Zomb: First things first, how old are you and where are you from? 

S.I.N: I'm 38 and born & raised in Baltimore, MD.

Zomb: East coast born and raised we love to see that, what was it like growing up in Baltimore? Tell us a little bit about your experiences growing up. 

S.I.N: Baltimore has an interesting geographic culture because it's definitely an east coast city but also the northernmost southern state. So there's a decent amount of cross reference between the lower north & upper south especially geographically. If you drive in any direction for long enough you'll see a small piece of every state. Cityscape, row houses, countryside etc. However even tho it's a small city & state it's pretty segregated. I grew up in East Baltimore and because of how compact it is there's not much reason to go anywhere else. It was my mom, her sisters, my cousins, the city  and it seemed like nothing else existed outside of that. I was super introverted & quiet which I think led to my mom sheltering me somewhat but there wasn't too much she could do because of our neighborhood. We're from an area called Flag House projects, 12 story towers with pissy elevators and stairways. We were on the 8th floor and had a great view of the northern part of the city away from downtown. The 1st murder I heard about was a kid named Marvin that picked on me & my cousin from time to time then my mom sat me down & told me he was kidnapped and killed a few floors below us. Pretty sure it was 1st grade & we were 6. I remember being conflicted and not necessarily knowing how to grieve for someone I didn't like but still feeling horrible for him. That kinda sums up most of inner city Baltimore in a nutshell.

Zomb: Wow, extremely well said. I feel like Baltimore as a whole doesn't get spoken about enough in general so that was a very useful insight. During your early years what kind of music did you listen to? What were some of your first exposures to music? 

S.I.N: My mom is a huge Michael Jackson fan, like concerning. When she was a kid there were magazines that had phone numbers to some celebrities in the back so she called long distance to Gary, Indiana (70s long distance) to talk to him and Randy picked up. Later her mom got the phone bill & was pissed. So a whole lotta Mike and Jackson 5, anything Motown or Motown related, all the old soul groups like The Chi Lites, The Isleys, O'Jays etc. Classic black cookout music and not much else. Anything I heard that was different was from TV commercials and movies. When I got old enough to pick my own stuff I started with 90s r&b because it was already pretty familiar and was basically the music of the time for us kids, then my Hip Hop tastes grew around 12-13. I think the 1st rap song I remember hearing was Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock's "It Takes 2". My mom wouldn't let me listen to rap out of fear I'd immediately drop what I was doing and start selling drugs lol. So my 1st rap album was Will Smith's "Big Willie Style". Honestly still not bad at all, great entry point for kids. (No one makes music for kids anymore for whatever reason) I had to go to my cousin Keyonna's house to hear Eazy E, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Tupac which later lead me to DMX and Ruff Ryders which was what made me want to rap.

Zomb: What a come up! That's so beautiful to hear, I love the way you phrased that. So after diving into hip hop/rap yourself, when did you initially start to create your own music? Tell us about the first idea to actually record yourself. 

S.I.N: Well I wrote my 1st rap at 13. I had a copy of DMX's "And Then There Was X" album on tape for some reason (pretty sure I stole it. No one was still using tapes at that point lol). He was my favorite rapper at the time and I listened to it every night on a boombox at the head of my bunk bed until I learned most of the words. Somehow I got the idea in my head that "I think I can do that" and wrote my 1st awful rap. That should've been it but I liked the feeling of creating it so much I just never stopped. I made a goal that I'd write 1 every day, sleep on it, and if I still liked it the next day I'd keep it. Didn't keep 1 for like 2 or 3 years. As far as recording I barely even thought about it til a friend of mine named Tony realized when playing with my boombox that it had a mic input and we could record on it. I dubbed over a few tapes with some then kinda let it go again until I met my bro Chris/Tru Thoughts in high school. He had a computer in his room that we put Acid Pro and Fruity loops on and started randomly recording with a cell phone earpiece as a microphone lol. Horrible quality, we hated our voices but just kept going til we got better equipment and got better at the music.

Zomb: Didn't keep one for like 2-3 years is crazy! That's some really inspiring repetition at a young age. So the journey had officially started for you and the crew, at what point did you decide to take it more seriously and start building a name for yourself? 

S.I.N: Around 17 was when me, Tru Thoughts and the 3rd member of our group at the time, Soul Complex, started thinking we had something that was pretty cool so sometimes we'd burn our cell phone earpiece stuff to a CD and take it to school and show a select few people. Then once we upgraded some of the equipment we decided to record an album. We knew with no money we couldn't get any beats so I made all the beats for us at the time along with us going over other people's beats periodically. I was also in another group just after high school called Bl66dsh6t (I know, we were so edgy 😆) where 1 of the members became a sound engineer and decided to help us re record the Soul Complex album properly. Sadly we broke up before it was done so Tru and I decided to move forward as Rally 4 Reality and Bl66dsh6t was just getting into doing open mics and shows so we joined them. Again sadly that fell apart as well right when Bl66dsh6t was getting some traction. Afterwards I was a bit depressed about it all and kinda halfheartedly made music occasionally til I finally pulled myself out around 2016 and got back into it all.

Zomb: Incredible journey to be honest, collectives and groups are something that's almost guaranteed in an artist career at least once. So before we continue, let's talk about your artist name. Where did you come up with S.I.N and was this always your artist name? 

