LOWELL \u2014 Making it as a hip hop rapper based in Lowell isn\u2019t the easiest thing in the world to do these days, but Egypt Durham is doing just that, finding more and more success in clubs and online and she\u2019s written a book to tell you how to believe in yourself and make things happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI myself was considered an at-risk youth,\u201d said the musical performer, who goes by the stage name of Egypt Raps, and uses just her first name, Egypt, on her new book. She\u2019s been performing rap and hip hop for a decade off and on in Lowell and elsewhere but recently has seen a surge in popularity online and has expanded her footprint, doing volunteer acts and speaking at local high schools and coming out with her inspirational book, \u201cFrom Nothing to Everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recently she\u2019s gotten a grant from Mosiac Lowell, a nonprofit organization in Lowell, that is helping support artists, to make \u201ca cultural economy plan for the whole city.\u201d And she used that to help publish the book.<\/p>\n
Book and at-risk youth event<\/p>\n
The book release event will take place on Saturday, Aug. 29, from 3 to 6 p.m. at UTEC, the United Teen Equality Center, 17 Warren St., Third Floor, Lowell, and everyone is invited for the book party and join what will also serve as a community event to inspire, impact and influence at-risk youth to find a better tomorrow. Everyone is invited, and people are encouraged to bring their kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe book isn\u2019t your average read. \u2026 no one wants to sit there and read a book anymore. \u2026 It\u2019s more like a self-help book, where you\u2019re utilizing your own experiences, \u2018this is what happened to me, learn from me so you don\u2019t have to make the same mistakes.\u2019 It\u2019s a quick read. This book is for anyone looking or seeking to rise above their circumstances, whether it\u2019s a teen or young adult, man or woman, though I did use my own experiences. \u2026 It\u2019s the type of book where you can read it and put your own puzzle pieces together, and say, this looks like what I\u2019m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The book, \u201cFrom Nothing to Everything,\u201d which was published last week, goes over five key principles in life: Master the Craft, Make a Plan, Believe, Funding, and Don\u2019t Forget Where You Came From.<\/p>\n
Egypt explains the \u201cFunding\u201d aspect, saying, \u201cThe music industry is expensive. \u2018Funding,\u2019 that chapter is being resourceful. Using what you have and utilizing other resources. I never had a lot of money to create \u2026 whether it be from grants or sponsors, or simply \u2026 using what I had to make something out of nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Volunteering stirs a chord<\/p>\n
Egypt said she went to Lowell Middlesex Academy Charter School, which is known as a high school for kids who are in need of a second chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis past year, I got an opportunity to revisit (the school), volunteer, using both literature and music to inspire and impact the youth there,\u201d Egypt said. And she\u2019s also volunteered recently at Southbridge High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was given the opportunity to volunteer with Paul Willis from Boston and the Rawkstars Inc.,\u201d a creative youth development nonprofit providing free instruments and music education to kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember being their age and needing an inspiration like this, in Rawkstars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Going back to Lowell Middlesex Academy Charter School meant a lot to the rapper, and she thanks them \u201cfor the inspiration to write this book,\u201d Egypt said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw myself in so many of them, and I remember being 16 and my teachers telling us, \u2018Oh you guys are going to go to college,\u2019 and I didn\u2019t believe it, I didn\u2019t believe it because of what I was living. \u2018Yeah me, go to college?\u2019 And when I was volunteering, I noticed a lot of that in the students. It was almost like they were scared, it\u2019s almost like they were afraid of believing that \u2018better\u2019 was possible. \u2026 Just having that mindset, \u2018You\u2019re just saying that.\u2019 I always thought success wasn\u2019t meant for me just because of the cards I was dealt in life and it\u2019s just not true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since volunteering, she reached out and got one of the students, \u201cwho is an extremely talented young producer,\u201d to work with her. \u201cShe produced my newest single, \u2018Spent,\u2019 she did that at 17 years old with limited resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cShowing them that I was you and you are me I walked the same halls as those at-risk youths, and I probably faced a lot of the same situations that they faced. The anxieties of not having enough, lights being shut off, watching your parents struggle as a child, it almost makes you feel like you have to get a job to help your mom make ends meet and I don\u2019t think any child should have to feel that pressure at such a young age but even if they do, they can rise above that, to not be afraid to dream big. Look at me.\u201d<\/p>\n
A positive message<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty much my message in my music, I\u2019m not only telling my story and expressing myself but also making sure I\u2019m an example, a positive message through hip hop for youths, young adults, and my main goal is have them relate to a positive message to help change negative perspectives.<\/p>\n
\u201cI faced a lot of adversity and setbacks, just by being a low-income young adult,\u201d but eventually, she said, changing her perception made all the difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized no one was coming to save me. If I wanted it better, I had to change. I had to be disciplined, I had to show up even if I didn\u2019t feel like it, and stay consistent and committed. \u2026 In music, in life, it kind of all correlates. What you hear in my music is what I lived in real life,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Egypt still maintains a part-time job, while also doing gigs in Atlantic City and Atlanta, opening for bigger-name acts such as Albee Al, and locally for Termanology (local music artist Danny Carillo), and doing a recent show at the Sahel Restaurant & Lounge in Lowell, but at first it was a struggle to make ends meet and she was not at all sure where it was all leading her.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, there was a moment in my life where I became a mom and it was a make-or-break moment. I was either going to give this up or I was not going to allow my circumstances to limit me like they have been my whole life. I decided that I was going to be courageous enough to believe in myself and keep building. I wasn\u2019t going to throw in the towel that easy and I had even more of a reason to go harder and keep going, because of my daughter, and I know there\u2019s mothers out there that were in my shoes and thought for a moment that, \u2018Oh I gotta give this up because I\u2019m a mom now,\u2019 and for me, that just wasn\u2019t an option.