Stockz is exactly what his name embodies: a whole lotta money/a good investment. Hailing from Houston, TX; Stockz is a true jack of all trades, from rapping to modeling to acting to of course, being the entrepreneur that he is. And if you knew Stockz from the early days, you probably saw him carrying around his pimp cane. As soon as he walks in the room, he demands attention… in the best way possible.
But there’s a lot that lies beneath the story, and Stockz uses music as an outlet to express himself, whether he’s spitting his truth or making club bangers. Growing up as the eldest brother in a household amongst 4 others, the rising star had to go out and get it on his own, doing everything independently and grinding to where he is now today.
Most recently, Stockz unveiled his newest single titled “Come & Dance,” following the release of his project Capital Gains earlier in March. In addition to the music, Stockz describes himself as an all-around leader, an activist for financial empowerment, and the founder of his label Buy Money Ent.
AllHipHop caught up with Stockz, who revealed he’d been working a “whole whole lot.” His current plate includes hosting his new show on REVOLT titled “META MONEY,” where he teaches people about NFts, the web3 space, crypto, and more!
AllHipHop: You recently moved back to Houston. How does Houston influence you?
Stockz: Houston Is definitely everything I am, because it taught me everything I know. The way I move, everything that makes me who I am comes from Houston. Because I grew up there my whole life after I moved from Virginia when I was 3 years old. Everything, the culture, because really we’re one of the biggest cities. Houston’s a melting pot with so many different cultures. I got to be around a lot of different types of people, so it’s definitely influential to my art.
AllHipHop: Who’s in your Top 5?
Stockz:: Okay, this is not in order. A Top 5 is always going to vary, I know I’m probably going to mess this up. Definitely Jay Z, Kanye West, Rick Ross…these last two are important. Snoop dogg actually, and I’m a say Big L.
AllHipHop: Oh wow, I love BIg L.
Stockz: Yeah, Big L was one of the reasons I got into rapping. So I’m a give it to Big L.
AllHipHop: Was there a turning point when you realized you could do music for a living?
Stockz: Uhhh, when it started paying. [laughs] Nah I’m playing. I was just into it. It’s not an option for me. I’m a do this, because there’s nothing else I want to be doing everyday. It’s naturally what I go do.
AllHipHop: How’d you get your name?
Stockz: Really crazy way I got my name. I woke up and it was a business commercial, back when I was in high school. Somebody else named me Mischief because I was battle rapping at the time. I was in 9th grade, like 14 or something. They called me that, but I didn’t like that name. A commercial came on talking about stocks and bonds, I ended up going by stockz after that. That inspired my name and it just stuck. I never changed it, it’s been that. It’s crazy how it’s all tying together now, making sense.
AllHipHop: How would you describe your sound? What sets you apart?
Stockz: I make “come up” music. Of course, I got some pimping in there, Drug dealer stories, other content I wrote about in the past.. but right now I’m focused on making pure come up music, teach people things through the music and how to come up.
AllHipHop: You just released “Come & Dance.” What inspired this record?
Stockz: Being back in Houston. Going to them strip clubs, getting back out there. It’s money on the floor. “Come & Dance,” it’s pretty straight forward.
AllHipHop: Talk about the nightlife scene in Houston.
Stockz: Houston, our culture is our records break in the strip club. If they are not playing your record in the sttrip club, then you probably are not getting played in the regular club either. That’s just how our records move, so it’s definitely everything. The DJs in Houston support me, I love that and it’s dope. The strip club is mad important, it’s because the women decide the music that works. Women have the voice of choice in music every time.
AllHipHop: You also released the Capital Gains EP. Shout out to DJ Five Venoms, how’d you guys link?
Stockz: Crazy story. I DMed Five Venoms when “NO OPPS” dropped. I sent him the video on Instagram and he liked it. We never met each other. I went to Rolling Loud New York, I was with Sweetness from EQ and she had pointed me in the direction of Five, because I didn’t really know what he looked like, I just knew he was DJing. I thought “I’m a go meet him so we can talk.”
