(AllHipHop News) When Astro was born, the Notorious B.I.G. was less than seven months away from being fatally shot and WorldstarHipHop was nine years from being created. Astro spoke EXCLUSIVELY with AllHipHop about how the famous video hosting platform has changed rap battles in the wake of the East vs West rap beef and more.
Drake famously quipped “diss me, you’ll never hear a reply for it” on his 2009 song “Successful”. While Astro admits that Hip Hop is a competitive sport and “the closest thing to boxing”, the Earth to Echo star states that WorldStarHipHop has influenced an entire era in blurring the lines between reality and entertainment:
I probably wouldn’t engage in no beef. Especially now that we live in a Worldstar era where people, they’ll do something stupid. They’ll throw something at you when you come to their city. Or put their hands on you ’cause they don’t understand that’s a part of Hip Hop. They take everything serious.
Astro has only been in the national spotlight for three years and has already amassed acting credits with Taraji P. Henson and an upcoming film with Liam Neeson. Speaking on his film with Nesson, Astro explains how the writer of Minority Report informed him to never take a cting classes in order to get ahead:
The movie I worked on with Liam Neeson is called A Walk Among The Tombstones The director of that, his name is Scott Frank. He had told me after the audition to never take acting classes. So, I’m just taking his advice. I don’t know, I guess the naturalness or whatever. I took drama class when I was in fifth grade. But that was only so I didn’t have to be in class. In drama class they make you leave the class for whatever period to go practice for the show.
Earth to Echo hits theaters on July 2nd with A Walk Among the Tombstones is set for a September 14th release.
Check out the second part of AllHipHop’s EXCLUSIVE interview with Astro below: