5 Things That Helped Shape 2 Chainz Career

With just an hour until 2 Chainz' T.R.U. Realigon mixtape drops, VIBE reveals 5 things that helped mold the Atlanta native

into the artist he is today. Read on for some personal insight into the rapper's career.

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2 Chainz' Earliest Musical Influences: "I was always into substance in hip- hop. A lot of us didn’t have fathers [growing up] so we looked to the music to learn how to dress, talk, and walk. So you don’t want to look up to a lame dude, you look up to Pac or Biggie or somebody that had swag, very strong opinions. My moms also blasted jazz all the time when I was young. I had one of those houses where music just stayed on all day and all night on the stereo. You know, anything from like New Edition albums, Rick James. I just remember seeing a bunch of album covers and then jazz--you know we come from the “joint” era, the “joint in a shoebox.” So we had plenty of spade games, plenty of smoke and feel good music around as a kid."

How He Got Into Music: "The music kind a fell in my lap. I had guys from my neighborhood that was into music heavy and they wanted to invest in me—my boy Dolla whose in Playaz Circle and a few of us. There was just guys in the trap trying to get off their little work and they used to just pull up and make us rap and do little stuff like that . One day they invested in studio time and probably the second song I ever recorded in my life— I got so much feedback from it. People thought it was good and it was called “Player’s Motto."

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