Pierce started rapping at a young age but never really thought he would ever make a career out of it. Pierce began writing songs in high school with his best friends and set himself apart as the best rapper within his group of friends at Caravel Academy in Bear, Delaware. Every day, Pierce and his friends would freestyle and write raps over YouTube instrumentals in each other’s cars. Throughout his life, Pierce had a passion for the game football and dreamed of one day making it to the NFL. The desire to make it to the NFL trumped the desire to make it in music as it seemed to be a much more attainable goal. After an outstanding high school career which resulted in a state championship, all-state accolades, and a few division one football scholarship offers, Pierce decided to accept a full scholarship to play football and pursue his undergraduate education at the prestigious Lehigh University. Pierce would go on to have a stellar college football career and would eventually go on to win another championship at the collegiate level. He continued rapping for fun throughout college and would drop short Instagram rap videos which would always garner a positive response from his peers.
During Pierce’s junior year of college, he was contacted by one of his best friends from high school who had been a fan of his Instagram raps, and was well aware of Pierce’s lyrical talents. Pierce’s friend asked if he’d want to pursue music as an option and start their own record label with Pierce being featured as the main artist on the label. He initially agreed but found it hard to find the time to get any actual music recorded with another season of division one football left and the rigors of a prestigious academic University still occupying most of his time. It was also a hard decision for Pierce to commit to the music initially as he went to the prestigious Lehigh University, where most of his classmates had already secured early job offers and it would be abnormal to even think of a career in music.
He initially wondered if his family and friends would ridicule him for choosing to be a rapper and wondered what they would think of his music. However after winning a Patriot League championship in his senior season of football and deciding whether or not he would continue pursuing the NFL, Pierce decide to finally pursue his true passion and stepped into a recording studio for the first time during winter break of his senior year.
Wanting to get some music out while he still had one semester of college left, he began recording freestyles that he had already made over this winter break and would continue making music during the second semester of his senior year. Pierce was getting rides back and forth from Lehigh University to a studio in Chester, Pennsylvania where he began recording his first songs. Pierce would go on to release a debut mixtape in the last few weeks of his senior year to see what would happen.
‘The Cookout’ well exceeded Pierce’s expectations garnering over 7,000 plays on SoundCloud in the first week, with a majority of the songs on the mixtape reaching over 1,000 plays within just an hour of release. Pierce’s core fans kept him motivated to continue making music after receiving positive praise for the cookout. Pierce helped start their own record label the summer after releasing his debut mixtape, and continued to drop singles in the meantime.
Pierce was also offered the opportunity to get his master’s at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom on an American football scholarship and had a tough decision to make. Pierce could either stay home and start attacking his music career by doing shows or leave the country for the first time with his best friends to further his education and continue playing the sport he loved. Pierce chose a happy medium and decided to do both. Pierce did his first paid performance and then took off to the U.K. shortly there afterwards.
While school, football, and a college environment seemed counterproductive to his music career, Pierce saw the opportunity to travel to a foreign country as a great opportunity to meet new friends and expand his fan base overseas. Pierce used what little free time he had to continue releasing singles while in school playing football and is in preparation of his second major project. Pierce has been said to have a flow comparable to Fabulous or Big Sean, punchy delivery comparable to an early career Drake or Eminem, and metaphor filled lyrics that resemble that of Notorious B.I.G and Lil Wayne. This comparison holds weight as all of these rappers have been cited as influences for Pierce.
Pierce in on radio rotation with the tracks, “Visions of a Rockstar” and “Up”.
