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The streets of Harlem, NY are ripe with the calls of Rich Porter. The legendary drug dealer promoted a sense of style and wealth that molded the landscape that so many Harlemites strive to attain. For local native A-Mafia, his motivation is no different, but with one obstacle after another thrown his way – reaching this goal has been a story filled with life lessons, setbacks and comebacks. To his close friends and family, they know him as Abdul Holmes or just AB, but the harsh chapters of prison life built a new persona… A-Mafia, and it has shaped the way that he moves today.
“I was upstate locked up and I knew when I came home, that I was going to really try to go serious with this rap shit.” Rapping is nothing new to him, but more of a formality. “I didn’t start rapping because it was a fad. Around ’95, me and my cousin’s would just be in the house free-styling and just having fun with it.” Just as the life he was creating through his rhymes were beginning to take shape, in 1996 he would get locked up for armed robbery at the age of 15, but it was while his was in jail that he would write his first rap.
“While I was in the adolescent jail, I wrote and rapped my first rap. It had everybody going crazy, and so I’ve been writing since then.” After going to jail 5 times and doing close to 10 years, A- Mafia has lived that life that some many artists talk about, but never lived. Going in and out of group homes and foster homes since the age of 5, he admits that he came from a broken family, but knows that family is amongst two of the motivations that keeps him focused on going forward. “I’m going how I’m going because I plan not to go back to jail, I’ve already spent about ten years of my life there. My other motivation for staying focused is for my family. I feel like I’m the only one that can really change my family situation. It’s all for my kids and my family.”
For every rap artist now, the scene has changed a lot since the early 2000’s for those trying to reach success, especially for artists from NYC. “I feel like the reason New York is in the position that it’s in is because it lost its momentum. New York strayed away from the formula. The South came out with they certain kind of music and a lot New York people tried to copy-cat or mimic what the South was doing when they should have just stuck with what they know best, which is the raw street rhymes, the mixed up with the club sounds, but I’m here to fill that void.”
Not signed to any label but running in the same circles as Duke Da God, Cam’Ron and Jim Jones, he’s learned from the pitfalls of signing a deal and things not going anywhere. “I’ve signed three contracts in my life and every situation that I was in, I felt like I represented that situation more than the situation represented me. So it’s at the point now, where I’m representing myself.” To date, he’s been on over 5 albums including Duke Da God’s albums More Than Musik 1 and 2 and The Movement Moves On. He’s also not only recorded with Cam’Ron and Jim Jones, but Hell Rell, JR Writer, 40 Cal and the whole Diplomat family as well. Since coming home December 2009, A-Mafia has been going hard in the studio. His latest mixtape called Lord of the Streetz is his answer for the streets looking for something gritty to nod to. “Lord of the Streetz was made to let people know that I’m home and that I’m the lord of the streets. Nobody is making street music that sounds good. My style is gritty, slash fly and slash comical. I’m doing what Rich Porter did for the streets with drugs through my music.”
http://amafiadigital.com/
@AMafia140
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