BoriRock: «Feeding the family it’s all that I stand for»

📸: @geemedia_

Peace bro, we’re happy to share our platform with you as we really loved the projects you released last year, they’re super fire and we honestly think you’d need more recognition in this underground wave/scene. So we would like to know more about your story: We know you’re from Boston, and, as your name suggests, you have a Puerto Rican background… But, please, let us get a better picture of the streets where you grew up: sere you born in Boston and how and where exactly did you grow up?

Yes, I was born in Boston and I was raised in Dorchester my all life, around Dorchester Ave., Colombian Rd. Area. 

Back home I grew up with a lot of Spanish folks, a lot of Dominicans in my elementary schools. In my neighborhood since I was young on Roseclair St. there were always Spanish folks on the steps. I was raised in a 3 family-house and all floors there were a lot of Portoricans and Dominicans too…

According to what you know, when and why has the Latin community expanded there and how has it influenced you personally growing up in that context?

But I don’t know when exactly the Latin community expanded out there, I am not aware about that part of history, but yea my whole life I was raised around spanish folks, black folks, there was lot of white folks in South Boston too, so that’s when I got around a lot of white folks really.

I also used to play a little bit of Baseball and there were a bunch of Spanish folks from Jamaica Plain (another Boston area – ed’s note). In fact, there are a lot of Dominicans in Boston, full of Banilejos. Bani’  is like a place in the Dominican Republic and almost every Dominican in Boston is from Bani’.

I am Puerto Rican-domincan, but my dad’s family is from Cibao, Santiago (Dominican Rep.). Being around a lot of spanish folks, definitely that have influenced me, from the “Honda Civic growing up” (Honda Civic is a very popular car in Dominican Rep and Puerto Rico. – ed’s note) , when everybody, all my older men had the Honda Civic, all the Puerto Ricans, all my older brothers and friends… I grew up seeing a lot of that.

At what moment did you decide you wanted to rap and was there someone who pushed and motivated you, more than anyone else, to pick up the microphone and record your rhymes?

I started smoking weed like at 12 yo, by 13 y.o. my friends that I was smoking weed with would be at my house after school, on the weekends, playing a lot of music and…I wasn’t good at sports because I was a short guy, but I was good at rapping, I always had flow…So everybody around me was better than me in everything, but the only thing I was good at was rapping!

The first time I was able to pick up a microphone was probably about 2014 and everybody was happy: the people I was in the studio with. Dun Dealy and TOP HOOTER, they were right there too, they were already rapping and they were my older homies from the neighborhood and they let me get in.

But nah nobody pushed me. Yeah, I had like a best friend.. he was a tough critician, we pumped a lot of good music together growing up and he knew how good I was. He might have pushed me to be a rapper, because he only pumps good music and he used to love when I spit…But I always knew I was nice. 

https://youtu.be/jLYju6oA2fc

When did you decide to officially release your music and what was the first reaction of the people around you and among the Boston underground rap scene?

Once I finally found the courage to step up and rap, and I didn’t have it until 2014 or something, because before I was selling drugs and I was not happy with myself, because I guess, I have realized now that wasn’t my purpose I wanted to do music.

So, about 2014 I started recording and in 2015 we dropped a song in Soundcloud and It got a good response.

I was dropping music with my homies Dun Dealy and TOP HOOTER. I didn’t realease my first song on my own Soundcloud until 2017 and it got thousands of likes and listens in just the first week, and it just became a “thing”. That was all I needed and all I wanted to do.

Because from 2015 to 2016 I was in jail and I was on a mission because once I was released I already knew I was going to be a rapper, because I didn’t want to sell drugs anymore, I just wanted to rap, because I didn’t want to be in jail and shit like that.

So when I was in jail everyday I was writing, everybody who was in jail with me would tell you that I was always writing because that was my PLAN: come home right and make music.

