Almost every rapper’s story starts out with early childhood musical influences in the home or first being intrigued by Hip Hop played by another family member during their youth. For Sekou Metaphyz, the story starts out similar to many others, but don’t be too quick to paint them all with the same brush – he says he’s different.

With Mataphyz, it’s not about the major deal as much as it’s about the music and doing what he feels he does best. This New York rapper is signed to an independent label called NY Perks, and he seems to be comfortable in his present zone. They have plans, he has plans and they work together to do what needs to be done on a realistic level.

The Name Defined: “The name’s Metaphyz, and it means metaphysics or beyond physical, spiritual, in tune with what’s goin’ on. It’s a name that just derived from the word metaphysical. As an emcee, I feel like I got a powerful message to convey to my listeners so the name Metaphyz is mental and beyond physical and it’s psychological.”

Young Starter: “My big brother Kareem was always playin’ Rakim records around the house and I would listen to the records and the words. As a young kid, I always loved words and they stuck in my head. When I would listen to records I started makin’ songs. I was always a musical child, and I was about 11 when I first started rhyming.”

Sound Classification: “My sound is a Hip Hop/R&B sound and that’s really what it is, a mix of both.”

Personal Musical Influences: “I would say Nas, Rakim, Scarface, and 2Pac.”

Back Then (Project 1 – High Gravity): “We had an album called High Gravity back in ’07. We had some time on [New York’s] Power 105, and we had the song called ‘Dreamgirls.’ We had a strong street team doin’ a lot of street promotion, promotin’ the album in the community. We had the album in some mom and pop stores. High Gravity was more of a cultural sound and more for the listeners; somethin’ to drive in your car with.”

Transition From Then To Now: “I’ve made more strides commercially; I’ve made more commercial music and more party music. I try to make more music to get more listeners and the music is now more for everybody.”

Current Subject Matter: “I mean I’m not gonna say that there’s anything wrong with talkin’ about money or how much you got, but I do care about the culture of Hip Hop. I got good music; music that’s conscious and deals with your conscious you know and music that deals with the question of right and wrong.”

Now (Project 2 – Milk Money Part 1):  “March 31st was the official release date and that’s when the ‘Sublime’ video aired on HipHopDX. On ‘Milk Money Part 1,’ I made more commercial music. I had a joint with Uncle Murda; I had a joint with Papoose (‘Mama, I’ma Star’ ), we got production by Reefa. You know, we did some big things for this joint. Milk Money was more about makin’ you move, makin’ you dance and gettin’ up outta your seat. Ultimately, it’s a fun project. It was just somethin’ that came to me and we wanted to make people dance and make people party. It’s just the era we’re in; we’re in the Internet era so I had to make music that would catch you right away. You know, ringtone music – I made some ringtone music. I was bringin’ out my all-star side. You can check out NYPerksMusic.com and download it for free.”

New York State of Mind: “It’s just that only New York artists happened to respond to what we sent out. We sent stuff out to other artists, but it’s just that they didn’t get back. I guess they didn’t wanna rock with Metaphyz, we was tryin’ to rock with them. Music is music; it ain’t really about where you from but it’s about who you are. There’s a lot of great influences in Hip Hop that’s not from New York, but it’s just that a lot of other artists didn’t get back to us. We sent some joints to Tennessee…to Virginia so it’s not just a New York thing.”

The Video Description: “The music in ‘Sublime’ is basically about a deal that we was workin’ on that went bad. People that do music it’s a business but sometimes business goes bad. ‘Sublime’ was about business goin’ bad. We just basically sayin’ that we still wanna go what we do even if it goes bad; we still wanna put quality music out and whether you gunna do what you say you’re gunna do or not we’re still gunna do what we gotta do regardless. ‘Sublime’ was me responding to a certain kind of behaviour and me makin’ a song about it.”

Response: “I haven’t heard anything bad. We had a great director and the director really put things in perspective. It was a good project you know.”

The Plan: “Basically, we just doin’ shows. We about to do a college tour and travel. I wouldn’t mind gettin’ some kinda distribution and gettin’ connected to some type of major distribution. We wanna distribute our music to the level of a major and if it is possible that’s somethin’ we tryin’ to do.”

Current Label Situation: “As far as the agreement, it’s just an independent label. I can’t do this without talkin’ about Mike Milk ‘cause he’s the person that represents the label NYPerks. We’re just an independent label.”

Nothing Major Label Wise: “Nah I’m not lookin’ to be on a major label at all, not really. That’s not my focus. My focus is makin’ good music, becomin’ a better artist and honin’ in on my skills. I mean I don’t feel that the majors can help me do that ‘cause that has to come from within. We tryin’ to be major on our own.”

Something Major In The Future: “I would like to work with some major artists though. I would like to work with Anthony Hamilton, Estelle … I like a lot of people on a major level that I would like to work with.”