Featured artist: RUPSHERD (R.U.P.S.H.E.R.D.) - An acronym for (R.hymes U.sed P.erfectly S.o H.ateful E.xistences R.adilcally D.ecline)
Below is a short interview with the upcoming underground artist RUPSHERD (R.U.P.S.H.E.R.D.).
How did you decide to become an artist?
RUPSHERD (R.U.P.S.H.E.R.D.): ***(I’m sorry this part is long) It’s just hard for me to explain why I became an artist without explaining who I am first.
RUPSHERD’s Story:
RUPSHERD is from Hemet, Ca. and is son to his mother Lisa, father Danny and his older brother Zack. When he was born, he suffered from malnutrition which ended up rotting out all four front of his baby teeth. Years of trouble with this ended with him having to get all four teeth removed, and was made toothless for a majority of his childhood. Also, when RUPSHERD was only a 1 year old his family home burned down in a fire while everyone was inside. Investigations from the cops reported the fire was caused by candles; as he was raised in a house with absolutely no electricity. Even tho there were no candles in the initial area the fire started. It is said by his mother that everyone was asleep at the time the fire broke out. Him and his brother were laying with their mom on the bed when she woke up to the walls and the ceiling covered in flames. She grabbed him, and not a moment later his dad ran into the room and grabbed his brother. Being disoriented from smoke inhalation they ended up getting stuck in the closet. In a panic, they struggled to get free and when they got out the entire bed and most of the walls were on fire. They managed to get everyone outside to safety and salvaged some family pictures and other items from the burning building. His father; returning inside to retrieve his mother’s purse, barely made it outside before every window in the house shattered outward and the house went up in flames. The cops also said they could not determine whether or not the fire started inside or out, but were sure that it was just candles. After living with family for awhile after the fire and trying to pick up the pieces from the loss. The family was finally able to move into apartments in Oceanside, Ca. were years later his parents would split up in a huge fight that him and his brother was forced to witness. RUPSHERD and his brother were separated from their father for five years after that fight, separating all ties. Him, his mom, and his brother stayed in Oceanside for few more years afte! r that u ntil the three of them moved to Yuma, Az. They stayed there with his mom’s first wedded husband. They all stayed at his step dad’s brother’s house the entirety of the marriage, which only lasted 6 months. His mom separated from his step dad due to reports of abuse and drug use, and the family ended up moving to Temecula, Ca. where they lived in apartments until RUPSHERD was in high school. During this time it had been five years since him or his brother had seen their father and finally were able to come back into contact when RUPSHERD’s brother turned eighteen. In high school he was doing poorly, immediately joining a gang with his brother and his cousin and was quickly expelled freshman year for multiple accounts of smoking, ditching with his girlfriend (at the time), and coming to school drunk. He dropped out of school for a little bit and continued drinking, doing drugs, squatting on the streets and fighting rival gangs at their backyard parties, concerts and basically anywhere they could find them. He was even in and out of several bands at the time originally playing bass then moved onto guitar, drums and even doing vocals, but never fully committing himself to the music due to his alcohol and drug abuse. Shortly after being expelled from high school and having to join a charter school to redo the ninth grade. His father was struck and killed while riding his bike to the store by a D.U.I. driver who tested positive for having meth and alcohol in her system at the time she hit him. RUPSHERD had gotten a phone call from his cousin telling him what happened and it had only been two years since they reunited with their father and only a week before Christmas. His father was put on life support and was said to be a ”vegetable” if they would have kept him alive. Not being able to talk or move the family had to say their goodbyes, and let him pass away. On the ride home it is said that RUPSHERD actually vomited due to the trauma. The women who was driving the vehicle wa! s report ed to have only been sentenced two years by the courts for D.U.I. manslaughter, but never served the full term. After the funeral, him and his brother went off the deep end even more. Getting heavily involved in their gang, drinking everyday and getting in constant fights with themselves and others. RUPSHERD realized only after suffering problems with anxiety, stress and depression. As well as spending almost five