ACE

Action cures everything; its not only the acronym for ACE, multitalented hip hop artist from Bloomington, Illinois; but his personal mantra about life and living to the fullest. If you’re not already familiar with Ace, then obviously, you’re late to the party. Luckily, I’m here to bring you the inside scoop on this artist who looks to change the way we look at hip hop. From ‘Who Runs The Yard’ to random nightclub encounters, to his single ‘Water,’ Klass is in session as we get to know more about Ace.

‘You can’t get anywhere if you’re not doing nothing. If you want things to happen, you have to make it happen. You can’t just sit around looking for handouts or just waiting for things to happen. You have to really be outside taking action and taking destiny into your own hands. That’s really how I live my life. I’ve never been the type to just sit around and wait for stuff to happen. I always took the initiative and made it happen.’ 

Born and raised in Bloomington, Illinois, a small college town less than 2 hours away from Chicago, Ace started building his passion for music at the age of 10. A class clown at heart growing up, he was a good kid, yet he would usually find ways to getting into a lot of trouble. Around age 10 he got together with 2 of his friends and formed the group Mastermind Boys.  Nothing serious, but they would record a lot of music to help hone each other’s skills. He may have never taken school seriously growing up, but his circumstances gave him a reason to persevere, as he attended ‘Southern Illinois University’ in Edwardsville, Illinois. His focus came from a reminder of those who were unable to step foot on a college campus growing up, along with a reminder from his mother of his opportunity to better himself with the help of her funds. While still a struggle through it all, he was able to graduate in his four years with a Bachelors in Mass Communications, with a minor in Business administration. 

During his sophomore year of college, he pledged Kappa Alpha Psi, which became a great experience for him in building connections along with sharpening his skills. While his mother was a Delta, he really didn’t know much about Greek life until he was in college. Especially since Hollywood and society promote the stereotypes of ritual hazing, heavy drinking, and partying when fraternity life is mentioned. While I didn’t ask about hazing rituals, he confirmed there is a good amount of party life in the fraternity. However, the part most of us don’t hear is how fraternity life is practically a business. It takes a lot of work and organization to throw parties, do fashion shows, and even coordinate events. He started off as a keeper of records, and gradually climbed the ladder to become the president of the fraternity for a little while. One of his most notable achievements came when he participated in an award show hosted by ‘Who Runs The Yard,’ a company run by The Alphas on the fraternity yard. To his surprise, Ace was nominated and won the ‘best rapper’ award. ‘A lot of people voted for me. It was actually hilarious…’ Ace laughed, ‘because I was a Kappa. We treated it like the Source Awards. My whole chapter came out [to support.’] We were popping bottles and just having a really good time.’ At that time, he didn’t even have a project out. He was known for doing a lot of open mics & showcases on the campus. After receiving that award, Ace was motivated to release his mixtape entitled ‘Klass in Session,’ featuring 20 songs (Class with a ‘K’ of course, to support his Kappa roots). You can still find that mixtape on DatPiff.com. He always received a lot of support from his peers in his hometown since the very beginning. The benefits of pledging to the Kappa fraternity built him further, as it gave him great connections for building his continuing music career, and taught him a lot of beneficial practices in business. 

Shoot for the moon and even if you miss, you’ll land on the stars. ‘That’s something that I definitely live by.’ Ace shared with me. ‘My mother used to tell me that when I was growing up. I actually have that tatted on me.’

As time progressed, though, Ace found his self slowly taking a break as a solo artist. That break ended up lasting about six to seven years. He spent a portion of such time doing features, and providing verses for other artist’s projects. There were a variety of others who could see his talent and aptitude, and wanted his guidance and presence in diversifying their lyrics. Ace attributes his solo career hiatus to his lack of experience during the time. Seeing as he wanted to redefine rap and hip hop, and reacquaint the game with what made it all wonderful, he felt it wasn’t fair to saturate his solo career with the lyrics everyone wants to hear, and instead wanted to contribute more that focuses on his genuine self. Within the hiatus, he relocated to Atlanta, GA, aka, the south Mecca of Hip Hop. 

