It ain’t common nowadays to come across organic story-based music. That being said, it’s even more uncommon when the artist behind the craft is a well-perceived prodigy beginning at age 14.
One among a handful, Andre Levins, better known as A+, embodied that rare instance. Born August 29th 1982, a young Levins entered the Hip-hop scene through a Def Jam-sponsored national talent competition, where he—you guessed it—won and gathered the attention of fans and fellow enthusiasts, many of which much older and advanced in years.
Levins would land first act to former Motown Records president William Massenburg’s current Kedar Entertainment, where the renowned producer cited that the “A+ moniker means that [Levins is] striving for perfection, and he’s not really talking about the same things as other rappers”.
The young rapper released his debuting The Latch-Key Child the following year at age 14, offering collaborative products donned by AZ, Mobb Deep, and Q-Tip. It’s lead single “All I See” ranked #66 on the Billboard Hot 100, battling it out in the charts for 14 weeks.
After a three-year hiatus, A+ returned with Hempstead High, an album focusing on the young rapper’s growth since his premier. The album rose to the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart’s #60 spot and won #19 on the Top Heatseekers. A+’s biggest hit “Enjoy Yourself” was featured in this record.
Captivating Hip-hop fans with his provocative rantings and unfiltered prose, the prodigy would then abruptly vanish from the scene. He returned in 2009, roughly a decade’s worth of disappearance. On the other hand, A+ reported his long-term silence wasn’t in vain.
“A+ got a story to tell,” mentioned the young rapper in an interview with HipHopWired, “Maybe my words can help influence them in the right and positive way. They can take my issues that I’ve been through in life and help somebody else because that’s what A+ has been about since he came out with The Latch-Key Child”.
See that’s the thing about musical prodigies and virtuosos, ‘always needing the time to step back and seek out inspiration. But when they DO come back, the stories seamlessly overflow with sentimental, heart-piercing messages…. Oh, and they do tend to refer to themselves in 3rd person.
Greetings go out to Hip-hop’s wayward prodigy Andre “A+” Levins!
By Jods Arboleda for RAPStation.com