years of being in and out of bands and producing his own compositions that music was the place he needed to be to survive. It was his escape from a life on the streets where there was none, and a fuel that set him off like an explosion. He ended up severing ties with his old gang and devoted the entirety of his time to picking back up in school and the production of his hip hop persona RUPSHERD; which is an acronym for R.hymes U.sed P.erfectly S.o H.ateful E.xistences R.adically D.ecline. The name comes from the nickname he received in his crew which was ”Spleen”, but he took the obvious meaning and made it his own. The misspelling of his name comes from RUPSHERD’s attempt at mocking the people he was going to school with at the time. The ones that still thought you spelled ruptured ”rupsherd”. He reportedly spent over six hours constructing the acronym for RUPSHERD with his cousin one night.They both stayed up for a large portion of the night coming up with different music ideas and themes for persona’s, but decided to keep it authentic and tell people exactly how it is to be ”RUPSHERD”. After catching up with high school and struggling to cope with the death of his father. His mom eventually met a man that convinced them to move into back into a house in Murrieta, Ca. after living in apartments for most of RUPSHERD’s life. His mom and his soon to be step dad got married, had a baby girl, and even opened up a hydroponics supply shop out in Hemet, Ca. with his uncle. The business took off rather quickly and thrived for several years. Things ! were fin ally staring to look up for the family of harsh times, but a couple years after the birth of his sister his step dad decided to invest a large amount of money into a medical marijuana grow operation. The house was eventually raided by police, his mom and step dad were taken to jail and his sister was taken by child services. His mother was released that same night, but his sister had to stay with her grandma until his mom was able to prove to the courts and child services that she had nothing to do with the operation. Her only interests were keeping her children safe and she ended up divorcing the husband who was responsible for the crisis. There were reportedly over 100 plus plants present at the house they were living at, and the only reason it was shut down was because there were reports of a shotgun hidden in the attic of the building. Not only all of that, but his step dad at the time was cheating on his mom and would disappear for days on in hemorrhaging money from their business to fuel his drug habit. Up to $600 at a time would go missing every time he would, and it wasn’t until his mom and uncle eventually sold the shop to a friend that they realized they didn’t have enough to pay for what his ex-step dad had lost for the business. His uncle ended up paying the amount owed and severed ties with the family, while RUPSHERD, his again pregnant mom, his brother, his two year old sister and now his grandma picked up the pieces of almost going bankrupt, losing their house, losing three cars and money he was going to use to go to college. Things finally seemed to settle down a little bit when he actually managed to attend college, thanks to his grandma using her retirement money to pay for his tuition and gas to get back and forth from school to home. He attended college at the Musician’s Institute in Hollywood, Ca. in 2012 and took the Music Business Program for two semesters. He drove over 80 plus miles three days out of the week, every week for school. After meeting many industry ! professi nals such as Scooter Braun (Justin Bieber’s manager), Jessica Andrews (Justin Timberlake’s manager), and Bill Silva (Jason Mraz’s manager). He managed to graduate and earn his certificate while gaining intimate knowledge of the music industry. Learning such concepts as artist management, concert production, tour production, music supervision and publishing, contracts, copyright basics, music distribution, public relations, internet marketing and networking. He is using the knowledge he received now to try and further his career in the music business as he, his mom and two sisters try and keep the house they are living in afloat. His mother’s second daughter being born on the last day he attended class. After college his mom started working all week and him having to babysit from 10:00am to 8:00pm everyday, and eventually got into the process of getting their lives back on track. All he does on his free time now is work on his music day in and day out just to get people to notice what he’s doing. It is a never ending grind and an everyday struggle, but he plans to keep moving on. He has even been recently dealing with a jaw displacement from his wisdom teeth and molers growing in that made it extremely difficult for him to rap and perform. He reportedly would wake up everyday