In the Boston scene they was noticing me, because I was friend with Caev and he used to tweet about me or Dun Dealy was rapping about me since 2014-2015 so a lot of people been hearing my name, but they probably didn’t know how good I was until 2019 when I finally made the song “La Vida” with Dun Dealy and Tremendiss beats and that shit peaked up. 

Tremendiss was with me the whole time. That’s my cousin. He was on the 2nd floor of my house and he had been making beats since the early 2000’s. He always had good beats, but he was kinda discouraged throughout his life…He’s older than me, he is my brother’s age, like 10 years on me and I’m 30. 

Him seeing that I was serious and him seeing my skills made him make beats, because I kept telling him to do that…By 2016 he was making beats and in 2017 I put our song in Soundcloud, by 2019 a lot of Boston folks noticed him and in 2022 we put out that project “FEED THE FAMILY”.

So me rapping made Tremendiis really make beats, so he only makes beats for me really because I’m the one who got him making beats.

How did your name BoriRock come about and what does the word “Hoot”, that you and your crew often use, stand for?

I am puertorican (my moms is puerto rican) and I am dominican too but I was named BoriRock because in my neighborhood there is a lot of Dominicans, Capoverdians, black people and I was the only puerto rican dude.

So around 2013-2014 I pulled up in the hood, I was driving an Honda Civic and my stereo would have the puerto rican Daddy-boo and in like my car’s mirror I had some puertorican flags, plus I had braids and I looked like Charlie Rock…So when I pulled up on the block, Dun Dealy and my boy White Man were like “yo this mothaf%$a is BoriRock!!!”. And that’s the “BoriRock” name right there and it’s stuck! 

So, that’s how I got my name, not just because I’m puertorican, because I was the only puertorican to get on my hood-type shit.

In jail a “Hooter” is kinda like a freeloader. So I remember there was a dude in the unit in jail, he used to call me HootaRock and I thought it was funny because I used to get 50 bags a canteen every week and he used to get 80, so he used to just laugh at me and shit like that, like be funny like “yo this ni**a is a hoota!”, ya mean?

I definitely wasn’t a hooter, but I liked how that shit sounded. It was funny, So yeah, I mean, I used to run with the whole “hoot” shit: “I’m a hooter, I’m a hooter”.

Then I came home after doing a year and I’m not trapping no more, I’m on some rapping shit. And I was living with my cousin and it was just like, sometimes we would have no toilet paper in the crib and my guys would pull up and see how I’m living and it was kinda weird because they used to always see me with a fat pocket of money. 

By the time it was me and TOP HOOTER, who used to pull up on me when I was living in Boston, and I thought I had to do a year in jail and I’m also rapping shit kind of looking like a hooter, you know what I mean? 

Because I always had money issues like that. I was always a trapper and shit like that, but I wasn’t trying to do that anymore. So, you know, TOP HOOTER used to call me “hoota” and few of my ni**s used to call me “hooter” too..

My cousin Ray, he was like the ultimate “hoota”. That mutherfucker would haven’t shit in the fridge, no toilet paper…So the crib had a bummy type of feel for us. And then one day, TOP HOOTER was like, “Yo, this is Hootaville!”.

So we flipped it because the hoot is really like an insult in jail, but we were like, “this is hootaville” and it sounded cool. So we ran with it.
Because I mean even rich people are hooters: that people that got money don’t spend it so we made it a whole freeloader from a bad thing like it’s more like a finesse thing so that’s like the word “hoot” came about.

And what about your motto “on dogz !!!”?

On dogz” has been said in Boston before I was born type shit. That’s just what Boston folks are saying. It ‘s like saying “on the homies”. All the n**s in the hood would be like “on dead dogz”, that’s when shit is about to get serious back in the days, that’s where a fight might break out!

Because when somebody is putting on dead homies it is like they are not lying. When you say “on dogz!”, it can’t be a lie. Gotta be factual! It’s like saying “no cap”.

I twisted it, I gave it my own little vibe because I used to impersonate my little nephew on Instagram, and I was speaking in his voice “on dogz, on dogz!”, but this has been a thing of Boston. If you are from Boston, you say that!”

