Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Antonio “INNO” Combs has been dreaming and working his way into the world of entertainment and music for as long as he can remember. He spent most of his childhood attending talent and showcase events, while aiming to become a famous actor. At the age of 13 he moved to Orlando, Florida, where he attended Teague Middle School and found a passion for music. A cancer survivor, Inno Combs and a gang of friends started a group of rappers in High school, called “Federal Business.” He has since achieved a variety of milestones on his quest to achieve his artistic goals. Among them are making appearances in Major Motion pictures “Never Back Down” & “Ace Ventura 3”. Performing for Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation, as well as a whole list of other achievements.
More interesting for us though, is the release of his latest single “Lights, Cameras, Action”. A truth recognized by just about everyone is that the term “classic” is criminally over-used in Hip Hop. And yet, the inevitable thought that most often springs when listening to this track is whether or not the new body of work lives up to the old prime-time hip-hop releases.
Undeniably, the pull of the music connoisseur is to hear something otherworldly, an immaculate song that not only sends reverberations down their own spines, but across the Internet. But the desire to satiate these expectations on the artist’s end too often leads to contrived blunders that accomplish the opposite effect.
This doesn’t happen to Inno Combs, as his hypersonic rhymes permeated by a cocky demeanor pierces the production on “Lights, Cameras, Action”. He has an untouched energy, charisma and sense of humor that goes a long way in the genre when it’s done well. From the opening bars it is evident that Inno Combs has an impeccable bouncy flow capable of going double time as well as knowing when to slow it down to let the beat do the talking.
Quite simply, the guy has a great voice for hip-hop, expressive yet capable of subtlety, able to get fiery and energetic and yet play things more laid back, and his flow is definitely one of his strongest assets. And Inno Combs seems set on proving it, kicking into double time, showing how dexterous a rapper he is on “Lights, Cameras, Action”.
More importantly, he does it all while being a strong technical lyricist who has the charisma to make it all look easy. He doesn’t take shortcuts with forced rhymes or repeating unnecessary phrases or stuttering to fill up space – sure, some of the time his material may be a little overstated and hyperbolic as that of his peers, but his technical craftsmanship is so much better!
