Tech N9NE

Artist Bio

If you survey hip-hop history, most artists start their careers by sharing their origin stories—whether it be The Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die, Nas’s Illmatic, Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt, or countless other albums. However, Tech N9ne isn’t like most artists. 

Forty years since he first picked up a microphone and 25 albums into an illustrious run as the most successful independent rapper of all time, the chart-topping multiplatinum hip-hop legend and Strange Music Co-Founder goes back to the beginning on his 2025 full-length LP, 5816 Forest [Strange Music]. Over the course of 22 tracks, he transports listeners back to a time when the boy who would become Tech N9ne—Aaron Dontez Yates—first moved to a lime green house on 5816 Forest Avenue in KC. 

This is his Peter Parker-into-Spider-Man or Bruce-Wayne-into-Batman moment. 

This is the beginning.

“I tapped into all of the memories from age 12 to age 17 when I left on a quest to become Tech N9ne,” he says.  “People have never heard these stories. Around my twelfth birthday, my mom married a Muslim, and he moved us to 5816. My homeboys were dope dealers and gangbangers. I was fascinated by the dope game, the gangs, and the rap game. That was my home until I ran away.”

It took some convincing for Tech to stroll down memory lane, though. Fittingly, an old buddy from back in the day inspired him to embark on this journey. As legend has it, “Black Walt” actually gave him the nickname “Tech N9ne” when they first made music as kids in 1988. Fast forward to 2025, this “day one” friend handled A&R for 5816 Forest. He even linked Tech with producer JPZ [E-40, YoungBoy NBA, Young Dolph, Yo Gotti], who helmed the entire body of work.

“I initially didn’t want to do the album like this,” he admits. “Recently, Black Walt got out of prison, and he said, ‘We appreciate the features, but we want to hear all you, man!’ I was like, ‘A whole album of just me rapping? That sounds boring as hell!’,” laughs Tech. “I trusted his mind with the streets, though. We found a middle ground. I’m always willing to go beyond what’s popular and what’s on the radio and do my own thing. We took it back to the hood records. JPZ gave me a feeling of the nineties, but modern. If Black Walt hadn’t said, ‘Let’s do an entire album, ’ I would never’ve shared these experiences. I’m so happy I got it all out. Nothing is promised. With everything I’ve been through it could’ve gone bad, but I was focused on music and trying to get to this point in order to become Tech N9ne.”

On the LP, he recounts it all. He revisits a pivotal summer on “The Punishment (Lockdown)” when his stepfather grounded him, yet now he realizes it was for his own good. During “J6’s,” he drops back into the night he opted to perform at the Kemper Arena (now Hy-Vee Arena) instead of attending his high school graduation. Coming full circle, his own children Donnie, Alyia, Reign, and Alina make appearances on various interludes. Meanwhile, the soulful single “This I Know” [feat. Kevin Church Johnson] rewinds to the day he chose to finally leave 5816 Forest in the rearview. “I knew I had to go,” he adds. “It was Thanksgiving break. I said, ‘I want to spend the week at my aunt’s house’. I came downstairs with a big-ass bag, and my mom asked, ‘Why do you need that many clothes?’ I told her I was going to wash them there; I never came back.”

On “Yoda” [feat. Lil Wayne] he levels up and looks back at the same time. His fifth collaboration with Weezy might just be their wildest yet. Boosted by a pulsating keyboard loop, Tech sets the scene, “Young man sitting on the front porch thinking how to get on a higher level of some sort.” He goes on to adopt the Master Jedi’s cadence, “Be the, be the best I will.” Accented by the “woosh” of a lightsaber, Wayne counters with a chant, “I be green like Yoda.” 

“My brain told me, ‘Talk like Yoda and make it rhyme’,” he grins. “Since I had to rhyme backwards, it was so hard to finish, but it came out amazing. Wayne is a mastermind, and he got it right away. He’s such a musician that he has a different inflection on every hook. Lyrically, I’m painting a picture of being a young man at 5816 Forest. I was a youngster trying to figure out how I could become this mega-star rapper. You can practically see 13-year-old me jumping in cyphers in front of the stoop.”

Elsewhere, piano glimmers beneath a skittering beat laced with loose guitar on “Livin’ In The Sky.” He gets reflective with the existential refrain, “And I’m wondering where’d you go ‘cause your time on earth ain’t last long.”

“JPZ had always been telling me, ‘You have to go back and listen to ‘Livin’ In The Sky’ before you’re done with this album’,” he reveals. “I listened to it, and it came together. It’s a brighter song about our soldiers who passed away.”

Then, there’s “Fish Captain.” He depicts his “summer gig,” recalling the day he met Biz Markie and carrying a chantable chorus, “I’ve been working all damn day.”

“My stepfather’s brother gave me a job at Fish Captain when I was 15,” he says. “I didn’t know his partners were big-time dealers, and they forced him out at gunpoint, though. After I left, there was a huge drug bust at Fish Captain. While I worked there, they gave me money to get school clothes and my first pair of Jordans. At the end of the song, I’m saying ‘Thank you’ to them. It’s a special time in my life.”

On “Sacrifice,” Jehry Robinson uplifts a heavenly hook as Tech ruminates on his path to success. He gets introspective on lines like, “That’s the price I’m gonna have to sacrifice.”

“It’s another one about my stepfather,” he elaborates. “I worked on my craft, and I subconsciously sacrificed all the fun to hone my style when I was stuck in the house as a kid. My stepfather told me, ‘What you got isn’t more special than everyone else rapping. You just sound like them’. It made me start rapping how I did. That’s why I said, ‘Inside I was hurting, but now I’m a surgeon’.”

GENRE

• Hip-Hop