kxngprince

Youtube: Kxng Prince