Last year, in addition to your solo projects, you released the tape “Feed The Family” together with TOP HOOTER, Shaykh Hanif, Dun Dealy and Tremendis. What does this album represent and who are they? Is a rap collective or do they represent more?

That album represented everything to me I’m saying that because in 2020 I dropped my first tape FISHSCALE and since then I’ve been dropping tapes back-to-back type shit. 

I went on a whole run in 2021 and you know, my guys have been rapping for a minute but you know, I was just more committed and more focused, so I didn’t really feel like so in my first three tapes they really weren’t on my projects and I have known these guys since I was a teenager…

So I basically kept them out of the way from my music for a little bit because I plan to have my own project with them.

So I basically went on a crazy run by myself but during while I was dropping my own projects I was working on FEED THE FAMILY because, when I came home 2020 from doing some months in jail, I had a lot of jail bars because I came home with like 100 and 100 pages of raps. I was inside the crib, on house arrest, and I was just playing my raps to beats and I wanted to do a project with Tremendiis beats.

I already knew where Hip-Hop was kinda going, it was kinda becoming a thing, like that real Hip-Hop music.

So my thing was: you know, I make different types of music, drill music and all that type of shit…but while I was working on those tapes, I was also working on “FEED THE FAMILY”

How did this album come about? Did you write it while you were in jail?

So like by fall time 2020, I went to the studio and I baked out 8 tracks from all my jewelry on Tremendiis beats.  So I laid out like eight verses and I already knew that I wanted my guys on this: TOP HOOTER, Dun Dealy and my guy Shaykh Hanif, I met him in jail in 2017.

I already kind of had a vision like I’am going to make music with Shaykh Hanif. So he was the first guy I was thinking about and I was hopefully by guys who fucked with this ni**a…

So you know, me and Shaykh Hanif met and baked out like 3 songs, then I sent him like 8 songs and Dun Dealy was in the studio and was getting on ‘em, and I already have seen the vision, I have already seen that it would be great. 

Then TOP HOOTER hopped on them too and He was kinda like retired a little from rapping. He has been rapping and killing it since the 2000’s.

Dun Dealy and TOP HOOTER are legends in Dorchester, they have been making music since the 00’s. So this project now was becoming a group thing, but we are all individual but we got together and made powerful music!

When FEED THE FAMILY dropped it took over the whole town, everybody was playing that shit, organically. That shit took over Boston!

By the top of 2022 I wanted to drop a project with me and my guys and It felt good. And also with my cousin Tremendiis. Because, you know, it’s like this is my guy. I’m not rapping with n***s I met online and shit like that.

I rap with guys that raised me and my cousin has raised me. I am the youngest one of us. So It was like a super big win! That has been the strongest project that I’ve got yet.

People still play that project! My boy 1000Words has that the best project of the year! He tells Westside Gunn that…you know…

I’m just saying to this day it feels good, I feel like it’s a classic! I’m gonna be able to live with that forever. I did that for my guys and it came out off jail bars and Tremendiis beats.

Last year you released a lot of tapes. The ones that allowed us to know you and appreciate your music were, above all, “On Dogz” with Michaelangelo and the “HOOT GOSPEL” album: how were these albums born? And what inspired you to write these tapes rhymes?

I met Michaelangelo sometime around 2021 or 2022 I believe…so I was always working on projects and Michaelangelo hit me up and said he wanted to make a video for me. I thought he was a videographer at first, I don’t even know he was a legend. 

So while I was making projects I pulled up on Michaelangelo making songs with him and I always work on music while I am working on music, type shit.

“On Dogz” Lp was finally ready and we released it fall 2022, but it was already in the works for like a year, because Michaelangelo was working with other artists too and he put a lot of other music out and shit like that.

“HOOT GOSPEL” that shit came about like me just wanted to put a project out, because I try to put a project out every 2-3 months.