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was raised by a single mom, and I watched my mom give up her dreams and it didn\u2019t help us. So in order to be an example to my daughter as well as not continue that same cycle \u2026 I kept going. \u2026 one of my lyrics verbatim is \u2018Working 9 to 5, paying bills on time, cleaning, feeding kids, when it\u2019s dinner time, I\u2019ve been at it for some years, rapping through these tears.\u2019 \u2014 That right there is perseverance, endurance. I\u2019m doing all of this and I\u2019m still here. The message is no matter what you go through, no matter how much you got on your plate, even if you gotta rap with tears in your eyes, there\u2019s light at the end of the tunnel. To me it doesn\u2019t matter how you start, it\u2019s how you finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eygpt is also now working on an album, scheduled to be released spring of 2027, to be called \u201cRaw Before Radio.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overall concept of this album is walking in your truth, I feel like in hip hop it\u2019s glamorized, sometimes not always for the right reasons, being truthful, being raw, before radio, true to yourself, true in your music and values and beliefs.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe personally, where I am now, I want to do the opposite of what has already been done in hip hop. I don\u2019t want to tear down my community, I want to help build it. And throughout this time of doing the community volunteering, I learned something very powerful. And for so long I thought that communities were like cities or neighborhoods and I realized that communities were people and that if I wanted my community to change, I had to spread positivity instead of destruction.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially where we\u2019re at nowadays, there\u2019s a lot of negative influences in the hip hop industry, there\u2019s very few positive ones \u2026 there\u2019s no more Wil Smiths in today\u2019s hip hop, but there are some positive role models in hip hop today, just not many.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finding a market in today\u2019s music scene is difficult but Egypt says, \u201cYou evolve, just like everything evolves. Hip hop evolves, the economy evolves, evolution happens, and when it takes place it\u2019s actually a great thing to see the evolution of the different stages of hip hop, the market and the industry but most importantly, hip hop isn\u2019t just a market or an industry, it\u2019s a culture, it\u2019s lived and an art.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watsyn, of the showcase platform JetPackTV, said of Egypt: \u201cOne thing that sticks out about her is she\u2019s very creative. She locks in and doesn\u2019t beat around the bush, she\u2019ll make you work that day. Very creative and very driven. And does everything on her own. She has a good talent for multi-tasking, works a 9-5, she\u2019s a single mother, and actually now she\u2019s becoming an author, she writes her own music, she directs her own videos.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s really smart. When it comes to the community, in Lowell, she\u2019s already got everybody off their feet, but now she\u2019s expanding \u2026 I know when somebody\u2019s making an impact in the state. Egypt, people are pulling her left, right, she\u2019s handling it all. Somebody like that, I can tell you she\u2019s heading there, I can\u2019t tell you where, because I\u2019ve never been there. \u2026 She has a different sound. She knows how to create songs, she actually knows how to create music, that what separates her from the average rapper. \u2026 It\u2019s a little bit of old school and a little bit of the new stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clarence \u201cC-Millzy\u201d King of Big Dog Studios said of Egypt: \u201cShe definitely has a personality \u2026 that deserves to be in the right rooms. And the work ethic. It\u2019s never easy. She\u2019s definitely been putting in a lot of work and it\u2019s starting to pay off, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said making it in the music business is tough, but Egypt Raps has been putting in the \u201chard work, dedication and consistency.\u201d\u00a0He said a lot of being successful at it is just \u201creaching the right audience. Your style, your type of music, there\u2019s always a lane for you, you just have to reach those people and the sky\u2019s the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n
She has traditionally done her raps to computer-generated beats but is now incorporating more saxophone and piano. \u201cMy main focus is using different sounds, combining them together and creating something that\u2019s really never been heard before.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPrimarily my fan base, the majority of my following is in Massachusetts, not just Lowell, but this is where it all started, Lowell. I have a fan base in Atlanta and Atlantic City, but the majority of my support comes from Massachusetts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her income comes from payments from social media, streams, \u201cpeople download my music, I\u2019ve had moments where I went baby-viral on social media.\u201d Plus, she was the executive producer on a documentary, \u201cThe Inside Scoop,\u201d which was a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to do a music video production. \u201cDuring that video I had spoke briefly about my upbringing, where I was from and I got a good response from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
And she said she draws from her community in Lowell for inspiration.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all have a part to play in our community and my community I hold very near and dear.\u00a0It\u2019s home, no matter where, there\u2019s never going to be any place like home. Lowell is home for me, that\u2019s why I love it so much. I can be in Atlanta for a month, two months and come back \u2026 and I feel like I\u2019m home, this is home, that\u2019s why Lowell is important to me, this is home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOWELL \u2014 Making it as a hip hop rapper based in Lowell isn\u2019t the easiest thing in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1019058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[29],"tags":[3601,1022,407829,171,14839,1370,728,27195,407830,2739,53674,975,50,17550,1072,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1019057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-author","tag-books","tag-egypt-durham","tag-entertainment","tag-hip-hop","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-lowell","tag-lowell-middlesex-academy-charter-school","tag-massachusetts","tag-middlesex-county","tag-music","tag-news","tag-rap","tag-things-to-do","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117144960810304645","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1019057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1019058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1019057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1019057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1019057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}