Up and coming hip-hop duo Souls of Liberty (Ryan & Tenelle) found out that they both had a passion for basketball and rapping, and decided to use Ryan’s film company SBi, as a branching tool to expand their rapping interest. The dynamic duo that is nothing like I’ve heard before is repping the North side of St Louis all day every day.
Tenelle is a 19 year that is according to him is trying to live on forever through music, and Ryan who is 20 is a creative mind trying to tell a story to the world that they can relate to, accept and look for inspiration. The two of them came up with the name Souls of Liberty from a group that was named Sons of Liberty during the American Revolution that fought for freedom. They turned it into Souls because they feel they definitely represent what they stood for. Souls of liberty according to the group is an entity that represents everyone to some degree. The two of them make music that can hopefully reach many demographics, and their tool is hip-hop.
Souls of Liberty are inspired by their life and their dreams. Ryan states “Me and Tenelle have been bests friends since elementary school. We have gained together, lost, won and just been through a lot. The group is also musically inspired by artists such as Micheal Jackson, Kanye West, Jay-Z, N.E.R.D, the Clipse, Timberland, the abstract element of Janelle Monae and Erykah Badu, just to name a few.
Ryan says he fell in love with hip-hop when he heard Jay Z’s Blueprint. He says that is the very first album that he looked up for lyrics, even read the booklet and just felt so involved with the music. Tenelle says hip-hop has been apart of his life since he was a little kid. He’s been rapping and singing since he was about seven years old.
Souls of Liberty said this about their music in an interview “Our music has everyday ethos. We try to find a balance so it can be accepted in fine art, folk, and popular music tradition. Its like folk music being underground rap. We can be mainstream rap like MTV/ BET, while still being expressed as fine art music that is legendary and will always be remembered the way people remember 2Pac, The Beetles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Wonder. We want people to yell “damn they got substance but I can relate with it on a world scale” We want Cedric from Harvard, PooPoo who didn’t finish high school, Becky and Tanisha to love our music. We want the world to see our vision” In my opinion I think all artists should think and feel this way.
The pair just dropped their newest project Brave New World which is definitely worth checking out (I’m loving it) You can download it off of soulsofliberty.net Let us know what you think of the duo!
