Elliot Baron is a full-time student at Stony Brook University. He is also an aspiring rapper, and I got the chance to sit down with him to discuss his dream.
Q: If you could be of any profession, what would it be, and why?
A: Famous rapper without a doubt. In sophomore year of high school I was introduced to hip hop in a Saturday program at Cooper Union. One of my instructors was a student there and he gave me my first mixtape – Fabolous’s There is No Competition 2. It opened doors for me lyrically and made me curious about the facets of hip hop.
Q: What do you like best about hip hop?
A: I love that it’s such a free form of expression. It allows you to say what’s on your mind in a poetic style, and it speaks to the struggles of the average person and can be really relatable. If you’re a fan of Shakespeare, Othello for example, you understand that when he uses the word “lie,” it means something different every time as a type of double or triple entendre, adding emphasis to the word. The way that you can manipulate the English language is a part of hip hop, just put it to a beat which adds more rhythm.
Q: What are some challenges to your dream you’re facing or have already faced?
A: First of all it’s hard to put as much work as I want into this type of thing. I’m also in school, and I have work, so as much as I love rap, I can’t throw everything away and pursue it. Especially when I think about my immigrant parents who came here with nothing – I need to figure out how I’m gonna feed a family or what I’m gonna do when my parents get older. Also, I’ve had a lot of doubters. A lot of people don’t think I can make something of myself in music, well, my type of music. First of all, people have this notion that in order to achieve the hip hop image you have to be “from the hood” or “a thug,” so when they see this middle-class, white-privileged kid whose parents make a decent living they think I’m trying to be something I’m not. Also, my major is electrical engineering, and as much as I like it, I really don’t want to wake up every morning to go sit in a cubicle. I would rather have a looser schedule and be able to make a difference in people’s lives through my music, whether it’s just by giving them some cool music to listen to or inspiring them to be more than what people think they are.
“Wearing my pride on my sleeve, like a bracelet – Looking death in the eyes, but to my surprise, he was faceless – Looking for my demise, and I find it was waiting – Judging my own worries, it’s common place to be complacent”
– Elliot Baron, ‘Untitled’
Q: How does where you live affect your dream of being a rapper?
A: It helps a whole lot – living in Brooklyn, it’s where rap music became really popular. New York is considered the “Mecca” of hip hop. – Recently I was given an opportunity to perform live. Here in New York, there are record labels and aspiring artists everywhere – what better place to make it as a rapper?
Q: You’re a second-generation American. Tell me a bit about your immigrant history, and maybe a bit about how it affects your musical dream.
A: My parents both immigrated from former Soviet Union satellites. My mom is from Belarus, and my dad is from Uzbehkistan. They were discriminated against in the Soviet Union for being Jewish, and it was difficult for them to get jobs or places at universities. My parents decided individually that these conditions wouldn’t be suitable for having a kid, and they both came to Brooklyn, which is where they met – at Coney Island. They made a living together and eventually had me. The thing is though they’re hardly American, so they don’t really understand pop culture, and this made it really difficult for me to be an American kid in my own home. I was really tentative about telling them I’m an aspiring artist because they wouldn’t have been able to be supportive and it was really just easier not to. This basically means I’ve had to do a LOT of things on my own.
Q: Lastly, tell me about your mixtape.
A: For the last year or so I’ve been working on a few different things musically but my main focus is my debut mixtape, which will hopefully be released by mid-next year. It’s called Waiting for the Bus, and the entire mixtape will be a continuous metaphor, and it’ll listen sort of like a theatrical production with each song transitioning into the next with a common theme: The “bus” is my rap career, and right now I’m waiting for it to take off/for my dreams to be realized. I bought my ticket, I’m at the stop on time, I’m doing my part best as I can; I just need that bus (opportunity) to come.
Listen to an instrumental titled “The Cure” from Elliot’s upcoming mixtape!
Produced by Michael Tirado
