Meet Adrian Stephens

Today we’d like to introduce you to Adrian Stephens.

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
My name is A.D. or E$M A.D. I’m from Canton, OH. Northeast side to be exact. Home of the football hall of fame, really filled with not too many opportunities, not too many jobs, just jail or the casket. I call it a dead zone. I started making music in 4th grade on a windows mic and ringtone instrumentals. In 8th grade, I went over a friends house to record and they started clowning me on the song I made, not knowing the real reason for going was to see how they set up the studio. After that, I started recording with some of my friends in the Hood, in my own studio and we went by Grit Squad and changed our name to the “Hood Starz”. I tell people High School was the best of both worlds. I was the one dude in the neighborhood that went to the different school than everybody else. So I had my school life with the rich kids and then my home life with my friends since birth. The older I got the more involved I got with gang activity in the neighborhood, starting with affiliation, turning into my own personal problems. From about 9th grade to now I started losing close friends, to homicides in the city so that just made things worse. But I came from a steady household with a working single mother so I knew college wasn’t an option truthfully. Plus outside of that, I did normal teenage stuff like football and basketball. At age 16, I hacked fruity Loops and started learning how to produce beats. Around that time me and my cousin “Benji” started Expensive Move$, which is my label today. I recorded my first video “100” produced by myself which I got my first couple thousand views. After graduation, I wasn’t around the people at school anymore so it was strictly my friends from the hood. I shot a video named “Semi’s 9’s” that got taken down twice. This video caught a lot of attention, positive and negative. The video ended up getting played in a stop the violence rally in the city downtown. And the police told us if we shoot another video then we will all go down for “gang speculations” charges which at the time was a minimum of 8yrs. After that, I decided to take the college route so I went to school in Cincinnati. I did music a little bit in and out but kind of let it go. At school, I would go home in the summers until I almost got in trouble and almost didn’t make it back the following semester. After doing good in school and graduating, nothing turned out as planned which led me to a deep depression, and life started to go back to what it was before school, getting into trouble and bad situations in Cincinnati and back at home. This led me back to what I love the most, music. I recorded a song “Letter to Khaleel: a tribute to my friend that was killed in 2017. After that, I dropped the two-year-old song “Moving in Silence: with my cousin Benji, and “Feel like Maine and Tec” which got a lot of attention in Cincinnati. Since then I’ve dropped five videos and two mixtapes. Including the newest one in November “1524” available on all platforms. Now I’m on the West Coast back and forth from Phoenix and LA, making this music happen. It’s a lot more complex stuff in my life but you can hear it in the music. I like to tell people I’m not just an artist I’m a businessman too.

Please tell us about your art.
Any type of art that involves entertainment is me. My first obligation is a musical artist. I make music for the soul and for those who have been through pain. I like to tell a lot of stories and speak on my past because a lot of people can relate but at the same time can’t compare their lives to what I’ve been through at all. My creative process starts with not just trying to make music but have a meaning behind what I do. I struggle finding songs for Dj’s to spin because it’s not really club music, its ride around and reflect music. I feel like with my songs they automatically put a visual in your head too.

The things that I want people to take out of it is to see how far I’ve made it from years before. I keep to myself a lot so this is where people learn why I act the way I do at times. Instead of asking me a bunch of questions, I tell people to just play specific songs. I try not to glorify violence even though I talk about it a lot, most of the times its things that I’ve witnessed or have been tempted or had to do. I feel like I’m bigger than just a rapper though. All of my videos I partially direct and always have a script or some type of specific visual to reflect on the purpose. I also have been working on stepping into the fashion industry too.

As an artist, how do you define success and what quality or characteristic do you feel is essential to success as an artist?
I define success by setting goals and being able to achieve them. Every year I write a goal list and at the end of the year see how many I have checked off the list. This keeps me on a straight path without any addition distractions. Success in the music world would be me at least being able to pay my bills and live my daily life off of my music almost as you would with a salary. Then turning that into wealth, and eventually generational wealth. Being able to take care of my family. The qualities I feel that are needed to be successful is hustle, grind, staying humble, never staying stagnant, networking, and my favorite which is also my slogan “Stick to the plan”. You do all of this and the sky is the limit.

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
All of my videos are on my YouTube page: ADsupaTV
IG: @oneandonlybandman
Twitter: ADsupafresh

My newest tape is on all platforms under: E$M A.D.- 1524
Soundcloud: expensivemoves

Be on the lookout for my new video “No Love” and my new tape “A Point Past Beyond” coming soon!

Contact Info:

• Phone: 330-949-1379
• Email: adrianstphns@icloud.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oneandonlybandman/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/adsupafresh?lang=en
• Other: https://soundcloud.com/expensivemoves

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