On The Rise: Fonzo W
By Carlos Cureno
Hip Hop Vibe Staff Writer
Every area has a bubbling music scene, Alexandria, Virginia being no different. This area is home to Fonzo W, a rapper who has seen more success than the average rising rapper. An act of love helped kickstart his career in unprecedented ways.
Fonzo W wrote his wedding vows in a Facebook status on his artist fan page. The post vent viral, and then The Huffington Post contacted him in hopes of getting a feature. After the feature, Fonzo W saw his music video hit 25 million views.
However, Fonzo W has a bigger task at hand, even after getting more views than most established artists receive. Still, he considers himself an artist on the rise, something he says he’ll never forget. When he did his On The Rise interview, Fonzo W made this fact clear.
Read the entire interview below:
Few rappers are doing what you are doing right now, how have you managed to work outside of the box? I just really try to stay consistent with dropping new videos that people can relate and identify with. If you’re not consistent with anything, you won’t go far no matter what you’re doing.
Can you tell us how your feature on The Huffington Post came together? Well, after I put my vows on my Facebook artist page, the views started to come in. Next thing I know, my inbox started to blow up and one of the writers from the Huffington Post said they wanted to do an article about my wedding vows.
I actually procrastinated writing my wedding vows and wrote them the same week of the wedding. I was trying my best not to forget them on stage, I never thought they would go this far.
Your unorthodox rise to stardom is amazing, how does it feel to be one of the lone up-and-coming artists with a video that boasts 25 million views? It has a lot of views, but I am still trying to grind as that never happened. The grind never stops, sure it’s nice to have been in a few news articles and on the local news station, but I have bigger goals and dreams ahead and I don’t want to ever let myself get comfortable.
If you look at Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, you’ll notice they are never satisfied. A news reporter can be interviewing them about a game winning drive they had and they will talk about their mistakes and where they could be better. This is why they are the all time greats, they are always wanting to be better.
How has this exposure translated into success for your own music? The exposure has helped because, my fan page has grown a lot, very quickly. It went from about 3000 fans to about 13,000 and with continuing music dropping, it is about 16k fans on Facebook as of now.
So far, are you satisfied with how your single, “Special,” has done with fans? I’m satisfied that people enjoy the record and video to “Special”, but I wont be content until it is heard across the world. “Special” is a song about suicide and that is literally happening every few minutes on average in the world.
Could you see yourself doing a remix and bringing in a big name for the record? I would love to do a remix for “Special” with a big name or any song with a big name. I feel like it would reach more people. “Special” has a great message behind it. If I could work with any big name artist, it would be J. Cole.
Where can fans connect with you on social media? Fans can see my music videos and reach me at Facebook.com/Fonzow. Also my IG name is FonzoW.
Watch “Special” by Fonzo W below:
Follow Carlos Cureno on Twitter @DjayyCharliee.