Mic Check (Juelz Santana song)

Template:Infobox Rap Artist From CT | Name = Mic Check | Cover = .jpg | Caption = | Artist = Mic Check | Genre = Rap | Label = Unsigned

}} "Mic Check" ...straight from the 203 - of Connecticut.

On July 11, 1989 the miracle of birth occurred at Waterbury St. Mary's Hospital, and was born. Blessed with loving parents who possessed the means to raise their children in the predominately white, middle class suburb of Wolcott, Connecticut, Mic recalls growing up "not rich, not poor".

He also remembers being a kid who loved music - especially rap. "The way hip hop instrumentals got my head boppin'... the beats were talking to me", he recalls. Just ten or eleven when Eminem's first CD came out, Mic was inspired by the entrance of someone white into the world of rap. "I thought, if this white guy can do it, I'mma try it myself."

Not even in middle school yet, Mic was writing rhymes and dreaming of the days he'd be able to put them on tapes. "I decided my style would be 'Grimy'... not gangsta. I mean, I was growin' up in a white, middle-class community. And besides, how many times can you listen to the same lyrics about click click, bang bang, I shot yo' ass before you wanna shoot yourself?!"

After a while Mic started developing a flow and decided it was time to record. "I started out with a shit computer mic and a sound recorder that recorded sixty seconds at a time, hardly enough time to get a song out," he remembers. "After a while I found a better program, Audacity, but it was still pretty basic. AcidPro 5.0... downloaded that, same thing, very basic."

Then he discovered the internet.

In the early days of the genre rappers battled each other in inner-city nightspots and on streetcorners across America. Times have changed. At the age of fifteen Mic stumbled across a website called Goldmic.com, a 'virtual' battle which allows rappers to battle each other from anywhere. Mic began battling other rap artists, winning some and losing others, and found his skills steadily increasing with each e-battle. Soon he had profiles on SoundClick.com and PureVolume.com, and his music was beginning to take shape...

By age fifteen it was time to lay down some tracks. Using equipment he'd purchased himself Mic recorded The M.I.C. LP, distributing the album to friends. He notes that the sound quality was poor, the result of using cheaper equipment and recording everything from home. Still, the album tok six months to write and record. "I take my time on things anyway," he says, "and it's not like I get home from school and write 'til I fall asleep, nothing like that. But I get it done."

At age seventeen Mic is beginning to take his love for rap music a little bit more seriously. "I dropped $450 on a MXL PS-69 Clear & Crisp studio mic with M-Audio... from now on it's gonna be quality or it ain't droppin'," he says.

Look for the mixtape "Back To The Booth: Volume 1" coming soon...