Beginning his career around 12 years ago in 2010, Logic has grown to become one of the most respected non-black rappers in contemporary hip hop. While meme and SoundCloud rappers such as Lil Xan and Bhad Bhabie were receiving big-money record deals, with their antics, fuelling hatred of white hip hop, authentic and genuine rappers like G-Eazy and Logic were producing quality hip hop and garnering respect from the culture. With most people valuing music with meaning over nonsensical rubbish, Logic has remained in his rightful place while the meme rappers have vanished with their music devoid of longevity.
Logic’s career growth was undeniably organic. The rapper’s 2010 debut mixtape, Young, Broke & Infamous, was first noticed by a young hip hop fan named Chris Zarou, who had recently started an independent label (VMG) in Maryland, Logic’s home state. The two communicated via Facebook and ended up booking a studio session together in which Zarou explained to the rapper that he had a label and wanted to sign him.
Zarou had noticed that the rapper’s mixtape had over 300,000 downloads on the mixtape streaming platform DatPiff and could see the rapper’s potential. With no other options on the table, Logic signed to the label and continued to work the underground mixtape circuit. In a 2012 interview with underground hip hop blog The Fresh Heir, Logic stated, “Visionary Music Group is like Roc-A-Fella. Damon Dash, that’s like Chris Zarou of Visionary Music Group. I like to see myself as a Jay. In no way am I arrogant or cocky. I have to see it in order to do it. They did it independent and when they signed with a major, they did it the way that they wanted to do it”.
Logic first turned heads with his Young Sinatra mixtape series between 2011 and 2013 all released through VMG. Not dissimilar to Lil’ Wayne’s The Carter mixtapes, people were on the edge of their seats in anticipation of Logic’s mixtapes. With so much talent and having built such a cult following, it was inevitable that hip hop tastemakers would soon catch wind of the young rapper, and they did. Logic’s third volume of Young Sinatra, entitled Young Sinatra: Welcome to Forever, secured the rapper a record deal with Def Jam, and from there, he began working on a debut album.
Logic’s debut album Under Pressure was executively produced by Kanye Wests’s old mentor No I.D. and debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, being certified Platinum by the RIAA. Off the back of the 2014 album, Logic was featured on the 2014 XXL freshman list. However this was just the beginning. Although Logic was already signed to a subsidiary of a Major signed to VMG through Def Jam, in 2017, the Maryland rapper hit a new high with the release of his third studio album, Everybody, which debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 and the album’s third single ‘1-800-273-8255’ was certified platinum 5× by the RIAA.
On top of the game, the rapper (real name Sir Robert Bryson Hall II), was offered exciting opportunities outside of music. In 2017 the rapper starred in the animated comedy series Rick and Morty, voicing himself. Furthermore, the artist was asked to co-write a film with J.J Abrahams, but the project got scrapped. With so many different endeavours, ranging from music to film, it’s no wonder that Logic is a respected figure in hip hop. Below, you can see his favourite film.
In an interview with XXL Magazine when asked what his favourite film was the rapper replied, “Vanilla Sky. It’s amazing. I love it because it fucks with the mind. It deals with dreams and what’s reality and what’s not, finding yourself, and makes you think about what’s important. Here you have this multi-millionaire—who knows, he could have been a billionaire, I don’t know. He’s the protagonist of the movie. I actually have a song on the album produced by DJ Dahi that kind of talks about this. He had all the money in the world and it wasn’t enough for him. The one thing that made him happy was this woman. That’s it. Just another human being that was really great that just made him happy. I think it really opened my eyes about what makes you happy.
He continued, “Like, I look around, I see my friends who are my family. Fuck music, fuck all this shit. This shit is whatever. We just do this shit to make money. You know what I mean? I just do this shit to get my story out and kind of maybe hopefully help somebody else. At the end of the day, it’s not the music friendship, it’s the music business. That’s why we do it. It is just is what it is. And we love it. If I had to rap and be famous and make millions and millions of dollars or be broke and be able to be friends with my homies, I would choose that any day. That’s what I took from that movie. That’s why I like it so much.”
