November 30, 2007 @ 1:03 pm

YOU DON'T KNOW ME: Small Eyez

Linda Hobbs

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­New-jacks stake their claim...In their own words

My Name Is: Emman “Small Eyez” Twe
Straight outta: Dayton, Ohio

This is my story: I’m 23. I believed that at 15 I was gonna get powers. I was into superheroes. “I’m gonna be crazy in this world, that’s why I’m different like they are,” I felt. People that have differences are the ones that end up being the most impactful. I was a weird kid. I was into comic books, fantasy, "Star Wars," all that stuff to form a kind of escape mentally.

I was born without [an arm]. I was premature. Doctors basically had to do an amputation cause I had a bone malfunction. It was a whole crazy procedure they had to do. I almost died. I learned to adapt.

My pops is really into music. He’s like crazy liberal.  He’s a scholar. He was making me read all this African literature: Autobiography of Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey’ biography. He was real protective, though, so I couldn’t listen to explicit music when I was a kid. So I was really into R&B stuff when I was a kid up until like 9, 10. It wasn’t until I was 14, 15 that my parents stopped giving a fuck what I was listening to. The first tape I bought was a Kriss Kross record on cassette. That turned me out.

When Small Eyez was 13, his parents bought him a karaoke machine for Christmas. He soon begins to record raps on the machine, and by high school he was battling other rappers.

[Battle rapping] worked for me cause I was basically “8-Mile-ing” myself.  I would say something about myself before the [opponent] could. People didn’t believe I could rap so I’d basically diss myself or put it out there before they could use it. Some dudes wouldn’t go there, they had some class. But battling was hard. I knew that going into it. That’s why I became dope at it.

This is my influence: Wu-Tang was the first group that got me, like, in “stan” mode: Wu-Tang shirts, jeans, pants, posters, drawing Wu-Tang logos. Then I got into Tupac later on.

My lyrical gibberish stopped when I actually started to understand what you could do with the music. The turning point was when I was listening to records like “Dear Mama” or “Keep Your Head Up” and I was like “Yo, there’s something in these records, there’s something in these songs. You can be dope and actually reach people.”

This is why I’m hot: My thing is, good music is gonna come out to the forefront because there’s such a lack of it. I got three albums that have been put out independently, [The Broken Mixtape, Vo1. 1, 2005; Vipassana, EP, 2006; Small Eyez & Soul Stirrer are 2Morrow, 2007] and promoted overseas.

We’re in the age where artists are back in control. It’s a different age. Realness is realness and people connect to that. I think people connect deep down, with those that are disenfranchised. Those are the people people connect with the most. That’s why people really respond to Tupac man.

You have to have the fucking talent, which obviously I believe I have. If you have it, then you’re going to draw the people to you. It’s a new class coming. People don’t believe it is but it has to be...it has to be.

­ ­
SMALL EYEZ "BLINK"

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