You may of seen this week’s Campus Celeb playing a show after the Florida game in Five Points or rapping at the fraternity tailgates. Local rapper Fresh DeMarco is a member of the entertainment group DFR (Different For Real), and he dreams of being recognized and has the motivation to make it happen. His new album, AudioSex, is set to drop in mid December.
Tell us about your new album!
I’ve been working on this for a while. I haven’t dropped a project in like…almost two years! I wanted to wait for the right time, I didn’t just want to release something and a lot of people not even be paying attention, you know what I mean? I got a lot of people paying attention now so I feel like this is the perfect time to release it. I’m overly critical of myself, and this is the first time I’ve been like, “this is it.”
How did you get started?
It was random, honestly. I mean I’ve been involved in music all my life. I was in chorus in high school and I sang in choir at my church and stuff like that, but I never thought that it would be a profession. When I came to Columbia, some of my friends were doing music and I tried it and it ended up being good. It really was a random thing. Sorry it’s not a cool story!
No, it is a cool story!
Yeah, well. I was always passionate about music, I always loved it, but it became a passion for me to make music. I realized that I was good at it, and it changed my life. Earlier this year I did a show in Houston on 4/20 and they flew me and my brother out there. While we were flying out I was like, “Yo, you realize we’re flying out here right now just cause I wrote some songs and made some music off some shit I was thinking of? Like, you don’t think that’s kind of crazy?” I’m blessed. I really feel like I am.
Where do you get your inspiration?
It comes from a lot of different places. Sometimes I write songs when I’m going through something tough, or something that maybe I feel that I can’t talk to anybody about. Sometimes my inspiration comes from other people around me. Other people will give me ideas, or they’ll spark something in me to make a song and then other times it just comes from the environment, you know what I mean? Just things going on around me, like in my community and a lot of things like pop culture and sh*t like that. I got songs about all different things, from sports to the government, you know what I mean? I try to cover a great variety.
Who is your biggest influence?
Alright, as far as artists go I’d say I have three: Kanye, Wiz, Wayne. Those are my three. Those are the three that I was listening to a lot when I first started doing music. If you listen to my music, you can definitely hear it.
What is your end goal?
I mean, I just want to be successful and make a living off of it. That’s pretty much what I’m doing now but I just want to do it on a bigger scale. There isn’t just one reason why I do this. Of course I wanna get paid, everyone wants to get paid. And I mean I wanna get recognized for it, I do, but I don’t necessarily want to be famous. That’s cool if I am but I don’t have to be but I do want to be respected for what I do.
What advice to do you have for people just starting out?
The most important part, from what I’ve seen and everything I’ve been through, is that you gotta find a good team around you. You gotta find a solid group of people who have the same values and morals and work ethic as you do, and people who have the same vision as you, and people who will be loyal, that you can trust and won’t go behind your back. I mean, you know how they say, “to whom much is given much is tested.” So like, now that sh*t is growing for me, I have different problems. I’ve had a couple instances of people that were in my inner circle that went behind my back, sayin something or doing something. It’s so many different things you have to deal with. The people that are there with you before the jump, those are the people you gotta keep around you.
Can you recommend one of your songs for our readers?
One song? Damn, that’s tough! I got a song with my man Nate Walker; he’s in a different band that plays around Columbia. Me and him recorded a song called “Tonight”, which is really good cause it has a lot of different elements in it. It’s on my SoundCloud. It has some rap in it, pop and a little alternative aspect. My music and everyone in my group is diverse.
If you want to hear more from Fresh, you can listen to his album on soundcloud here.