Perseverance pays off. And I'm finally ready to talk about that. A little bit at least. As a 31 year old, a rapper, and the founder of a slowly growing business I have a lot of work left to do. But as an artist who was born in 1981, and grew up in Broward County before the internet, I have a lot of accomplishments behind me. It wasn't easy to go from being an isolated individual with aspirations to a solvent and legible member of a national phenomenon. That's not meant in any hyperbolic sense, you know, I'm not trying to exaggerate the extent of what we're doing in rap music right now, or my role within this growing hip hop renaissance. But to go from being completely outside the production of culture, and totally ignorant of it, to participating in it has been a major feat for me.

Perseverance has really been the deciding factor. Talent, willingness, drive, strategy, all of that stuff-as much as it matters-becomes less important when perseverance comes into play. If it comes down to perseverance the smarter person doesn't necessarily prevail. If it comes down to perseverance the relentless person prevails. If, when you begin a task, everything is impossible, then the only way you will succeed is if you determine how to achieve the impossible. If you have to achieve the impossible then you accept that your progress will not be measurable until the impossible has been achieved. If your goal is to find the end of Pi, then no calculation except the final one carries any merit. And so you have to be able to let go of expectations, and conventions, and you have to accept a somewhat solitary fate in bringing your impossible feat to fruition, because until it is achieved you will be the only one who believes in it. And thus, even for those of us who endeavor to achieve the impossible in great company, the task itself is always a solitary affair.

For me, becoming a rapper, and finding a way to make a living from being an artist was an impossible task. Neither of my folks are working artists, and nobody in my family or my extended network of connections work in entertainment. Nobody besides me believed that I could succeed. No one that I knew could understand or cultivate my aspirations. I didn't know anybody playing shows, making beats, or selling albums when I started rapping. But I guess it wasn't really a choice though, so much as an irresistible gravitational pull that I eventually had to give into. And when I realized I needed to start a record label I didn't know the first thing about starting a business, let alone a music business. But, in a world where nearly everything seemed impossible those were small things not worth considering in my limitless quest to realize my potential. If you had sat me down and told me all the skills I'd have to cultivate, and how I'd have to go about doing so, and how long it would take, and how much effort I'd have to exert in order to keep growing as a rapper I may have balked.

A big part of engaging with perseverance was accepting my worth. The thing that makes me push through when shit gets real bad, or the thing that makes me try again when 1,000 other attempts have failed is recognizing that I'm worth it. But if I don't have the ability to recognize greatness in myself, and then cultivate and protect that greatness regardless of how the world treats it, then I can't expect anyone else to recognize my greatness. Because I have never let anyone else's impression of me determine what I can be I've become what I set out to be. And oddly enough in becoming myelf, and realizing this potential, and understanding perseverance I've cultivated a much deeper understanding of myself.

When I look back in history at the Jewish people, perseverance has been one of our chief traits. We are a people who continue to exist not because of our smarts, or our strengths, or our connections, but because of perseverance. And as I've grown older and my personal experiences begin to mirror those of my tribe I find a much deeper understanding of myself not as an individual, but an individual whose experiences are marked by a superlative history. The same actions that were spawned by an intense self-respect, and a mighty self image give way to an experience that figures me as simply the most recent example of the Jewish experience.

In the end I don't know what I will be, but for now I am simply a solitary Jewish boy, an Everglades country bumpkin, who is managing to make something of himself by refusing to be anything other than me.