Hill. Corporate Thuggin': Executive turned rapper Tony Austin makes it happen for himself Read.

It's that generous of self-starting motivation that's made Baltimore domestic Austin a music diligence appendage for more than a decade. He was immersed in hip-hop well before he started releasing his own songs. Of course, it helps that his older cousin is Kevin Liles, a lover Baltimore citizen who served as the president of Def Jam at the peak of the label's success. Austin is clever to meaning out, however, that Liles isn't one to let anybody get by on nepotism.

"He's the courteous of mortal that, he's not gonna give you nothing," he says. "And I'm the well-meaning of person, I don't want nothin', I wanna have a claim my keep, and that's what happened." Sitting in a inky Escalade parked maximal a Sandtown barbershop he's been customary to since he was just another neighborhood kid, Austin is the paint of a hometown guy made good, an inner-city don who never takes off his shades. He's just in burgh for a span days, showing a camera team around Baltimore for an feature, already reaping stirring rewards in a rush that he matter-of-factly admits began "maybe three, four months ago." As a Def Jam A&R rep, Austin worked with DMX and Capone-N-Noreaga, and later worked closely with Liles' mentor, Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons.

Together, they formed the Russell Simmons Music Group, with Austin as president and co-owner. And with his own Def Jam imprint, Chocolate City Music, Austin's performance body produced a ditty for Dru Hill, and got another Baltimore native, the infantile rapper Comp, signed to the label. In brand-new years, though, as the music activity in prevailing has faltered, Austin's speed in it has slowed down somewhat. RSMG folded, and Comp and Austin's other signings never altogether panned out.

But under his newer Austin Entertainment company, he's had some provincial ascendancy with 100 Grand Man, one of the most current rappers to have emerged in Baltimore in the endure few years. And after Austin helped 100 Grand Man bring off the separation of being the initial Baltimore rapper to do a mixtape in DJ Drama's respected Gangsta Grillz series, the cause was planted for the exec to enter the civil discernment himself.

Author's post: read there