FEATURE

Exclusive interview with San Jose Born and Raised Rapper Serg Litty

Published on October 17, 2020

How did you come by your stage name?

I’ve gone through so many stage names over the years. I used to call myself “Skylit” years ago because I liked smoking, but it didn’t really have a ring to it, and it would be constantly mispronounced. Fast forward to the present day, I’ve had a lot of growth and maturity in my life and decided to make a name change to “Serg Litty” which is a blend between my first name Sergio and Skylit, and there you have it, Serg Litty.

When did you discover your love for your craft and what made you realize you wanted to pursue a career in it?

I used to go down the rabbit hole in the early days of YouTube and I came across SMACK DVD out in New York that would showcase battle rappers like Jae Millz, Murda Mook, and others. I was absolutely blown away by the bars and lyricism. That was the first real exposure that triggered a passion for me.

I started looking for battle rap forums online, like text battles and learned people were doing audio battles, where they would write and record diss tracks to each other. That’s when I fell in love with the craft and the level of creativity people had with their delivery and writing.

The rest was history, I knew this was something I wanted to pursue and over the years my perspective has been more refined along with the goals I have for a real music career.

I’ve been blessed to have friends in my inner circle that had the same passion for hip hop specifically the art form which always stuck with me and kept me focused on elevating my craft.

To what or whom do you accredit your sense of style?

This is such a great question, but a loaded one at that. I’ve been exposed to so many great artists including personal friends who are artists themselves in San Jose, CA. I listened to everything from 2Pac, Big, Eminem, Wu-Tang downtime artists that are more underground, like Vinnie Paz, Jedi Mind Tricks, RA The Rugged Man, the reality is the list is endless and extremely broad.

I’ve been influenced by so many styles. However, moving to Atlanta, GA really exposed me to the trap style and sound that I fell in love with. I absolutely love trap beats and the new type of flow patterns that are coming out, which is something new to me.

I’m trying to encompass the trap style, with my own Serg Litty spin on it that is focused on my roots, which is the Bay Area.

On your current project, how did you come up with the concept?

I’ve been working very closely with a personal friend of mine, Josh Ruiz who goes by Spawntain The Illavator, who is executive producing the entire project which we are calling Shark Tales. However, we aren’t fully committed to the name yet.

This project is really about my story coming up out of San Jose, CA, and the chip on my shoulder that I carry as a driving factor to reach a level of success that most don’t achieve.

We call San Jose, the tank, Shark city because it is the home for the San Jose Sharks NHL team. The intent of the project is to showcase my new style while incorporating trap elements merged with staying true to my Bay Area roots.

What are some of your greatest challenges, and what is your greatest attribute when it comes to your work ethic?

Being an independent artist is challenging in itself especially when you don’t have a team to drive and manage the marketing elements. I feel my greatest challenge is finding myself lost in the weeds when it comes to the administrative and marketing tasks to push the music instead of focusing on creating solely. However, over time, we will scale the team to help automate tasks to ensure Spawn and myself, can focus on what we love to do, which is creating.

My greatest attribute is my ability to literally sacrifice everything to achieve a goal. I carry a large chip on my shoulder to prove people wrong, given the layers involved in my past. I’ve learned to love the process and not the finish line. You need to learn to love eating dirt, and I embrace that concept to the core of who I am.

Are you the best at what you do in your opinion?

Can you really say someone is the best in an art form that is totally driven off of your creative vision? If you’re looking at it from a technical perspective in one’s ability to be a lyricist then you can measure someone’s ability, however, isn’t the overall message to make the listener feel what they are feeling? I feel I am the best at what I do to the people that listen to me. That’s all that matters.

What are your plans for the near future?

My plans are to continue creating and building my vault with a heavy focus on marketing to build a larger fan base. This isn’t a sprint. My whole strategy is to crawl, walk, run. Spawn and I will continue to finish the Shark Tales EP while consistently releasing singles. From there we will be looking to do some features along with building our reach to the scale-out fan base.

Is there anyone you’d like to thank, any shout outs?

The only shout outs I have are for the haters who constantly pray on your downfall which puts a larger chip on my shoulder to prove you wrong.

And then, of course my boys who continue to support me:

Josh Ruiz – Spawntain The Illavator

Jwon

Jmac

Sleep

Michael

Vicious

Louie

Descen

And everyone else from the Money EveryDay team.