Nino Bless has made a name for himself quickly. However, for those inferring that this Brooklyn native popped up quickly, may have it a bit confused. As a quiet industry hustler, Nino spent the top of the decade doing mixtape distribution and marketing for artists like Chamillionaire, Immortal Technique and Grafh.

Amidst this steady work with a steady income, it was the legendary Kool G Rap that encouraged the longtime "rapper on the side" to go full throttle with his passion. In the several years since, Nino Bless has done just that. Whether rapping, blogging [click to read], or compiling acclaimed mixtapes [click to listen], the emcee "blessed" by G Rap says he refuses to let his godfather down.

HipHopDX: You’ve been in the industry for quite some time, how have you evolved from behind the scenes to the point you’re at today?
Nino Bless: As far as Hip Hop, I was rhyming in the late ‘90s and whatnot. I didn’t have no resources; I didn’t have nobody who could introduce me to Russell Simmons or Puffy or those people. I knew I wanted to be involved in this industry, so I knew I had to create outlets for myself. Basically, I started a street team and I started mixtape distribution. Through that, I met a lot of deejays, a lot of clients and whatnot. Through that, I ended up starting a marketing company called Milestone Media. Once I started doing that, I started building resources and connections. I wasn’t making no money off of rapping; there was no outlet for me to have a career as a rapper, so I just stood in the industry, and I was making money. I was satisfied doing what I was doing, and I was good at it, but eventually, certain things came about.

Me and Kool G Rap [click to read][became close]. He was like, “Look, you need to start focusing on this rap thing.” That eventually led me to pursuing this rap thing full-time. It was kind of hard because I had to balance what I wanted to do music-wise, and pretty much paying my bills through my company. It’s not a rarity; Chamillionaire [click to read] did it. Me and Chamillionaire chopped it up for a few hours one time, and he was telling me that him and Paul Wall used to hang up flyers in Texas, doing a lot of street team stuff, and that’s how he met a lot of different rappers, deejays and people. A lot of artists start off in the industry through other realms.

DX: Was it hard for you to go from paying dues in one arena to starting over in another?
NB: Yeah, definitely. Not every emcee who I had a relationship with took what I was trying to do with open arms. There’s a rapper on every corner. A lot of people who do DVDs or distribution or even show promoters or even Hip Hop writers, they all want to be rappers. [Laughs] A lot of these dudes want to rap in the first place, but they couldn’t do it, whether they didn’t have the flow or the voice or whatever. Once I started stepping it up with my music and taking it more serious, dudes was like, “Oh shit, you really trying to take it there.” A lot of the artists that I was close with, they seen that – especially Kool G Rap. He was the first one to really be like, “Wow. In the beginning, you were a baby with this, now, you’re not only walking, but you’re about to be graduating the first level of class. You’re doing it!” That helped me build that confidence.

DX: On the tape, you say “I’m America’s nightmare, a young ‘spic that just don’t give a shit.” Expound on that a bit…
NB: It’s basically taken from Fredro Starr of Onyx on “Last Dayz.” It’s a real famous quote, “I’m America’s nightmare, young black, and just don’t give a fuck / I just want to get high and live it up.” I basically took that. I guess, in a sense, he was just saying that America’s scared of this. At the end of the day, kids from the ghetto with a voice speak about things that people don’t cover. We’re a voice to something that mass media doesn’t cover. We have different laws here. That wasn’t exposed to people in Wichita and Iowa, but Hip Hop did that. When Fredro Starr said that, he was covering the black side. I’m covering it from another side: the young ‘spic perspective. I’m a minority, and we get treated different too. Throughout my music, I cover things that a lot of other rappers don’t cover.

DX: You’re one of the few New York newer emcees that isn’t harping on being from New York. Do you feel part of the new class of New York, or do you just feel like an artist who happens to be from New York?
NB: [Sighs] For the new class, period, I feel like we’re breaking a stigma in a sense. Joell Ortiz’s The Brick [click to read] was the only thing I’ve heard recently that gave me the feeling I got to get into this shit in the ‘90s. I’m not really limited to a New York thing, ‘cause there’s a lot of emcees comin’ up, like Lupe Fiasco [click to read], even though he’s been out for a bit, he’s relatively new. You’ve got Crooked I [click to view] from the west coast, who’s doing a project with me, Saigon, me, Joell Ortiz [click to read] and Joe Budden [click to read]. We represent the new class. Right now, mainstream, the odds are stacked against us; they’re not trying to support lyricists. So we have our outlets and resources, like HipHopDX, and mixtape deejays, underground crowds. Continued on page 2 »