She introduced me to him, and we started talking. I ended up talking to his manager Jordan and we ended up chopping it up about NFTs and Crypto for about 30 mins backstage. Eventually, we got into a conversation about putting out a mixtape.” We formulated Capital Gains, my guy ZerinM helped me pick the records for release. Capital Gains came as a mixtape from DJ Five Venoms, and we dropped it on streaming platforms. Boom!
AllHipHop: Talk about linking with Too Short, that’s a Bay area legend.
Stockz: Man, shout out to Too Short. Too Short is the OG, that’s unc. I love him, I appreciate everything he does and has done period. For me, for everybody, the game, everything. Shout out to the homie Zach @EkzaktXL, he introduced me to Too Short originally way before this
song materialized. At the time when that record was made, me and my guy John were working on some visualizers for Too Short. We’re helping direct some music videos for him.
It was in 2018/2019 when I did my management deal w/ Roc Nation. I was in the studio working on Julia Lewis beats when I had made the song “Choose Up.” I was in there, Too Short had called me and said “hey, can you send me the video?’ (the visualizers we were working on) He needed the updated version of the video, I said “yeah I got you.” We were playing the song While we were on the phone, and I asked if I could send it to him. He’s like “bet.” I sent it to him, and he liked it. Then recorded it with Ekzkat, choose up!
AllHipHop: You also released “Not Many,” which premiered on REVOLT. What inspired this record?
Stockz: That record was inspired solely off of the thought of being one of the few people that make it out of the circumstances that we come up in, in the city that we’re from. That’s why I have Doeman as a feature, because he’s from my city and embodies that energy. He’s from a different part, he’s from the South East and I grew up in the South West. It’s literally about that, the mantra of knowing not many of us made it out here, but in time we’ll take it there. Just celebrating the fact that we took the best that we had and projected it, and made things happen with it.
AllHipHop: You’re hosting a new show with REVOLT called META MONEY. How’d this opportunity come about?
Stockz: I went to REVOLT Summit in Atlanta, I bumped into the creative director Dunnie West. I know Dunnie because I shot a Foot Action campaign with him and the homie Dave a long time ago. I bumped into him, and we started talking about Crypto and NFTs. It was right around the time I got my Mutant Ape, I bought it during REVOLT Summit in ATL. He said “this sounds like a dope idea.” We worked on the vision and got it done. S/O to Revolt for the opportunity to teach.
AllHipHop: Have you always been into NFTs and the metaverse?
Stockz: I’ve been into crypto for a long time, but I wasn’t really trading crypto this way as I am now. But NFTs, I was introduced to by my homie John Gomez. The videographer that I work with a lot, he did all of my videos for “Skateboard Cane”. He was telling me about NFTs, trying to get me hip to it but I was really busy so I wasn’t really tapped in. I was learning a little bit about it.
The homie Gino The Ghost hit me one day like “yo, check out this collection. It’s dope.” The crypto cannabis club I think it was at the time. He just got me into it. I started shopping and he showed me how to look for the rarities, then I was hooked.
AllHipHop: Did you ever think you’d be hosting a show on REVOLT?
Stockz: No, and that’s the crazy thing. Because my music’s on REVOLT, that’s tight and that’s all I ever really imagined outside of an interview or something. All of the sudden, oh you have a show. What? Wow. If you would’ve asked me that 3 years ago, do you think you’d be doing this? No, because I didn’t even know what a NFT was. it’s no telling what’s going to happen, just keep walking.
AllHipHop: Talk about being the owner of Mutant Ape Yacht Club.
Stockz: It’s my NFT, part of one the biggest NFT collections that’s come out. They’ve done a lot of stuff. They have Bored Ape Yacht Club The first (10k), then you got the Mutant Ape’s. It’s 20K of them. Then they have the Bored Ape Kennel Club, the dogs. Mutant Ape’s the middle ground.
That was my biggest investment into NFTs at the time, because it cost me 6 ETH, which was heavy for me at the time. I’m like oh s###. It got me really into it.
