By Tessa Solomon
For rapper Dizzy Wright, music began as a family affair.
Born in Flint, Michigan, but raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, Wright — real name La’Reonte Wright — has had his choice of hip-hop role models. Group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony boast his uncles Layzie Bone and Flesh-N-Bone. His mother was a concert promoter, so Wright was educated early in the business, rapping with DaFuture at 8 years old, briefly covering shows such as the BET Awards.
All the success he’s beginning to see today, as he’s emerged as one of the up-and-coming voices on the rap scene, is credited to some admirable philosophies: stick to indie labels, and find your sound at your own pace.
“I’m not rushing to get anything too fast. I don’t need it all at once,” he told The Source. “I’m walking through the woods slowly with a flashlight; I’m not trying to sprint through that b*tch in the dark.”
Continuing his emergence, at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Wright will play at Gabe’s, 330 E. Washington St.
He entered Vegas’ scene with smooth, Bone Thugs-inspired mixtapes and tasted his first success on the club circuit. In video interviews, the residual glee — rapture, really — of watching a room lose itself to his mixes is evident in Wright’s distant eyes and satisfied grin.
But, he told “Hard Knock” in a video interview, that “turned up shit” only goes so far.
“When I realized everybody in Vegas was walking the same route, no one was on,” he said. “So I just had to take a different route.”
In December 2011, his notably good-energy lyrics — and often stoner-centric subject matter — found support at rapper Hopsin’s independent record label Funk Volume. He released his début studio album, SmokeOut Conversations, in April 2012. While Funk Volume has now dissolved, the label proved an important first home for channeling influences on 2015‘s Growing Pains.
“To be a great artist, to make a great album, you have to know what a great album sounds like,” Wright said to Hard Knock. “I study my greats.”
Those greats aren’t specified, but canonical artists of the late 1980s and early 1990s come to mind: Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, N.W.A.
“The golden era is substance,” he said in the video. “Nobody was trying to fulfill something that wasn’t there yet. People weren’t trying to fulfill an image, they were just talking what they knew.”
While lyrics in releases like Golden Age are personal — “Look into my daughter’s eyes, and then I get the water eyes / If I die, I pray to God she know her father tried, word” he raps in highlight “Killem With Kindness” — he’s comfortable with being a student of his own music.
“I’ve never really focused on having my own sound,” he told the Source. I just create the music that I enjoy, the vibes that I like. I go with what I feel … I’m still into the Dizzy Wright sound. I’m learning myself. I’m still good with being a learner until it clicks.”
