KNXWLEDGE

City Series Mix Volume 28 (New Year's Edition)

Born and raised in central New Jersey, Boothe was one of three boys in a church-going family full of singers and musicians proficient in just about every instrument available to them. "My mom and dad would clean the church every weekend," he says of his childhood, "so I'd have access to every instrument that was there. And the [church] musicians all had to get new instruments, so I would just take all the old instruments." Inspired by early Nas ("the grimy soul-sample joints") and '90s R&B, the nascent, self-taught artist began to put together a ramshackle set-up and make his own recordings at the tender age of 11.