It’s been dope because it keeps giving me new value. I don’t think I’m ever gonna sell it even though I can. It’s tight because I can license it. I licensed it to a book “Jenkins The Valet”. It’s gonna be in a puzzle, like “Where’s Waldo” type thing. We get royalties for that, just a lot of different stuff. The community of it is dope, I’m meeting so many people from it. It’s one of the biggest collections. They had a big concert for NFT NYC. They had a big fest, Chris Rock was there. Aziz Ansari, The Strokes, Beck, Questlove, Lil Baby, hella people were there. After I went to that show, I’m like oh yeah I gotta buy this. It’s been locked in since.
AllHipHop: You also have your own label called Buy Money, doing distribution for multiple artists.
Stockz: Buy Money is really more so about a lifestyle, a mantra. Being, more than it is music. Buy Money is making investments and making sure you’re doing the right thing for what you’re investing your time in. For me, it’s automatic for it to be linked with music. It’s good we’re able to do it. I like the fact that the artist we do distribution for are able to call me, we can talk. It’s more hands-on and direct. I make it a mission that Buy Money can teach artists about business. How a business runs, how their contracts work, stuff that everyone likes to neglect and act like they don’t know what they’re talking about. Everything I can teach, I will teach. That’s one of my big key things over here at Buy Money.
AllHipHop: How’s the independent grind?
Stockz: It’s crazy, especially for me because I’ve been so self-managed and a one-man team for a long time. Now that I’m back in Houston, let me try and build my team back up. I’ve always had on and off management, I’m trying to get something very consistent. Being independent is crazy, especially when you’re your own investor, but it works out well for me. The way my business is set up, everytime we drop music we get richer. Because of the relationship I have with all my people, we all eat out the pot together. It makes it easier that way, versus being an
artist that’s a dickead to all the producers and everybody. Nobody wants to clear records or anything… I don’t have those problems. [laughs]
AllHipHop: You were also in Korea for a month, modeling for Samsung. That’s epic!
Stockz: Yes, I was in S Korea for a month during the pandemic. I had to get tested before I left. When I got there, I had to do a 2-week quarantine. I don’t speak Korean. The people I have to work with at Samsung aren’t able to come to the airport. I land like okay, what’s going on? They put us on random buses, they take you to a hotel that’s government bought to quarantine. You have to stay there for 2 weeks, I was stuck in a room for 2 weeks,
I couldn’t leave the room, could not walk out of the room. Couldn’t open the window, had to check my temperature in the mornings and report to them on the phone apps. They were feeding us pretty bad. I’m not gon’ lie, I was doing real bad with the food. I was in jail low key, it was crazy. But after that, when we got outside and I got to do the job, it was fun. Definitely the hardest job I ever had to do in my life for sure, they were working me hard.
AllHipHop: What can we expect from The Investment mixtape, dropping later this year?
Stockz: We’re mixing it right now. Tryna drop it by my birthday in August, that’s what we’re looking at. I’m in the process of mixing and mastering right now. That’s one of my favorites, been working on it a little longer. We got features on there, all that good stuff. Shooting a bunch of videos. If it had a couple more songs, it might actually be an album. It might.
AllHipHop: What features can we expect?
Stockz: We got Guapdad 4000 on there. We got Vae Vanilla on there, a girl dope female rapper from Detroit. She goes crazy. I got Jurdan Bryant of Spillage Village is on there, a couple more people. Some pending things I can’t talk about yet, but we’re working on it. It’s exciting.
AllHipHop: Any goals you have for yourself at this point in your career?
Stockz: I’m trying to make sure that while I’m walking this earth, I’m leaving a good imprint. Teaching people how to buy money and do positive things, that’s it. Everything else that comes with it is extra. I want to make sure I do what I’m here, supposed to do for God. Everything else is everything else.
AllHipHop: Anything else you want to let the people know?
Stockz: Let the people know that I love them, and I love you, Life is good, I’m breathing and achieving. I can’t complain. Everything’s good man. Be positive, live your life, do the best that you can do.
