When Giovanni Greene, Corey Abisdid and Darryl Semple met at their freshman orientation at Hofstra in 2005, they never expected to build a new hip-hop group.
“We were playing one of those stupid games that they make you play at orientation,” Greene says, “I went up and said I rapped. Then Abisdid said he rapped, too, and then Darryl came up and said he also rapped.”
After the meeting ended, Greene and Abisdid got together and started free-styling with each other, Semple joined the group.
“Everyone broke off from the meeting and we had our first rapping session,” Abisdid says. “We kept throwing verses back and forth and then finally we were like ‘Okay, we can spit.’”
As orientation closed, the three new friends returned to their homes in New Jersey, Westchester and Brooklyn to finish their summers and prepare for thier college careers. At Hofstra, they passed the time with hip-hop and impromptu rap sessions.
Several weeks into the semester, the friends were introduced to Adrian Pearce whom they heard could also rap. At first glance they were unsure if he was going to fit into their newly found group.
“This crazy lookin’ white dude with no shoes on came over with my boy and I was like ‘I dunno about this guy,’” Semple says. “Then he started spitting and I was like ‘He is nasty. We gotta start making music.’”
Coincidentally, Giovanni had recording equipment in his room so the four boys decided to give recording a try. They set up an operation in 1116 Estabrook Hall. “We called it HQ freshman year,” said Greene. “It was like being locked in a box and we wouldn’t come out until a song was completed.”
As the four finished their first mix tape, they grew even closer to each other, morphing into a group titled C-4. They now live together in an off-campus house. Their music is the baseline but their friendship is the bond that makes the band different.
“We are friends first more than anything,” says Abisdid. “We bond on a level because we all have a respect for the craft and anything that anyone does but outside of that we boys.” Abisdid said. “We are brothers to the end. College ain’t nothing easy and we are each others’ life lines.”
“It isn’t a fake friendship,” Semple says. “Us together is all day; all day since we met. That was a team right there.”
The rappers began to make themselves known around Hofstra by handing out free copies of their first mixed tape and getting a taste of a stage at a university-sponsored open mike. After a few campus shows, they produced a second mixed tape.
They performed at more university concerts including ones which featured Lupe Fiasco and Estelle. With the stage experience, the band has taken on the underground hip-hop circuit in New York City.
On stage they carry on more like four friends having a good time than a regular group of people on stage. They act as each others’ hype men, reading when one of the members is struggling and seamlessly filling in the gaps.
“There hasn’t been a group in a while that has been successful,” Pearce says. “It has been all industry-put-together shit that seems to crumble because they aren’t a cohesive unit.”
As friends and bandmates they have pushed one another to excel and learn from eachothers mistakes.
“We are four completely different people. Four different styles, four different people from four different places,” Greene says. “We all listened to the same music and were all into the same things but we are all individuals.”
Their four individual styles merge in the music to form a different type of hip-hop that seems to appeal to mass audiences, not just hip-hop fans.
Even as their college careers come to a close – Pearce will graduate in May and the remaining members will graduate in December – the band is confident that they will continue to work together.
“We love it too much not to,” Pearce says, “I am blessed to have met them. They were the brothers I never had.”
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