So I did this song and it had a gospel feel to it and I named it “Hoot Gospel”. That name sounded so cool to me, so I’m like, “I’m gonna just put a project together”, because that’s what I do. I make music throughout my week and then one night, I’d just stay up late. So I already had 2-3 songs other than that song, so I figured out I’m gonna put these songs together and that’s going to all be in the “HOOT GOSPEL”. So I just stayed up till late and I just put in the 3-4 songs to build from and baked out the rest as I went. So it took me like a month, type shit. It was quick. This is how “HOOT GOSPEL” came about”.

As demonstrated by the several tapes you have released in the last years, your music cannot be confined in a precise lane, as you are capable of adapting your style to different sounds, as you did, for example, in your last tape HOOT WAVE. What distinguishes your style and what influences or inspires you in choosing one sound rather than another?

I love all types of music. I love drill music, so I can do drill shit but that drill sounds like it’s kinda oversaturated for me, you know what I’m saying? 

So I mean even though I love making that music, I’m in my hip-hop shit. I’ve seen what “FEED THE FAMILY” did…how the people loved that project, that really convinced me to really make more hip-hop music…and I love spittin’ bars like I can do it all day.

You know, honestly that hip-hop wave I also  feel is like it’s easier for an artist to get paid, with all the vinyls, I like the fans how hard and how much they’re dedicated to it. And you know, I can do autotune music too, but all that shit’s like played out to me. So I really don’t like that shit, I like that hip-hop wave because I’m effortlessly good at it and every other lane has kind of played out to me but I still enjoy making those types of music and I’m still gonna make it.

I usually switch it up because I always try to come off as refreshing. I want it to be a little bit fresher, so I’m never gonna stick to one sound.

What are your projects that best represent your art in your opinion and for what reasons?

All my projects represent my art, you know what I mean? Prolly the best one I would say it’s “FEED THE FAMILY” because that’s all what I am about. I set the name, because that’s all what I stand on.

I was always seeing the way I’m moving as a rapper as I used to move as a drug dealer, ya know…I would have fiends and I would put my people on: if they’d hadn’t fiends and they wanted to sell drugs, I was the guy that would have helped them with it.

Now I switched, now I’m making music so now I’m helping folks with doing that. So you know that that whole model is really a representation of me and my all my life.

https://youtu.be/zo8AqtkSbwM

And “On Dogz” project as well as it’s a representation of Boston you know me, I’m just proud of being from Boston.

I would say those represent me the most but honestly all my projects represent me man…right from the names I think of.

Like “Off the Yins” that’s the word that I say a lot,  “FREAKAZOID SUMMER”. They all represent me in a different way.

https://youtu.be/0Q2GLaVjcpk

We have seen that you have often connected with Al Divino during last year… How did you meet and what binds you?

So I met Al.Divino around the summer 2021 I believe and I’ve seen him on the Instagram, I didn’t know much about him, I’ve just  kinda seen he got a lot of followers and a lot of cool things on his page and then I’ve see him on a show. We had words. 

So I am like “how is this Divino dude?”. I went to his page and I saw he was doing graffiti and shit like that. And I’ve seen he was posting “yo, pull up to my video shoot”

I don’t know what really made me pull up on him like that, because I didn’t even know much about this n**a, other than the stuff I’ve seen on his Ig, some little clips of his videos, of his art… 

But a sign told me to connect with him! By the time I was on house arrest, I was on a bracelet and I was living in Brompton and he was all the way in the lane, and I remember it was in the afternoon it was traffic… I looked at the GPS, he was an hour and 40 minutes away. And I didn’t have anything to do that day. So I’m like, “fuck, I have a free day. I’m gonna pull up to this n***a video”.

So yeah, once I pulled up on the bro out there and we shot a video in Lawrence and shit like that…he hopped in the car and within the first 30 minutes we had a crazy conversation and it made sense to me. I was like: “this muthaf@%$r is hella shaped!!!”

