Motown rapper 350Heem is a southern gentleman, a boss in the making, a product of the streets of Central Florida, and a 90’s R&B lover.
It is true that the rapper who caught a buzz on social media – one of the lucky ones to catch a vibe on TikTok – loves old-school music. Perhaps, landing on the iconic label Motown was destiny.
350Heem tried the school route, even graduating from high school and attending some college, but the call of the mischief distracted him from that goal.
While school wasn’t his thing and the intoxication of criminality was strong, someone saw his greater purpose and edged him over to rhyme spitting.
The gift 350Heem never respected as a kid became his ticket to success. He now shares in the legacy that gave the world Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Rich Nice (the first rapper), and so many more.
He moved from a small town with big dreams to occupying space with some of the biggest stars ever to record music. The emerging artist sat with AllHipHop.com’s Kershaw St. Jawnson to talk about his new project and his background.
350Heem also sang a little Keith Sweat for fans and shared how there was something special about his mother who made him and how his brother succeeds in extraordinary ways.
AllHipHop.com: You are signed to Motown, which has a rich legacy of putting out music that nurtures your soul, right? As a lyricist, as a rapper, do you believe that the music that you put out has enough girth in it, that it will nurture someone’s soul? Will it speak to somebody’s experience? And if so, who is the person that listens to your music?
350Heem: I definitely believe that music speaks to the soul. I definitely believe that because it’s been speaking to me my whole life. And if I say anything in my music it is to speak to the young dudes out there grinding on their own and ain’t really got a lot of people to go to but got a lot of people that go to them. Just trying to find their way.
Personally, I feel like my music really speaks to them in different aspects and different situations.
AllHipHop.com: It is scary out there in the world. I know we don’t like to say that. But the streets ain’t no place for nobody, right? It is rude and evil, and such a talented person … When did you realize that you can rap on the level of someone on a radio? What were some of the signals that the world was sending to you before you started getting the fans? When you said, “Wait a second. I need to do this. I need to get out of the streets and do this.” What were those messages, because sometimes people miss them? What was it that you didn’t miss?
350Heem: Honestly, I feel like I’m still one foot in one foot out. So, I can’t say.
But I definitely caught something… When people started contacting me. When I saw how many people were looking up to me. Like before I even started getting like the fanbase, I got now.
I was getting DMs from people. Kids from my city would run up to me. And I’m just thinking I’m still this regular street dude… but the kids were running up to me like ‘Bruh, I love your music. Bruh, I’m trying to rap like you.” Stuff like that. So, that’s the sign I didn’t miss. Like, I really got to show kids from my city, you can make it. My city is like crabs in a bucket kind of city. Kids feel like once they get out of high school, if they ain’t going to college they getting a job, and that’s the best next thing. I just want to show my city a different way. Like I am the first one to do this from my city. I’m the first person to get signed from my city.
AllHipHop.com: So, you’re a history maker? What’s your mama say about your history-making? What is your mom saying about you being on the same label that Michael Jackson was signed to Stevie Wonder? Diana Ross and the Supremes? Rick James?
350Heem: She loves it. She loves it.
I remember when I got in the car and my first time playing her one of my tracks when I was making music and like as a ninth-grader or tenth grade, but I was cursing in it. She was like ‘Oh, I don’t like all that cursing,’ but she never told me to stop rapping. She was rocking with me. So, to see it come from that to this, she loves to see it.
And then I also got my oldest brother, he made it to the NBA from my city … like one of the first ones from my city that made it to the NBA. So, she got home the first person to make it to the NBA from the city, and me the first person to be signed to a major label.
AllHipHop.com: It is something in your momma’s pancakes. Something in her chicken. What is she doing to produce these extraordinary young men? What is it about your mother?
350Heem: I definitely just feel like it was us watching her work hard to take care of us. We kind of just returned the favor by just doing whatever we can to give her back to her. My pops also. I don’t want to make it seem like my pops wasn’t around. My pops, he raised us. He put that little gentleman in me that you were talking about.”
Check out his new single:
While 350Heem is a gentleman, his music is far from soft. He plays with words in a simple but masterful fashion, giving a glimpse into his life — the one with one foot in the streets and one foot out. A classic struggle between good and evil, his music reads like a letter to America and all the seeds she sewed into Black communities by encapsulating poverty, scratch and claw, and hopelessness into its Similac.
Evidence of this jumps out, even in his recent “First Class” freestyle, where he cleverly spits, “I ain’t never had sh##. Can’t be broke and happy, I want to be mad rich.”
But Heem is more than just street stuff. Maya Angelou once said, “You [we] are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.”
In this interview, we find this young artist is the sum total of a lot of things: charming, focused, talented, aspirational, forthcoming, has the twinkle of success in his eyes. He has an embedded street fancy that is hard to shake, but possibly with this project will give him access to a new life that will shake the shackles that his city seems to have on others.
We rooting for you, Heem.
