Since he signed with Interscope Records earlier this year, the buzz on Charles Hamilton [click to read] has been skyrocketing with mixtapes and features sprouting up everywhere. Sitting down with Ed Lover on his Power 105 show, Hamilton discussed his first true inspiration on rapping, why he didn’t take a stage name as an artist, and how a Jay-Z collaboration would play out.
Though he has been influenced by many different artists, Hamilton pinpointed one album in Hip Hop that jump-started his desire to rock the mic. “February 23rd, 1999, when [Eminem] first album [The Slim Shady LP] came out…I was going through a lot, and he is saying exactly what I was going through. I was like, yo this dude is like 26, white with blonde hair, and he’s telling the truth. And I’m 13, black, in a Catholic school in sixth grade, and I’m relating to it. There’s something powerful about this genre of music.”
After trying out several rap names, Charles Hamilton realized the perfect persona was sitting right in his signature. “I had a bunch of rap names, but none of them was like Charles Hamilton. I was tired of explaining my rap names to people.” Checking off a list of names, Hamilton continued, “One was Freelance, one was Ghetto Scholar, one was Pyro. I was coming up with all kinds of names like, ‘get out of here!’ I couldn’t even leave my room with those rap names.”
Naming a few big names that he would like to work with, Hamilton humorously explained his expectations if a Jay-Z collaboration became a reality. “I refuse to get outshined. They’re not gonna ‘Mr. Carter’ me. It’s gonna be the Carter administration against the Hamilton administration. The track is gonna be four minutes long and I’m gonna spit for three and a half minutes.”
