Saga Boy, producer songwriter artist.
“the past is history, the future’s a mystery, today’s a gift... that’s why we call it present!”.

Rappers been saying it for more than ten years now, but hip-hop is STILL in a state of emergency.

“Anybody who watches and BELIEVES these new rap videos where there’s a 17 year old MC rocking a $80,000 platinum chain and driving a Bentley must be smoking more crack than the rapper on the video claims to be selling”. As much as all these major label rappers keep on professing their ‘realness’ it seems the more they’re removed from the truth.

Enter Atlanta’s SAGA BOY aka the true, grimy, real hip-hop, rapper / producer / ghostwriter extraordinaire. SAGA BOY has the skills to be the biggest and best rapper / producer alongside DRE, PUFFY and AKON. But how did we get here? Well, like all the best hip hop acts, the story behind SAGA BOY is one of struggle against adversity, of lives lived on the edge, of fast living, hustling, seeing friends being shot and being shot himself. In the face.

“I was in Las Vegas with one of my best friends and I got shot right here in the face” Deadpans SAGA BOY from a studio in London. He’s here recording some European cameos for SAGA BOYs upcoming debut album. “I’d seen some of my nig***s killed and getting shot at and losing half the teeth on the left hand side of my face made me realize that crime was never going to be the life for me. I chose music instead.” First, though, the life story: while 90 per cent of other rap artists glamour to get themselves on top of the latest trends, circumstance dictated SAGA BOY was always years ahead of his contemporaries - sometimes too many years.

“When I first moved to Harlem from Senegal, nig***s was all wearing Adidas, Pelle Pelle, all that sh!t but I was French so all I knew was (Marithe&Francois Girbaud, YSL, Christian Dior) and all that. Nig***s was all like ‘Yo, you all about that gay sh!t” but now, years later, they all be wearing it. Even 50 Cent be wearing Gucci and sh!t.” In Harlem, young SAGA BOY strived to stay out of trouble and decided to aim to be a professional basketball player while his friends sold crack and robbed people. Being small and with a French accent made him try all the harder to better his peers.

Tragedy struck one day when he broke both his ankles. After being rushed to hospital in agonising pain, the doctor gave him the chilling, life-changing diagnosis that still makes him shudder when he thinks about it today: “Sorry son. You’re never going to walk again.”

Confined to a wheelchair, SAGA BOY took a holiday to Senegal where he would sit all day and play around on his mother’s piano and computer and slowly, but surely, his musical career was born.

“Friends would come around and start freestyling over little beats I’d made and that’s how it all started.” Driven to succeed by his good fortune and his innate philosophy of having to try harder than everybody SAGA BOY quickly became known as one of Atlanta’s hottest underground producers (remember this is the city that Outkast, Jermaine Dupri and Ludacris all came from) and soon had a 21-strong rap crew. The gang would make track upon track upon track. “We were called Cult Of Icon and we had songs that had 20 different MCS on them. None of our songs would be under five minutes.”

SAGA BOY would supplement the Cult Of Icon’s meagre income (mainly made from hustle) by making beats for the biggest artists and having his beats stolen by so many other rappers that if we told you the story in this biography we’d end up with a lawsuit bigger than Michael Jackson’s rap sheet.

Listening to the 60+ tracks that SAGA BOY has recorded in the last year, you’re left in no doubt that SAGA BOY ís right. He combines commercial, pop sensibilities with some of the grimiest bass lines and lyrics this side of the first B.I.G album and some of the catchiest hooks since Chronic 2001.

“Right now, everybody look like clones. They should come up with their own sh!t. I’m never going to look like them nig*** man. That’s not hip hop. I’ll be damned if there’s a nig*** in the game with $100,000 to his name. half these nig*** be lying. SAGA BOY is all about the truth.”

Trying extra hard always came natural to SAGA BOY. As a child he knew he had sickle cell anaemia and, while doctors urged him to quit his basketball career, he carried on regardless.