“So, I was like, I’ll just use Cochise because he’s the other nigga that looks cool.” “The first nigga I liked was Cleon, but Cleon died,” he explains. A character actually inspired his rap name. One of his childhood favorites is The Warriors, based on the 1979 movie. “I play games for like, 18 hours a day,” Cochise admits. Instead of music, video games absorbed much of his time at that age-and they still do. As he grew older, the rhymer applied his experienced ear for percussion by producing jerk beats until “it eventually turned lame.”Ī 12-year-old Cochise later recorded for the first time over Meek Mill’s “House Party” beat, but it never surfaced outside of being sent to his friends. “Listening to Tyler made me make sure that I could be myself rather than trying to be somebody else,” Cochise shares. He soon discovered Tyler, The Creator’s music as a pre-teen and gained some internal reassurance. Hip-hop wasn’t too distant, as Cochise’s dad was into “real rap” and gave his son an MP3 player filled with trailblazers like Grandmaster Flash, The Sugarhill Gang and Afrika Bambaataa.Īfter his parents divorced and dad wasn’t in the house, Cochise was no longer shielded from hip-hop’s rawest and newest talents. Outside of his creative stretches in elementary school, Cochise, the seed of a Barbadian father and Jamaican mother, came up bumping reggae greats Buju Banton, Barrington Levy and Beenie Man. “I started really being decent at like, 6 or 7,” he remembers. His upbringing in the Christian church is where he would put his drum practice on display after Sunday service. Pots and pans doubled as his first drum set to bang on. The rap newcomer began feeding his appetite to create at the age of 4. Cochise has been prepping for this moment since he was a toddler. He’s plotting on securing his next banger, and it feels as if it likely won’t take long to get. “I’m definitely thankful and blessed for the area that we covered with that song,” says Cochise, born Terrell Cox, over Zoom this past October. 64 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart-the first entry for both artists-and racked up over 128 million streams on Spotify. The rising artist soared higher in 2021, with the $not-assisted “Tell Em,” a flossy record perfect for the soundtrack of a post-pandemic summer for those who were back outside. Cochise’s trademark high-pitched delivery carries the track, reflective of how one would sound if they inhaled a balloon of helium. The 22-year-old rapper’s song “Hatchback” made splashes on TikTok in 2020, with millions of users shimmying and twisting to the first few lines of his verse. The pool of talent in Florida is overflowing, but Cochise, a native of Palm Bay, is floating on a wave of his own. Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in the Winter 2021 issue of XXL Magazine, on stands now.
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