Exclusive Q&A with Charlotte rap artist Walt B. 3
/Walter Boston, III aka Walt B. 3, is a Charlotte based rap artist, writer, speaker and event coordinator whose goal is to motivate others to live their dream through music or any other outlet that can be utilized. He is one half of the group Gifted Musik with fellow Charlotte rapper Day Brown and will be dropping a new project entitled "OMEGA" later this summer but in the meantime he is dropping music for fans every Wednesday. #WaltWednesday. We connected with Walt B. 3 to find out more about how he and Day Brown came together to form Gifted Musik, his thoughts about the Hip-Hop scene in Charlotte and much more.
Carlton Boyd
How did you and Day Brown connect to create Gifted Musik?
It's actually interesting how we got this whole thing started. I had just moved to Charlotte in 07-08' and we were both freshmen at South Meck. It was either the 2 or 3 days into the school year when we became best friends from having home room together. During this time, I wasn't play drums as much but Day was dancing so we connected through always making beats in class and dancing around campus entertaining everyone. In early 2011 we started working with our homies Malik & Lamar who had been doing their own thing for a while. During this time Day actually had a dream that he saw us all in lights together on stage & that sparked a fire in us that's has only gotten bigger. To this day tho, none of us remember how we came up with the name Gifted. I think we just spoke it & it stuck with all of us collectively.
Tell us about your upcoming OMEGA project; what can we expect from it?
OMEGA is a project that I was honestly afraid to do in the beginning but I realized I had to do it for the sake of me facing me. The whole project is based on walking into something new at the end of a phase or time period. For a long time I refrained from speaking on a lot of subjects because of what I thought my dads friends or my family would think of it so being where I am now has been liberating to say the least. Through ought the project you will hear me speak on concepts like "Hustle YounG", "Life Of A G", fear, motivation, success etc. I consider this to almost be a reawakening for me to move into another thinking capacity.
You mentioned that you have been playing the drums for 18 years; how did you get started playing that instrument?
I was 5 years old at the time and one Sunday church had just came to an end. I walked up to the drums and just going crazy because I had been watching the drummer for the whole service like "I'm about to go up there & do all of that". Since that day, I always knew that I was definitely something I would be doing for the rest of my life. Now, I'm in a zone where I'm really a adamant about working with DJs to bring back that feeling of Live drums & awesome mixing.
What are your thoughts about the Hip-Hop scene in Charlotte? Do you think that it's the next city to emerge as a breeding ground for top rap artists?
You know, in my opinion I think we have a lot of people in the 4 who want to be great. What I feel a lot of times tho is that most artists will not put their ego aside or they just aren't business savvy at all and that irks me. Charlotte has the potential to really develop its Hip Hop community & Gifted Musik is definitely putting 110% in to assist in our come up. Give it time & everything will fall into place. We've had artists come out of our city & go to elevated levels...but no one is going to do it like Gifted and people are going to hear me say that for the rest of their lives.
Mass Appeal is a very DOPE track; how did it come together?
First of all Thank You! I was literally sitting in my room sipping on what was probably my 3rd brew & the beat just came on. I hopped up & immediately just started free styling. I must have free styled the whole beat at least twice before writing anything. Then it hit me & I wrote the hook & 1st verse in my room. About an hour later I called Day & sent him the memo I had recorded, now we are here & it's only the beginning of #WaltWednesday