This past Saturday, the self-proclaimed first openly gay battle rapper, FlyKingi is dropping a new single called “SuperFLY” from his upcoming project The King in I.
After making appearances on the Bad Girls Club, Power 106 and with an upcoming appearance on MTV for a Nick Cannon show, FlyKingi feels the timing is perfect for his new single “SuperFLY”. While he’s found his way to TV on several occasions with ease, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for FlyKingi as he has pursued his dreams of finding success in Hip-Hop while breaking barriers.
“I started rapping in High School in the 90’s, I used to rap in cyphers back when that was popular. After high school I joined a rap group, but that didn’t pan out, so I did my own thing for my first solo mixtape which was hosted by I Love New York from Vh1 fame. Now just a few years later I’m about to release another project called the King and I. I’ve always been very inspired by Hip-Hop, from the industry, to battle rapping, I love the culture, so it’s dope to get the response that I’ve gotten lately with my music by building up my battling skills,” FlyKingi said.
FlyKingi rose to prominence on the LA battle rap scene via Grind Time’s Rap Battle League, but it was just a few years later that FlyKingi was battling rapper after rapper on the LA Battle Groundz rap circuit.
Taking on opponents in the face of what he calls “blatant homophobia,” FlyKingi impressed the judges and built a name for himself on L.A.’s battle rap scene with clever lyrics and a good sense of humor that eventually got him booked across the map.
“I always was a fan of battle rap from Smack to King of the Dot. After watching videos on YouTube and going to battles for a year or so to get the hang of things, I decided to try it out,” FlyKingi explained. “Then after I joined a few battles I was getting booked in San Francisco and LA and I got my chance to battle on LA Battle Groundz,” he said.
“I was becoming the first LGBT battle rapper, that was openly gay. Others aren’t out yet and I began to get a lot of opportunities because I was out. So it just became this thing to where recently I did a battle with eHart and it was featured on World Star Hip-Hop. It was the first time that an openly gay rapper had their battle featured on World star,” FlyKingiexplained.
While he also knows that he has a lot of work ahead to reach his goals, it’s clear breaking barriers is what FlyKingi does, so expect to hear more from him in the coming weeks and months as he appears on MTV and on the battle rap circuit.