Named after the great Lebanese poet, Khalil Bernard Kinsey, aka Diz Gibran, is working hard to make sure people hear the meaning behind his poetic music. His hard work has been met with a great deal of success and recognition within the hip hop community, and if you’re currently unfamiliar with Diz Gibran, Soon You’ll Understand!
Having spent sometime working a corporate job, as well as exploring opportunities in both skateboarding and fashion, this Los Angeles emcee is now focusing wholly on his music.
HipHopAtLunch.com was lucky enough to meet up with Diz while he was in New York to rock the crowd at SOB’s. We used this opportunity to ask the emcee about his past and to get a better glimpse into his personality.
However, before we jump into the interview, take a quick listen to one of Diz’s freestyles so you know exactly what we’re dealing with:
Diz Gibran uses his freestyles to speak about real life experiences, and as the following lines show, this style of rapping works very well:
“The streets treating me like a celebrity now,
Both in fashion and rap they respecting the style…
Walking by faith but still controlling my destiny,
Changing what I can, all else I just let it be…
The streets sing along to my melody,
cats imitate the style, but the talent’s sold separately,
they can never be Diz.”
Now to get a better look into Diz’s life, check out these interviews where we discuss his musical influences, his time at Florida A&M, Twitter, and how Soon You’ll Understand overshot his expectations.
Diz Gibran’s latest mixtape, which he spoke about in the interview, was completely produced by Queens producer Moonshine, and distributed by hip hop clothing company Crooks & Castles. This one producer-one Emcee method is very rarely done in today’s hip hop world, but significantly increases the work’s cohesiveness. Soon You’ll Understand is a great example of what a full work of art can sound like from start to finish.
A standout track on the mixtape is “Truly Yours”
Together with BJ The Chicago Kid, Diz uses this track to reminisce on growing up and falling in love with hip hop. He also manages to work in some clever references to Crooks & Castles:
“I’m on the brink all I need is a push,
on my way to the castles peace to the crooks…
learned there’s no way to be king without the rooks,
and what it took is much more than you see,
In every form, this is me yours truly.”
If your interested in seeing this song performed a capella, check out this video where Diz and BJ The Chicago Kid do just that. Dudes kill the a capella performance! Other stand out tracks on Soon You’ll Understand are Stereo, Morning Light, Just Me, Impossible, and City Lights.
As one of the leaders of the West Coast’s new hip hop movement, Diz Gibran is definitely an artist to keep an eye on.
