MEET THE MAKERS
BY RYAN MAGNOLE | PHOTOS BY SASHA PEDRO
“B
orn and raised in Cambridge” is a description that is becoming more and more of an anomaly. With the high concentration of colleges, and the booming biotech industry, the city attracts transplants. Cambridgebred rapper King Fiya remembers seeing the shift happen in front of him around 2011, while living in the heart of Central Square. “Me and a lot of the people 22 Meet the Makers | scoutcambridge.com
I grew up with, we’re all in the Malden and Everett area now. I was still around Cambridge in 2012 and then it just happened so fast. The prices are just sky high now,” he says. And it’s true. Since 2012, Cambridge rent prices have gone up by almost 50 percent. Luxury apartment buildings and office spaces are being erected, while community institutions like The Middle East are being forced to sell.
But home is where the heart is, and King Fiya has a tight-knit circle that started in the core of Cambridge. The people who make up his music team are a mix of close friends and family (his DJ is his cousin and his manager is a childhood friend, among others.) He remembers the beginning of his journey in 2010: One of his close friends, rapper Darius Heywood, pushed him to record his raps.
“Once I heard my voice recorded, I fell in love with it,” he says. It wasn’t until around 2015 that he began to take rapping seriously. A year later, one of his tracks, “Dour,” began to gain traction. By this point, King Fiya had already released a handful of mostly self-produced tracks— one of which was called “Gettin’ Paid,” featuring New York rapper Dave East.