feeling like he had gone 10 rounds in a boxing match, but still continued to pursue his passion and career in music. He has already recorded two tracks with his T.M.D. and it is said that they are his best work yet. He has been writing, producing, recording, mixing, mastering, registering, releasing and promoting all of his own music since he was thirteen years old and started RUPSHERD on Febuary 29, 2009. His passion for music was always apparent to him and his parents even from a young age. He even remembers him being only four years old when him, his mother and his father were driving along the side of the road in Oceanside one fateful day. He was riding in the middle back seat of his parent’s ! old T-bi rd and he remembers always refusing to put his seat belt on whenever he wanted to hear a song come on the radio. His parents would always let him hear the song as to make sure their son stayed safe while the vehicle was in motion, but a song had come on the radio at the time and he just had to hear it. He takes off his seat belt to force his parents to turn on the radio when they turned it off, and his parents being distracted by their son removing his seat belt in a moving vehicle and arguing with them didn’t see the car stopping seconds ahead. They ended up colliding with the car and he remembers his head springing forward and hitting the center console where people would rest their arms. The car was destroyed, but luckily no one was seriously injured. His life has been full of nothing but trial and tribulation. He takes his past experiences and applies them to his music and to bettering himself for the future. Using his anger, anxiety, and depression and turning it into a positive fuel that he plans to use one day to help others cope with traumatic problems and experiences. Turning a dark past into a bright future. RUPSHERD does nothing but prepares himself and his craft, constantly getting ready for whatever ay happen. Hoping that one day he can too get a chance to stand with the spotlight shining on him.
Don’t put yourself down after harsh critiquing. Learn from it and apply it. No one ever started out as a professional.
What about concerts? Do you play live?
Yes, as an independent hip hop artist I am constantly networking with venues and booking shows whenever I possibly can. I’ve actually played with the Kotton Mouth King side group D.G.A.F. in late 2011. Also playing open mics
Best punchline you ever wrote?
Legs open, chicks I get ’em soakin’. Playin’ that pussy like a modern Beethoven.
What are you currently working on? Did you release something in the past?
Anything and everything. Getting better equiptment and improving my sound all together. Working on the release my mixtape ’Fantasy – The Mixtape: Vol. 1’. Also progressing on my second album which is titled ’Shattered: Act I’. The first act to a three part series. I have released a previous album, a couple mixtapes, and a couple singles in the past. Two tracks of mine were actaully recorded while I was having issues with a jaw displacement, or TMD. One track ’The Rebirth (Prod. by: Don Coda)’ was released on StateIIState Mixtapes Presents… Drake – Trophies.
Last but not least: Would you sign a record contract with a major label?
Yes, only for the fact of me not having the resources to do what they can make possible in such a short amount of time. Ofcoarse, I could take the Macklemore approach and do it independently, but let’s face it. Not all of us have a Ryan Lewis helping out with production. So independents such as myself kind of see a record label as ”making it.” Sadly, the reality is the major labels take a lot of the money that the artist makes in the long run. If that artist isn’t keeping up a steady flow of income for the label, then the label is going to find someone else who can. Could be written off as quickly as you got on. That’s why they always say, be prepared. Plus your obviously doing something right if labels are looking to sign you, best just to look at your indvidual situation.
Any last words?
MUCH LOVE & RESPECT to anyone and everyone supporting my music. My family, friends, fans and everyone in between. Shoutout to my mom Lisa, brother Zack, cousin Chris, the homies (Alex, Nick, Adam, Michael, Cody, AJ), my family out in Hemet, Ca., my teachers from the Musician’s Institute’s Music Business Program and my fellow graduates. Also R.I.P. to my father Danny Walton. You will always be in my heart and in my memories. You are my inspiration.
Where can we contact you?
RUPSHERD (R.U.P.S.H.E.R.D.): twitter.com/rupsherd
Thank you for your time. We wish you and your career the success it deserves.
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This interview was done by Amanda Aselia, a long time blogger and entertainment journalist specialized in the underground hip hop music field.
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