words Sven Carlsson / images Press

These days, up-and-coming artists can generate a hype more widespread than ever, what with the internet and all. This hype can also get more annoying than ever, with scattered material appearing and re-appearing endlessly: remixes, freestyles and mixtapes that initially only prove that the said artist can spend more time than is healthy inside a mic booth. Fashawn, an 80′s baby from Fresno, California, had the music industry and its marketing channels going mad before most understood the fundamental fact: that his music deserved it.

Listeners are best off acquianting themselves with Santiago ‘Fashawn’ Leyva through his music.

‘Father’ is taken from his 2009 debut album, the cinematic and cohesive Boy Meets World, whose script was conceived throughout ‘Shawn’s childhood.

”[The song] is not about my father or fatherhood. It’s my open letter to God, whether it be Allah Buddah, or whoever your call onto,” Fashawn explains ahead of his gig in Montreal. Awaiting his soundcheck, Fashawn is polite and composed, taking his time to go through the meaning of some of the songs from Boy Meets World.

”The first verse [on ’Father] is talking to the earth, to the world, and the second to… Father sky, you know. The hook says ’if the world should end tomorrow / it’ll be by man’s own mind / Lord have mercy on us / used to be our favourite line.’ I love that song… I feel like me and God are cool now [laughs].”

As on his album, Fashawn is articulate and weighs his word carefully: it’s no secret that he has long harboured a passion for literature and reading.

“To be a writer, you have to have a respect for literature and books,” he says. “Whether I’m in the studio reading my lyrics or on a tour bus reading a book, it’s part of my every day life.”

Boy Meets World is the journey of a kid, the salad day chronicles of an observant boy with a knack for out-rapping opponents, exploring the ‘Ecology’ of his environment and imagining a world greather than “the block in Fresno, CA.” The album is entirely produced by Exile, a household name in hip-hop since burst onto the scene with LA MC Blu, with whom Fashawn has collaborated and toured extensively, producing a wealth of material that has spewed over the internet during the past year.

This flood of pre-album mixtapes and freestyles proved beyond doubt that Fashawn could rap, it did not display the other component to ‘Shawn’s music to the same extent: the desire not only to rap circles around his opponents, but to make conceptual albums about particular phases of his life.

Was there a particular song or artist that made you want to rap?

”There was this verse by Kurupt on a song called Trilogy off his album Streetz Iz a Mutha. That’s a verse that I would just sit by the speaker and rewind over and over,” Fashawn recalls and hints at his age. Sreetz Iz a Mutha was released in 1999. ”That verse made just want to rap rap,rap! Spit acid, you know what I mean? But artists like Tupac and Nas made me want to create albums and tell my story, not just rap.”

The introspective ‘Why’ from Boy Meets World exemplifies Fashawn’s artistry; fluently expressed thoughts wrapped in maticulous lyricism.

”I was sleeping on my mother’s floor when I wrote that. I had just been kicked out of my uncle’s house, I had just turned 20, and life was just crazy at the time. Why, you know what I mean? What’s going on? Exile sent me that beat, and the song became the canvas for everything I was going through at that time.”

Since writing Why in 2008, Fashawn has not exactly got any closer to settling down than he was then. When not on stage, Fash is writing “anywhere,” recording impressions that continues to materialize in new music.

”I’ve been on touring non-stop since about February 2009,” says the self-proclaimed Samsonite Man. “I’d never been outside of California before then. To tell the truth, I hadn’t hopped on a plane until 2009. And I haven’t been home since.”

Did your reading as a child help you envision a world outside of Fresno even before you had left?

”It helped a lot because when you read a piece of literature, it paints pictures in your mind. I always knew that the world was a lot bigger than the block in Fresno, California because reading widened my imagination. The reading and the support system I had, everybody telling me to follow my dreams and stay out of trouble, also helped bring me to where I am today.”

And the 22-year old Fresno-native likes to keep good company, it seems. Shawn has linked with anyone from Fresno’s own Planet Asia to Evidence to Ghostface Killah. Heavyweight producer The Alchemist produced all of The Antidote, a net-release from 2009.

Aside from keeping his buzz omnipresent through various free internet releases, Fashawn is also gearing up for the sequel toBoy Meets World; The Ecology. The album, whose production will be overseen by DJ Khalil to grant it the same integrity that Exile provided on Boy Meets World, will see a slightly older and more traveled Fashawn dissect the impressions he has been soaking up while on the road.

”[The album will be about] the ecology of the world that I’ve seen outside of my neighbourhood, and I can’t wait to go in the studio once I get off tour. Right now, I’m on the road soaking up the inspiration and my pen will not stay still,” says ’Shawn who really writes his rhymes on a Blackberry, not with a pen.

Until coming off the road, though, Fashawn will have to make do with a weekend in Fresno every now and then. Some of his returns have been more than brief restbites, though, the best coming when the boy who had now met the world broguth the world back to Fresno for the album launch.

”I hadn’t performed in Fresno for a year, and at that time I was just going around town doing shows here and there. But at the release party, we filled up the whole Tower Theater,” says Fashawn, and the mere excitement in his voice reveals that the nigh was something special.

”Talib Kweli performed with me, I was number 5 of iTunes in some great company, my mom was on stage when I was performing. It was beautiful.”

Catch the footage from the memorable night on the Boy Meets World DVD, out this week. In case you don’t, you shouldn’t worry. Fashawn will find plenty more ways to get himself heard in 2010.

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Fashawn’s Website

Buy Boy Meets World