"It’s just easy for dudes to lose sight of their own lane. I’m not at all trying to come into gangster Hip-Hop or underground Rap in Boston or New York and come in like, 'Yo, I’ll battle anyone.' I’m not even that dude. I’m just trying to come out with electric music; new music no one has really been putting out."

Sam Adams has emerged on the scene as a force to be reckoned with. Sam’s EP, Boston Boy, soared to iTunes’ number one spot in mid March; beating out DJ Khaled and Lil Wayne. With success comes drama and Sam is seeing his fair share from those who feel he shouldn’t be in the Hip Hop culture. Sam discusses his fortunate turn of events, his growing fan base, and addresses the critics.

So, Sam Adams, tell me about yourself, where you’re from, what college you go to and all of that good stuff!

I’m originally from Cambridge; my neighborhood is like directly across the river from Boston, so it’s pretty much Boston. I’m always in Boston. I go to school at Trinity in Hartford and the last three weeks of my life have been crazy.

Just the last 3 weeks?

Yeah, I mean since we dropped the EP, just all the hype and publicity. It’s been crazy; it’s been so much fun though.

So, when did you really start with recording?

I did like a little bit of recording in my sophomore year of high school, but that was more producing beats and stuff, so I wasn’t really on my A-game in terms of rap. I went to school and would always make a freestyle with my boys. We’d always have mad fun, just freestyling, making videos, and stupid sh*t. I just got better and I sort of got a swag on tracks and a little more confident. I then came out with I Hate College and the EP. Well I just call it the test run of kids in a new genre of music, like, yeah I took Asher Roth’s beat and made a whole new track out of it which is sort of unusual for me; people just usually use the melody or the delivery of the rapper produced on the first track. So, we did that hoping that our whole 13-15 thousand fan base would buy it and they did and it just kept going. So, it’s crazy!

So you already had a fan base before this EP?

Yeah, we had like 12-15 thousand person college fan base.

That’s at the college you are at now?

No, not at the college I’m at. It’s probably like 800 fans at my school and then random school like USC, C Bowler, Dartmouth College. Now I find out daily, new places like Coastal Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas…We did have a buzz before because we were going around doing college shows at some big schools, but we didn’t really have any industry contacts. So, we just kept hitting people up like, “Yo, I’m performing here.” We would just do shows, get paid a little doe, and get more fans every weekend.

So you all were just doing your own shows?

Yeah, we were just doing out own thing. People were looking to book us and we were just doing our own booking.

Okay! So, how does it feel right now?

It feels good! It’s pretty crazy. I definitely never had this much publicity, I’ve never had this in my life. It’s been more in the last 2-3 weeks, but it’s really cool. It’s interesting because you get to see how all the sh*t behind the scenes work. You also get to see that everything that everyone talks about in the music industry being a bunch of bullsh*tters is actually true [laughs].

Well, with all the good publicity, guess what comes with it?

All the bad publicity! I’m going to touch on this a little bit. Mr. La Coka Nostra [laughs].

I went online to check you out and said, “Hey, this little white boy got it going on!” And then I see this [Slaine] article. I’m going to tell you right now, in this music industry, you get in where you fit in…

Exactly.

La Coka Nostra’s Slaine said, “You pose a threat to real Hip-Hop street music.”

See, that’s just bullsh*t. I, personally, don’t even know what that means. What Hip-Hop is, is everyone’s f*cking own opinion. Nas’ opinion was that Hip-Hop was dead, so he came out with an album. Who knows what his aim was; to bring it back to life or what, but I mean as far as someone like that [La Coka Nostra] saying that about my music, that’s like sitting down David Guetta and saying, “Listen to Illmatic and Reasonable Doubt and tell me which one is better.” He doesn’t know that…

So for Slaine to say that…Like, I’ve talked to the dude and we don’t have problems anymore; we’re cool. It’s just easy for dudes to lose sight of their own lane. I’m not at all trying to come into gangster Hip-Hop or underground Rap in Boston or New York and come in like, “Yo, I’ll battle anyone.” I’m not even that dude. I’m just trying to come out with electric music; new music no one has really been putting out. Admit it or not, I do have a very white following, but that shouldn’t take away at all from my music. Like you said, you have to sort of get in where you fit in.

I’m obviously not going to fit in with the whole niche Hip-Hop industry gangster sh*t, because I ain’t a gangster; I have a completely different story, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do tracks with Curren$y, and Wiz Khalifa, and Spitta, and Big Sean and all them. I’ve met most of the dudes. It’s basically like, the bad publicity in dudes like Slaine; no disrespect, but it’s like we are two completely different genres. I’m so different from them. It’s easy for them to say that I pollute Hip-Hop, but yet you don’t hear them saying that about [David] Guetta and Akon, and Flo Rida and all these other people. I think that just came out of hate for the fact that I got put on.

Do you feel that you are going to appeal to more ethnicities?

Oh yes, most definitely! In the new stuff that’s coming out. The new mixtape is ill. The new mixtape is more electronic and melodic.

What are you doing on your new mixtape to try to appeal to more people?

Bigger beats, more challenging beats. A lot of people thought I outshined the beats on my album. It’s more lyrically sophisticated. We are trying to put out this certain type of music. To be honest, the only other dude that is really doing it that sort of techno style is Wiz Khalifa; he’s getting a really good following right now. We’re doing what we’re doing and will be working with them soon. We just got finished doing some stuff with Curren$y which is ill.

I know you must have labels hunting you down right now. What do you feel needs to be in your contract for you to sign with that certain label, besides money?

Even more important than money is having your creative ability. I don’t want to go into the studio and have someone hand me a piece of paper with my rhymes on it. That’s not how I work. I don’t know how to do music like that. I know this will probably never happen; I want my publishing rights [laughs]. I still have them now, so labels will have to pry them out of my dead fingers. And maybe labels get zero live show money; in an ideal world [laughs].

How many labels you have doing a bidding war over you?

I’d say maybe four or five. In the first two days that we blew up, when we were out in LA, we met with every major label that existed. They were flying in left and right trying to find out who I was and if that scan was true. I didn’t even want to go to most of the meetings because they were boring as hell.

Any shout outs in the end?

Thank you to all of my fans! It’s crazy how loyal they are. They are the reason I am here and the shows just keep getting better. I’m looking forward to the spring and looking forward to releasing this batch of songs for the summer.

- By Lana "Ma Official" M.