About Us

What's good! It's Mike here, and I'm 21 years old, Chicago born and raised.  Growing up in Chicago, you are surrounded by the rap and hip hop scene. From a young age, I was infatuated by the culture, always trying to learn and soak up as much information as I could.  I think that my earliest memory regarding hip hop would be on the bus to day-camp, probably 2012 or something around then. I remember that my bus driver would always be bumping 107.5 WGCI, which is Chicago's rap and hip hop station.  Classic Wayne, Kanye, Kendrick, Drake, and so many others, were running laps around my head, before I could even understand what they were talking about.  As I got older, my love for the genre, and culture surrounding it, only grew stronger. I would sift through Soundcloud for hours, trying to find the next hot artist, and my headphones would never leave my ears on my daily train commute. Fast forward to 2020, when Covid-19 hit, I was not content with sitting on my ass all day. As much as I love being a couch potato and ripping Xbox for too many hours on end, I can only do that for so long. Quarantine, as I have noted many times, brought out the hustler in me. I had gained enough knowledge about the industry to understand some of its many flaws, and I wanted to make a positive impact.

Rap and hip hop media have become oversaturated with big-name headlines. Major outlets often struggle to keep their ear to the streets, and fail to recognize the immense amount of talent that is on the come-up.  That goes for the rappers and producers themselves, to the various other creatives that are implicitly involved in the industry. That type of recognition could be the difference between somebody continuing to chase their dreams, and somebody giving up.  

I had some graphic design experience, and I knew my way around photoshop, but I didn't have a real plan.  After meeting Billy, through a collaborative project on instagram (separate from the mag), we instantly hit it off. Billy is two years older than me, an insanely talented graphic designer, and is from a small town outside of London. We wanted to do something bigger, and our first idea was a rap comic book. As cool as that would be, it was not what we wanted, so we kept playing around with the idea, letting it naturally evolve.  Eventually, we came up with the idea for an entire culture magazine. As soon as that idea came about, we knew that this was the one.  We immediately got to work.

With the goal of shedding light on young creatives in the industry, we began to build our network. I reached out to every single name I could think of in Chicago, pitching them the idea for the magazine. I got no responses. It was not easy securing the first few features for Volume I, but I was determined. With only 80 followers (which consisted of my friends and family), Flex Sinatra, rapper out of the west side of Chicago, hit me back. It was the first chance I was given, and I wasn't going to give anything less than 150% effort. I interviewed Flex, wrote the piece, and instantly clicked with him. He took me under his wing, and helped be the "big bro," in the industry that I never knew I needed.

Flex helped put me on to so many other Chicago creatives, and from there, we went global.  In the first Volume, we featured over 20 creatives, stretching from California, to NYC, to as far as Hong Kong. We dropped Volume I with less than 300 followers, and still managed to sell out. As soon as the magazines were in the hands of our customers, the positive response was enough to validate our huge aspirations for the mag. I am forever grateful for every single person who allowed me to interview them for Volume I, taking the risk, and seeing things through. 

Since Volume I, our network has only grown stronger, creating and maintaining relationships with so many amazing creatives. Rappers, producers, photographers, videographers, fashion designers, graffiti artists, digital artists, and so many more. Each of them with their own unique perspective on the industry, as well as their own story to tell. 

As we have continued to grow, every aspect of the magazine has been taken to the next level. The layout, graphics, professionalism, features, and ideas, have all seen immense growth. None of that would have been possible, however, without the continued support from our community. We truly are building a family, and I cannot be more proud of the direction that everything is moving. The sleepless nights, the hours on facetime, all of the highs and lows, they have all been worth it.  Billy and I have so much in store for you all, and we cannot wait to share. Thank you for believing in us, and welcome to the 4GOT10 family.

Ask the real questions, find the real answers, and most importantly, don't be 4GOT10