#139: Rapsody

This week on A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal, we welcome Jamla/Roc Nation recording artist and North Carolina's own, Rapsody to the Upper West Side! Rapsody discusses growing up in a town of only 1600 people, being class president of her high school class, driving around back roads with a heavy foot, working as a cashier at a country grocery store, going to college for accounting and the hope of walking onto the women's basketball team. We talk about her dreams of being a rapper, her collective Kooley High, meeting 9th Wonder and him telling her she was a star. Rap recalls her early days as a studio rat, listening to classic albums as homework, recording hundreds of songs, improving her craft, and being gifted trips to Baseline Studio and opportunities to record with major artists, as rewards for her hard work and patience. We get into her first show at SOB's in NYC, how she progressed with her projects, her appreciation of J. Cole's journey, what it meant to be on Kendrick's album, the first email she received from Roc Nation, and how she feels with the release of her new album Laila's Wisdom. All that, plus stories about Erykah Badu, Busta Rhymes, Young Guru, the hilarious circumstances of how her parents found out she was a rapper, and much more!