He spoke a lot of cool words to me that inspired me…we had a great night, man we shot the video, I got drunk, the muthaf@%$r is hilarious…

So I’ve seen this man is super talented and he told me a lot of things: he has done this, he has done that…I was like mind blown away, I was like in disbelief type shit!

I was like “daamn this n***a is a whole legend and I didn’t even fucking know..” And the more I did my research  the more I fell in love with the guy, pause.

Since the beginning when I met Divino, he has been dropping gems on me. You’d like to call him a shaolin… Ya know what I mean? I call him Morpheus, he’s like an oracle or somethin’…Muthaf@%$r got instances that you don’t even know about. The chemistry was crazy off the top.

Now I’ve seen how he has impacted the culture, I’ve seen his catalog. He makes great music, and I make great music, so we locked in the studio and we did great songs. We were just organically flowing. Even now I’m learning the things he did for the culture. He definitely helped me.

I look at him like he is some type of Dr.Dre because he can bring the best out of people, you know? He brings the best out of me!

It looks like Boston has a lively and cohesive underground music scene. What’s your point of view?

Boston music inspired me man, there are a lot of talented folks in Boston. Massachusetts on the whole is going crazy right now, from Estee Nack, Al.Divino to Feed The Family.

I feel like a lot of folks and a lot of music out there is on some gang shit, all the rappers are joining the music like they are super gangster, they make a lot of gang bang music…And you know, it would be way better if they were on some real artist shit, na mean?

They do great gang bang music, whatever you wanna call it, but it is for the hood type shit, but it would be nicer if they would pursue to be artists. 

There are too many people on that wave, you know what I mean?

What I see is that everybody is focused on that even if they don’t live that life like that. But regardless I just look at myself like I’m Kendrick Lamar, even if I’m from the hood I wanna make great music and I always want to be focused to be a great artist.

I wish the best to my city because there is so much talent, there is so much culture, it is like New York but in our own way.

Recently, you also linked up with Westside Gunn: Where and what did you say to each other?

Yea I linked with Gunn , cause Vino (Al.Divino) invited me to a show and me and Hanif (Shaykh Hanif) pulled up and I guess Gunn was in town for a Celtics game or some shit with 1000Words and all that.

So I didn’t know I was going to meet Westside Gunn ​​but he pulled up to the show after the Celtics game. Yeah. So we backstage and he walked in on us and then one of the first things I told him was like “Yo, you the waviest n***a in the world, but I’m the waviest n***a in the world!!!” 

He kinda laughed and smirked and I guess he was feeling my confidence that I said that. You know I was telling my guys for a minute that I can’t wait to talk to Gunn and I’m so happy that it happened that day.

Have you started working on your first official debut album and/or what are you working on for this 2023? And can you anticipate something about your next projects or with some of your next unexpected collaborations? We have the feeling that it will be the year of your consecration…What’s your thoughts about it?

2023 I really got 3 projects done. I got “One Shot One Kill”, all Tremendiis beats, I got a project with Grubby Pawz that is done, It’s called “Wavy Bullet ”, I’m just waiting for the right time to drop them. And then I have the next Feed The Family, that is 80% done.

Yeah man, I’ve been working everyday, 3-4 times a week i’m in the studio creating. Creating, brainstorming or networking that’s all my life, that’s what I do. I am always working on music. Yea 2023 gonna be a great year for me man.

I’ve got a lot of music with Al.Divino too, he’s on my “One Shot One Kill” project, that’s amazing. I got Estee Nack on “My Wavy Bullet”. That’s probably my biggest collaborations but I got a few Boston folks on my “One Shot One Kill” too, shoutout to my man Norfside Sleep, a real n***a from the streets of Boston and my man Kado, he’s from the town and he’s part of Shooters Music.

Yeah man, I’m just trying to put people on, If I think you’re cool and you have some dedication and talent, you’re gonna be on my project probably, you know what i’m saying? I just want to shout out my town, there’s a lot of talent out there!