Two things the catalyst to the end of his break would show   him were; time heals all wounds, and you can make a fan out of even your most despised rival. Beforehand, he had a variety of people questioning him about his reasoning for not making music and rapping. However, in a local Atlanta nightclub, he found himself among someone he knew from college. Back in those days, they had a firm rivalry over a female they were enamored over, so they weren’t on the best of terms during the time. Thankfully they settled their differences with time, and this time, when he came up to Ace in the club, and asked him why he wasn’t rapping, it had a better pull on Ace and his decisions. Maybe it wasn’t the message he expected, from a person he wasn’t really friends with, but he was more motivated by the words of a rival in college than the constant banter of well known friends and acquaintances. You know how the old saying goes, ‘A drunken mind speaks sober thoughts.’ The guy, clearly intoxicated, walked right up to Ace and boldly asked him why he wasn’t making music anymore. He admitted that they were never really friends, but suggested that he start making his music again. He always secretly enjoyed his music.  ‘…I had other moments like that, as well, throughout the year where people would ask me the same thing, or other artists that I’ve done features with in the past, but that ONE moment [in particular] really made me say to myself, alright, I need to be making music.’ Ace revealed. ‘There’s no reason for someone like that to come up and say that to me. Someone I was never really cool with or friends with….that was the last straw right there. I told myself I gotta get back to it.’ That lit a fire in him. He realized that he had to keep going. And that’s exactly what he did. From that moment on, he started pursuing his music career like never before. 

When asked about his new single ‘Water,’ Ace said he was inspired to write the song when he was buying some new jewelry at a local jewelry store. We are all familiar with the term “Ice” when referring to jewelry, and while Ace didn’t come up with the term when referring to jewelry, he shows us the beauty of the term itself. He gives an ode to real jewelry, as he mentioned real diamonds are clear like water and you can see right through them. ‘That’s mainly what the song is about. I thought to myself, ‘I should make a song about jewelry.’ I already had the beat in my head. My homie produced it. He’s actually producing my entire EP. So with the beat already in mind, I came up with the hook in 10 minutes. Then I came up with the verses. It took me like a hour or so to complete the full song. That’s typically my writing process.’ “Water” is definitely the kind of song that will make you want to get up and dance. 

If you seen his new jewelry, wardrobe, and shows, it would be easy to assume that he’s well off, financially. The hip hop lifestyle romanticizes the idea of having a lot of money, even if that’s not necessarily the case. I was pleasantly caught completely off guard when Ace shared his greatest secret with me. ‘I actually work a job as well in order to finance things. I have other streams of income as well. Ace continued, [I feel like…] people nowadays look down on having a job. But it’s actually nothing wrong with working and making money, so that you can use that money to do whatever else you wanna do, [rather it’s] to finance your dream or whatever other goal that you want to accomplish. That’s something you probably wouldn’t know from hearing my music.

I found that statement to be incredibly profound and also inspiring because it’s actually true. With the entrepreneurial lifestyle being so trendy on social media, this generation really does look down on having a ‘9-5,’ (as my fellow millennials would refer to it.) However, ACE is not ashamed of his job and sees the big picture of planning. He works as an insurance agent, along with proceeding with his music career, all with a lot of knowledge and support from his peers about his powerful ambitions with the music industry. He referred to his job as an alternative plan, since he is all aware of struggles that come in the music industry and the unpredictability that follows one throughout their music path. All together, not only does his job work as a form of insurance itself, it also provides him with the means to fund his dream as he is taking his perilous journey to the top. 

 It was almost freeing to hear a peer basically give us permission, in a sense, to go against the grain and do whatever it takes to make your vision come to pass. Even if that means working a regular job. It takes money to make money. You’d be surprised by how many mainstream artists started off with a job. His secret is a blessing to all of us with dreams and ambitions, as he takes us out of this world of fantasy most rappers and artists have paved, or currently, pave society with these days. As the essence of rap is oppression, struggle, and especially survival; and no one in this world ever survived long without doing what was absolutely necessary to survive changing times and evolving measures from a broken system. 

I’m definitely excited to see everything else Ace has in store for us this year. I believe it will be nothing short of amazing. His new single ‘Water’ has been released on all major platforms. He also has a EP coming very soon entitled ‘Hollywood Ace.’ If you would like to hear more, make sure you go check it out and support his journey. His social media is below. If you ever feel discouraged, Always remember to shoot for the moon!