HOUSTON, TX. (Top40 Charts/ Senn Entertainment) - Hailing from
Houston and New Orleans, respectively, Chris
Styles (Chris Zenon), brothers Rah (Robert Shelton) and Pro (Travis Bacchus) share a connection with each other. They didn't let their situation dictate their future. Rah met Chris while they both attended
Texas Southern University. The group would spend hours in the studio trying to create a different sound, a style that would be unique to 4Thirty. While in the studio the slang phrase "four-thirty" would be tossed around "I would hear the guys say, "four-thirty," when they would leave the studio. they would joke around and the phrase "four thirty" would always pop up," says producer TJ Boyce. In reality the group would use the phrase to say "I'm out" or 'that's fly". By coincidence the distance between
Houston and New Orleans (the two cities that they rep) happen to be four hours and 30 minutes drive. This inspired the group name 4Thirty.
Rah and Pro grew up in New Orleans' notorious Ninth Ward. When their families blended, the step brothers quickly realized they had a bond that was deeper than hip-hop they had both lost a parent at a young age. Rah lost his mother as a kid and Pro's father, a police officer/cocaine dealer, was shot and killed when he was six years old. "We have had struggles that need to be heard," says Rah. "We used to go to bed hearing rats in the wall. I moved around a lot from pillar to post." Chris came up in Houston's equally infamous Fifth Ward, also in a single-parent home. "My moms kept afloat, taking on three jobs, which left me on my own a lot. Our stories are all connected. That's where our chemistry comes from. We understand the struggle." "4Thirty is a real group," says Pro. "We weren't just put together. This is our reality."
It's that struggle that has inspired their music. A mixture of melodic hooks and street-inspired lyrics, 4Thirty's sound follows in the tradition of legendary Southern hip-hop acts like The Geto Boys, UGK and The Hot Boyz but with their own universal twist. Tracks like "This Is The Life" (featuring artist/producer TJ Boyce) and "I'm Fly" showcases both the trio's lyrical ability but also their original sound. "We're a breath of fresh air to the genre," says Rah.
That breath of fresh air is already paying dividends. 4Thirty recently scored their first chart hit when "This Is The Life" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at 97. "We're blessed to have charted already," says Rah. "But when TJ told me I said, 'You ain't seen nothing yet.' We expect more from ourselves."
4Thirty sees themselves as more than just rappers they are a part of the new generation of musicians who understand that they have to take their music to the masses via social networking and viral videos. The group has created a base of over 4 million fans on their MySpace page alone. "That's why we launched our YouTube channel," says Pro. "This is a new world. It's not like the '90s. We gotta do what we can to touch the people."
With that kind of vision to win and an understanding of the true definition of struggle, it's no wonder that fans are eagerly awaiting the release of their debut album, A Day In The Life, due in 2009. They are taking listeners on a journey of what their day-to-day lives are about from their struggles to their successes. Pro puts it best when he says, "Pain births passion and our pain birthed our music."
