The Break Presents: Honcho Da Savage

In a Florida movement with no shortage of talent, West Palm Beach, Fla.'s own Honcho Da Savage has quickly established himself as an artist to watch in the Gunshine State. Armed with his mellifluous melodies and trap stylings, he's already well on his way to big-time success.

Raised in a 12-child household, Honcho was generally prohibited from listening to rap when he was growing up. Instead, he took to acts like Nickelback and Lifehouse years before he ever picked up a microphone. Songs from said artists took on more significant meaning by the time Honcho was 19.

After getting involved in street life, the rapper found himself in the trenches and evading the law. During one particular instance, Honcho punctured his throat as he tried to flee the scene of a crime. Honcho watched YouTube videos of the aforementioned artists to re-teach himself how to speak and sing as he had before.

Since that time, Honcho, who has collaborated with the likes of Smooky MarGielaa, has developed into the next potential star in rap’s expanding line of melodically inclined artists, dropping off projects like Trenches & Melodies and most recently Parallel Universe. Honcho is putting music before everything else.

"All I wanna do is record music,” the Kodak Black affiliate says while kicking back in XXL’s Manhattan office a little while back. “If there was a way I could just record music and breathe, that's what I'd do. All I wanna do is record. It gets to the point where I record so much my label can't even keep up with the amount I want to record. 'Cause I just wanna record. If I could sleep in the studio and just record—make bangers I would do it, bro. Just for the culture. I wanna bring back the culture."

Get to know Honcho in the latest edition of XXL's The Break.

Hometown: West Palm Beach, Fla.

I grew up listening to: "I listened to that Nickelback, man. I would listen to rap but I would get beat for it—my mom didn't play that. I got my first whopping watching, 'To the windows, to the wall' [Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz's 'Get Low']. My mom thought it was straight porn—she thought I was watching porn. There was no talking my way out of that. It was weird."

"I wasn't into rap. I didn't really start listening to rap until I started playing football. The first real rapper I was listening to was Chief Keef. I was older than him listening to him."

My style’s been compared to: "Not much besides Post Malone. People don't even really compare me to anyone. People have said, 'Oh, he's in the same lane as these guys.' You know, Trippie Redd. But I don't sound like them. It's the 'same lane' thing. Another artist I feel like people compare me too is Yung Pinch. That's like one of the first artists I did a song with growing up."

Most people don’t know: "I like to listen to like, Sam Hunt and shit. People don't know that 'bout me. I be tuned in. Sometimes even in the car, all I'll play is Sam Hunt and muthafuckas like that. Lifehouse. Nirvana. I be vibing to other music."

My standout moments: "My song with Smooky [Margielaa]. That was the homie before he got so viral. I used to see Smooky at the train station. I was staying with his cousin while I was in New York."

My goal in hip-hop is: "To be the greatest to ever touch music. Everybody thinks this is a young man's game, but I'm not that young—I'm a OG. So it's like, I'm coming in and I'm taking over. I'm trying to be the best, I'm trying to make the best music. I'm not just trying to give people bullshit music and get likes on Instagram. That's not me. I don't care if I get 20 likes on Instagram, if I'm making the best music that people can actually ever listen to, that's all I want—satisfaction of knowing that my music is the best. Your grandma is listening to it, you can let your baby listen to it, you can put it on your stomach when you're pregnant. I don't really even rap about the stuff that I've been through in life. I rap about the streets a little bit—of course you gotta give it to 'em—but I try to be positive and keep everything positive, 'cause I don't glorify what don't need to be glorified."

I'm going to be the next: "Big star."

I'm going to blow up because: "It's not even about me; it's about the music that I'm making. I feel like if it touches ears, people are gonna like it—even if they've never seen me in their life. And I don't really care if they don't even know who I am. As long as they listen to it and take it in. I feel like the music I'm making is different."

"I can do anything. I got rap tracks. I don't write anything. I write everything off the top of my head. I only been doing this for a year and eight months. I have over 100-something songs that I'm not even gon' drop. I just be giving people songs. I try to make sure that every song I record is smooth. It has to be smooth. If it doesn't sound at least okay—even okay is not enough. Another reason I'm gonna win is I'm OCD about this rap."

Follow Honcho Da Savage on SoundCloud, Instagram and Twitter.

Standouts:

Parallel Universe

Trenches & Melodies

"Misfit," Smooky Margiela Featuring Honcho Da Savage 

"Blockbusta"

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