How did you start rapping?

Well, my first real rap was as a 12th grader all the way back in 1997 or 98 (I guess I am the senior citizen of this class, lol). It was a project on Othello for school, and I rapped from Othello's perspective about him killing his wife and all. So for me there is a long-standing connection between literature and hip-hop. Eventually, I rewrote the track to be about Judas Iscariot. That version I still have; the original Othello version I do not, unfortunately

After those few years, though, I didn't rap for a long time. I really only started back in 2011 when I was student teaching and trying to relate better to my students. My first rap that year was for a Southern Literature project, and I think it's still pretty good: Gone With The Wind

Who are your musical influences?

They are myriad, honestly. From prog-metal to praise & worship and everything in between. Rap specifically? Peeps like Kendrick, Killer Mike, Bun B, Hov, etc. As for my sound, I'm not sure who I sound like, really. Up for the listener to decide, I guess. Lyrically, though, I take inspiration obviously from literature and poetry, but also from dudes like Kurt Cobain, who loved to play with the English Language in brilliant ways

Tell us how 1 Train Remix came about

Well, that happened in Jan/Feb of 2013 right after I heard and loved the original. I was like "I gotta go in on this too." Some of the rhymes I already had lying around, some of them I wrote new. I was especially proud of the flow change-up in the first verse that was probably influenced by Kendrick. I recorded the thing live and put it on YouTube; man, it was tough spitting both whole verses and getting through it relatively mistake free (I'm too out of shape, lol). But the results made me feel like maybe rapping could be more than just something I did every now and then for my class; this was the track that really made me start to think of myself as an artist and not just a guy who rapped occasionally

Tell us how Stanzas Down came about

After I made a successful collaboration with RG member Massology called YAWP, I really actively started looking for beats, whether on RG or elsewhere. I found a beat from Luger Beats as the daily freebie on Soundclick, and boy is it a banger! Usually I sing choruses but this one felt more like a chant, club-type vibe, so I came up with "throw ya hands up / I'm dropping stanzas down." Even in a club-banger, though, I gotta drop my literary allusions; peep line 1 of verse 2: "tenacious tactics, like Tennyson I'm the trillest teacher." Did I mention I love alliteration?

Tell us how RG (Rap Genius) came about

Another RG collaboration, this time with my boy Backspacez. Just tried to go crazy with the punchlines and wordplay. I was actually driving to my school over the summer where I was planning to record it live yet still had no chorus. The chorus came to me while I was driving. Didn't want to be cliche with a Rap Genius reference, but 'RG' fit the rhyme so well and made sense with what I was trying to say. On another note, this song has actually become one of my 5-year old's favorites. He requests me to play and/or sing it all the time!

How do you feel about your ranking?

I am ecstatic to just slide in to the top 12! I know lots of people make fun of contests like these, but for a 33 year old high school teacher, it means a lot to be taken this seriously by a community of hip-hop fans. This assumes that all of this is not an elaborate community trolling effort to humiliate a lame teacher who does not realize how terrible he is. If that is actually the case: well played, RG, well played!

Do you have any other projects in the works as of now?

The astute viewer of my song pages on RG might notice that many of my tracks belong to an as-yet-unmade mixtape called Metaphoric Fury. I hope to release that at some point soon, even if I end up changing the name, which is possible. I have plenty of tracks for it, but the quality on some of them is not the greatest, nor are the recordings uniform. I go back and forth between just releasing them as they are, which has a timing advantage, or trying to record them again, which might result in better sound but would take more time and perhaps money as well. What do my hordes of fans think I should do?

What do you have to say to your fans and your voters?

Your 25.00 checks are in the mail as promised. Nah, j/k. Huge ups to anyone who listens to or voted for me! Peep my RG pages to see me annotate lots of my lyrics; I spend a good amount of time on some of them. Also got a YouTube page where I throw some stuff up as well if you wanna subscribe or give me some views. All my stuff is also obviously up on my SoundCloud. Gotta up my FB and Twitter game, though, so look for more from me there as well

Where do you want to eventually end up in terms of your music?

I'm not delusional, but I would love to possibly succeed enough where I could at least partly make a living off of my music. It would be extremely dope if I could combine my music and my teaching in a way where I made money off of both. As it stands now, it's hard to devote much time during the school year to rapping full-time between my family and my educational responsibilities. The struggle is real, and we just out here tryna conjugate