S.I.N: I tried a few names before I got to S.I.N. but was never comfortable with them. 1 was my initials, EDB. 1 was a hilariously embarrassing 1 that lasted all of a day, Cisumpar. It's rap music backwards. My mom had a desktop in my room as a kid and used that as the password for my profile because she knew I liked rap lol. Again, it lasted maybe a day. I told Tru about it just to run it by him and he was a great friend and laughed in my face. I came across S.I.N. inspired by a lyric from Nas. On his song The Cross he had a line where he flipped his name into an acronym, "N.A.S. means Niggas Against Society". I thought that was so cool and wrote a line in reference to people figuring out ways to survive under harsh circumstances, "S.I.N. means Survival In Negativity". Soon as I wrote I thought it'd make a cool name but hesitated because I didn't want anyone to think I was a horrorcore rapper or a street dude, but 1 day when I was introducing myself to all my Bl66dsh6t crew mates, our oldest 1, Dyslexic asked what my name was. I said Eric and he said "no, your real name". I said S.I.N., he smiled & nodded and the rest was history.

Zomb: That's some real deep lore there, the people definitely needed that background. I'd agree you settling on S.I.N was a good move and its meaning is super significant. So back to 2016, after a short hiatus you came back to music full time. When did you initially start uploading your music to the internet? Even in 2016 it was still a weird era as far as uploading. 

S.I.N: Yea definitely, and I had just about no understanding of it lol. I stayed away from shows and the scene overall for so long I didn't really know how to get back in but 1 thing I remembered from 1 of my last shows before I stopped was a guy walking up to me from the bar. He said he was actually at the wrong bar trying to meet up with friends and just decided to stay & check everyone out. He said I was the only act he really enjoyed, complimented the music and asked if I had any info on how to follow me. I had absolutely nothing. No online presence, no CDs, nothing. It broke my heart to essentially lose a fan I'd just made simply because I wasn't prepared so I decided to shift focus to making sure I had music out that people could actually find. I knew about SoundCloud because of the memes of "SoundCloud rappers" so I started there since it was free and easy to use. I took a collection of the songs I had recorded but never put out and when I realized they were kinda all detailing the not so pleasant headspace I was in I made them a project called "The Hope Complex: Last Day of Depression" and released it in 2015 on SoundCloud and Bandcamp as a ditch effort to flush out any dark & depressing type of music I was making. After it was out I kind of self sabotaged the promotion of it after getting in my own head about its quality and subject matter. I somehow decided I didn't want it to be my 1st impression but it was actually received pretty well from people I had networked and connected with through SoundCloud. I trusted that site the most because along with a few fans there were lots of artists who were passionate about it and it kinda ran like a creative's playground just randomly discovering each other while Bandcamp on the other hand felt less personable.

Zomb: I love that point of view from you, I was definitely curious about your internet journey early on. So easy to say you're definitely a Soundcloud OG from its "mainstream" era in those years. It definitely calmed down a lot over there a bit more but Soundcloud is definitely still a home to the underground. So following 2016 and getting your project out, what was the next step for S.I.N? What were your moves up until the pandemic? 

S.I.N: Yes, I definitely miss those early wild West days of SoundCloud. Next I wanted to build a catalog and presence online before I got back to shows. I spent a lotta time recording full projects under the impression that if I had full bodies of work out already it'd intrigue the listener more to spend more time with the music. This was before I was hip to the singles game of virality and tiktok. Once I got a few under my belt I figured I'd get back outside and also be able to provide more at shows such as merch like I didn't have before but then...pandemic. So I just got deeper into the online space discovering different marketing techniques, playlisting, building up social media and finding various ways to get the music to more people.

Zomb: Fantastic, you had the right mindset in those years for sure and obviously continued to carry it. Speaking of your library and catalog, what are some of your favorites you've made? They can be released or unreleased.

S.I.N: As far as released 1s, my #1 so far is my EP with Portland producer b§positiv "Nightlife 4 (Thinking) Introverts". It was actually made as a hold over for a still unreleased project called The Blue Key Diaries. That project was held up for sec due to mixing so while waiting for it to finish I did 2 EPs with b§positiv with Nightlife being the 2nd. So far I think it's my most cohesive and well thought out project. The theme was new to me to some extent because I hadn't really heard of introversion growing up and while I was researching it I found which of the 4 types of introversion (social, anxious, thinking and restrained) fit me most and decided to write about it, specifically from the night time angle because everyone is expected to be out in social settings during those times while people like me enjoyed a quieter, more low-key environment. I found a Ted talk of a young lady named Susan Cain speaking on introversion and used her narrative to tie the project together. My favorite unreleased project is probably a toss up between 3. The Blue Key Diaries, Blooming After Spring and Stargazing For Dummies. 2 with multiple producers and Stargazing is with Lotus Key/Lington from London who was actually the 1st person to give me beats when I met him on SoundCloud.

Zomb: That project is an absolute must listen in your library without a doubt. It's good to see your unreleased material is stacked up as well, always a plus. Who are some artists you'd like to work with that you haven't yet? Can be independent or mainstream. 

S.I.N: Thanks a lot fam! I appreciate how much you've done to help me push it! My #1 and #2 would be Atmosphere and Esthero. Atmosphere is an indie Hip Hop duo from Minneapolis who helped shape the indie rap scene and Esthero is a Canadian singer who's been around since 97 and has made some of the most versatile and impactful music for me. Also on the underground there was a collective called Organized Threat started by an MC and videographer named VON POE VII. The entire OGT movement gave me a huge dose of inspiration once I got online so I'd love to work with anyone previously in that camp. VON POE, Papa J Ruiz, Yara Bravo, Gavlyn, Reverie, Razor etc. As far as in my space of the underground, there's a producer named Johto I'd love to work with who produced a record I'm on with the homie melmige, we've collabed already but I'd love to make a full project with my bro fatcop from Australia, Joe Sauseda who's on a collab I did called Burj Khalifa with my bro Sweet & Savory, and there's also a young lady named artemisintheory I have to get at least 1 song with before I drop. She's super elusive though lol.