Rapper Prof’s love for performing in Madison started one Halloween many years ago when he and his buddy pawned a diamond ring, rented speakers, stole a car and drove down to Madison to perform at a house party. And they rocked it.
It was at that non-descript house party where Prof saw for the first time students at University of Wisconsin “party hard” and are “ready to drop what they’re doing and just have fun.” And when he takes over the Majestic on Feb. 13, he expects nothing less than full on craziness.
One would be remiss to say it is only the UW audience that will give this concert a party atmosphere — Prof’s origins and rise to popularity can be traced back to parties themselves.
Prof said when he was growing up on the south side of Minneapolis, at parties “rapping was the thing to do.
“You’d get your homies together and you’d all just free-style,” Prof said.
It was at those parties where Prof found he was winning battles and roughing people up, and then was able to parlay his reputation into playing some shows. The rest was history.
Parties not only make up Prof’s origins, but also contribute to what sets him apart as an artist from many of his Minneapolis peers. While many of his contemporaries at the time of his rise as an artist were trying to chase the introspective, emotional sound of Atmosphere, he said he was able to set himself out from the crowd by talking about partying and having fun.
While the emcee has always tried to be the best and set himself out from the crowd, he acknowledges the impact coming up as an artist in Minneapolis has had on him.
“You couldn’t walk up to some skyscraper and get your career,” Prof said.
Instead, he and other emcees had to do it themselves and grind it out by playing as many small shows as possible and then building up from there.
Prof said Minneapolis artists tend to have more authenticity than most artists from other areas. He and other Minneapolis rappers don’t talk about riches until they actually have them, unlike other rappers.
“On the radio today people are formulaically saying ‘look at my whip,’ ‘look at my car’… and it’s like, they probably don’t even have them yet,” he said.
Prof believes in the importance of authenticity as it pertains to his own music and motivations as a musician. From the start, he has always tried to do new things and learn, to simply get better and have a wider understanding of music in general.
His first projects, the Kaiser Von Powderhorn mixtapes, reflect a more aggressive and free-thinking persona and were actually named after the big German Shepherd he had at the time, he said.
“No one would fuck with me once I had that dog,” Prof said “So that [the mixtapes] were like me saying I’m that dog, that big-ass German Shepherd.
Nowadays, Prof is always ready to show his aggressive side, like on the track “Bar Breaker” off his latest album Liability. But he’ll also release songs like “True Love” — a powerfully touching track where he painfully remembers the memories surrounding the murders he witnessed growing up.
For Prof, though, this is hardly a major change in his direction as an artist.
“I don’t say like, hey, what should I talk about now that I haven’t talked about before, or what do people want to hear right now,” he said. “It’s never like that. … it always comes off the beat, and how it makes me feel.”
Prof’s motivations have not changed as a musician. He has always done what he wants regardless of what other people may think. It is simply what he has wanted to do that has changed as he has grown artistically.
When he takes the stage at the Majestic, it should be clear to anyone that even remotely knows Prof — he will want to turn the fuck up.
