MEET BIG B: RPS EDUCATOR, BASEBALL COACH, AND LYRICAL MC

Name: Brent Butler

Rap Name: Big B

Social Media: @BigB81dreaming (twitter & IG)

Years in the Game: I have been making music for 16 years but to calculate the years I’ve been serious with it I’d say about 8 years

Latest Project Name: 81 Dreaming (released August 26, 2018)

Biggest musical influences: Tupac, Jay-Z, Bone Thugs N Harmony, Kanye (Old Ye), Jadakiss, Rick Ross, Jeezy, & Amy Winehouse

How did you develop a love for baseball and coaching youth? I’ve played baseball my whole life. I grew up in Hampton, Virginia and my parents ran the little league where I grew up playing, Mallory Little League. I know what baseball did for me. It was an outlet that kept me away from the streets – which was very easy to access growing up. I started coaching to provide these young men the same outlet that ultimately saved my life.

Does being around high schoolers (daily) affect your music? They have a huge impact on how I approach music and a lot of my content is either messages for them or lessons they’ve taught me. A lot of these children are going through it and I try to take that pain that they are going through and show them someone that grew up with common struggles (myself) made a way. 22 RPS students have been shot this year, 2 resulting in casualty. That’s tough. But these are the things our children endure. I use that as a motivation to teach them there are other ways with handling the everyday pain they face.

What messages do you like to convey through your music? My music is literally my life in words. Everything that I talk about are situations that I’ve been through, whether good or bad. My adolescence, my family, relationships, heartbreaks, partying, life, the things that are going on in the world; I like to tap into all of those things and emotions. I think that keeps the music authentic. I try to keep it positive but also as real as possible.

For people that don’t have a lot of faith in RPS, what are they missing? The main thing that I try to preach to everyone is that these children are amazing and are our future. They have to endure so much and were never really taught how to deal with those emotions. They are some of the most misunderstood children. We expect our children to thrive in situations that are almost unbearable with little to no support or resources. There’s a lot of poverty, displacement, and homelessness. Broken homes, incarcerated family members, grief from death. A lot of these children start enduring this at a very young age and they carry it throughout their years in school. But from the outside looking in people look at it as poor test scores & delinquent children, but rarely do you ever hear people asking why? What’s the root cause? In my opinion, these children are stronger and will be more successful because they’ve had to fight and make a way their whole lives. We need to provide these children better schools. Some of these schools have never been renovated and have been around since/ or before the Civil Rights movement.

What’s next for you musically? I just did a show With Milo Case, Juanski, & Skuzii at Gallery 5, that was dope! I’m currently working on a project, which is untitled at the moment, I plan on releasing it either mid-June or Early July. I plan to continue to participate in RVA Rap Elite. That culture that Radio B has built is phenomenal. I have a show June 28 at Gallery 5 with GHX$T, Melrose, & $y G. And honestly I want to work with some of the Juggernauts in the City, Radio B, Nick F, Michael Millions, Cole Hicks, Easalio, Cane, Joey Gallo, Illa Syles, to name a few. Hopefully, they are reading this.

Interview and photos by Cheats #WESEEIT