Refaya Bornfree

One night, when I was a child, my family and I were sitting around the television watching the Banana Splits. A commercial for a compilation disc/tape set of hip-hop songs came on and I remember, I was five at the time, being in awe of all the different songs, artists and styles with which they chose to deliver the message. My father took note of my attentiveness and told me, “that could be you one day, homeboy.” I will never forget that feeling. The very next day, I woke up and immediately stood before my father and told him that I wanted to learn how to rap and that day, we painstakingly set out to write my first rhyme. Since then, I’d written small compositions from time to time, but I didn’t seriously consider becoming an artist professionally until I was about sixteen and able to express my ideas as an individual. I continued to compose songs and develop my own style and it was pretty much understood within my circle of close friends and family that I would look to get signed some day. It was when I was most confident about my abilities and preparing to leave off for college when out of nowhere, my mother died in her sleep. It was exactly a week after my eighteenth birthday and a few months before my high school graduation and God had taken my mother, a woman who worked three jobs at a time, slaving away daily to provide for her husband and children, away from me. This sent me down a path of self-destruction, I attempted to take my own life a number of times and my relationships were falling apart. It was then that I’d began writing intensely and allowing my emotions to bleed through my work. The result of which was Bornfree, an identity I inherited that encompasses all of my trials, triumphs, artistry and imperfections. I'm not anyone's favorite rapper and I'm no one's leader. I'm a guy with a song to sing to the world if such a world would allow.