and a curse . Their bond interferes with their outside relationships , and , as often happens , the fi rst born twin takes on a dominant , almost parental role . Colton Capps sees in his brother the same possibility inherent in Cole ’ s character in the video game . He feels that , like Cole , Infamous will follow a similar path from the mundane to the miraculous .
He ’ s right that Infamous has serious chops . Back in high school in Little Rock , he fl exed his writing and performance muscles with his friend , Zac Overton . In their spare time , they would take turns throwing out verses memorized by their favorite artists , and challenge each other to guess whose material it was . Then , they took it a step further . They began to try to trip each other up by throwing in original material to see if they could fool the other into guessing a big name artist . Infamous still collaborates occasionally with Overton , who goes by the name OV .
Infamous lists several artists as inspirations : Eminem , Bob Dylan , Dr . Dre , Bone Thugs-N-Harmony , Yela Wolf , Rittz , and Kendrick Lamar , but it ’ s the infl uence of Eminem that jumps out at me . What Infamous has assimilated from Eminem is twofold : musically , what Eminem does spectacularly well is a choreographed dance between syllabic accent and metrical accent . Most of the time , hip-hop or rap is in what ’ s called “ common time ,” with four main pulses per bar that can each be subdivided , with the fi rst pulse receiving extra emphasis relative to the others . That emphasis is called the “ downbeat .” Like a parking meter ticking off time , that emphasized downbeat pulse is a regularly repeating , predictable event . Early hip-hop tied the speech rhythm of the lyrics to that downbeat so that the syllabic accent of keywords always landed on the downbeat . But that approach eventually freed up as artists became more rhythmically sophisticated and realized that the interplay of those elements is more interesting and dynamic than their rigid coordination . Eminem fl oats syllabic accent so that it skips around to different parts of the bar , doubling , tripling or even quadrupling rhymes or assonances .
The downbeat acts like a center of gravity , and the speech rhythms now play with their changeable proximity to that center . Infamous does this too , and also raps with more than one persona , like Eminem . Infamous often delivers his choruses like a lazy stoner who somehow manages to stay in time and in tune , while his verses have an aggressive , spontaneous , and rhythmic vitality .
Infamous has been honing his skills for twelve years and , at the age of 27 , he has a catalogue of over 200 songs . Despite his prolifi c tenaciousness , he suffers from regular bouts of anxiety , mitigated by marijuana use ( the stoner persona didn ’ t come from nowhere ), intense writing sessions , and his brother ’ s vigilant and unwavering support . Colton currently raps with his brother under the name Twin , but they are already looking to refi ne their work as a duo now , beginning to explore the theme of Jekyll and Hyde as personas for each of them , which certainly sounds like fertile ground for twins . Capps will graduate from Full Sail University in February 2017 , and if his brother has the infl uence and sway that he hopes to have , Infamous will be emulated by some high school kid somewhere someday , looking to make sense of his surroundings and yearning for something more .
Infamous made a Soundcloud playlist to accompany this article at : soundcloud . com / littlerocksinfa501 / sets
You can see more at : NotoriousBTC . wix . com / InfamousMusic
Infamous ( left ) and Twin ( right ) in the studio , photo by Mariana Mora
Orlando ’ s Art Scene , v . 1.5
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