His mixtape with popular DJ, DJ Sussone has him at the intersection of stardom and history. This bespectacled 17-year-old rapper of Filipino descent has been busy planting his seed in the rap game and finally he’s seeing the fruits of his labor. Developing over 31 million Youtube views and establishing a diverse fan base of over 250,000 people, it’s no debate that he’s heading towards one direction and that’s to the top. Find out what he did to get there and how he plans to stay there, when you read on. Up and coming artists, take note!

Words by @Lathleen

He goes by the name D-Pryde from Toronto, Canada. “When I was young they use to call me Duke, because I had high expectations to be of high class,” says D-Pryde about where he developed his name from. Taking the first letter of the word (D)uke and remixing the spelling of the word ‘pride’, D-Pryde whose real name is Russell LLantino was born.

D-pryde

How did you link up with DJ SUSSONE?
DJ SUSSONE & Mars Music Group actually found me through Youtube and one of my associates forwarded my video and everything is history. He was Mariah Carey’s tour DJ and on Power 105.1 as well.

How did you develop such a strong fan base?
It’s all in the aspect of being different, my first outlet was youtube, when I found out you can upload videos, I started off as a comedian with parady videos, I generated a buzz and told them I also did music, and they caught on to that.

D-pryde

How would you describe yourself?
If Kanye West is a Chi-town guy with a Nas flow, I’m a Toronto guy with a mix of Bieber and Eminem.

What are some of your biggest challenges being young and from Toronto?

Being young, a lot of people don’t take you seriously especially when you’re in the game with a lot of older cats. I’m young and Asian and I don’t look like your average rapper, my voice isn’t the streetest, being taken seriously is my main problem.

You’re only 17, what about school/college?

I won’t say I hate school, college really isn’t in my intentions right now, right now I’m really focused on my music, I took a year off of high school and started home schooling just so I could get this music thing popping off, but this is my passion and plan A. With me, it was just the Plan A, my mom told me stick to Plan A because if you have your plan B on your mind all the time, your Plan A won’t initiate well.

D-Pryde

Do you think Hip Hop is dead?

Its not dead, it was never dead or at a low point, there’s always a new flavor to discover, there’s always different audiences, , we have our different tastes, people critiziing different tastes is like rasicm, you can’t discourage another taste of music.

With a simple Youtube search for D-Pryde a slew of his popular covers and videos will appear. Each video holding more than 900,000 views. Keep up with this fast moving 17 year old by following him on Twitter. @dprizzy

Lathleen is an entertainment reporter and freelance writer, she spends most of her time freelancing around the country.

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