Baltimore rapper Tate Kobang released his single “Bank Rolls,” a remake of Tim Trees’ 2000 song of the same name, on April 19, 2015, the same day of Freddie Gray’s death, which allegedly came at the hands of the Baltimore Police Department.
During a newly published interview with Noisey, Tate recalls releasing the song in an attempt to inject an air of positivity into the city of Baltimore, which was then littered with riots as a result of Gray’s untimely death.
“We honestly wasn’t even gonna put the song out but it’s a feel good record and we was trying to bring some happiness to the city,” Tate says. “Baltimore been a depressing place for years now. The world just got wind, but we been going through this shit forever. All this just going on? No! Niggas die everyday.”
Following the success of the song, Tate signed with Lyor Cohen’s 300 Entertainment. He hopes that his deal will help to propel himself and the city of Baltimore past his initial success.
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“The world don’t know shit about Baltimore except it’s a lot of killings, it’s a lot of drugs, we got ‘The Wire’ and the Ravens,” he says. “That’s it. Now they’re seeing we actually have a culture.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Tate, who resides from East Baltimore, spoke on his passion for Rap, which he says flourished when he went to high school in York, Pennsylvania.
“I started getting serious about rapping when I realized I could get paid off of it and I could get pussy off of it,” Kobang says. “That was it for me. My uncles and cousins were always into music, so I sat back and learned from them. I actually got in trouble for writing my uncle some raps because my mother found them and found out I was spelling all the cuss words right but I wasn’t spelling shit right in school. But that’s when I realized I had something to say. She told me ‘If this what you gonna do, I’m gonna need you to do it to your fullest capabilities and stick with it.’”
The music video to Tate Kobang’s “Bank Rolls” can be viewed below:
To read the full interview, please visit Noisey.
