Persia Grai

Persia is an American rapper, singer & song-writer born in Detroit, Michigan. He is multi racial, being of black, Sicilian, Irish, Puerto Rican, Native American and Spanish descent. The son of a singer and songwriter, raised listening to everything from Cher & Aerosmith to Bone-Thugs, Jay Z & Eminem, he was bound to have some involvement in music. He explains “My mom listened to Prince and MJ, My dad listened to Aerosmith & Cher, and my sister listened to all rap so I really fell in love with music because of how exposed to it I was”.
It wasn’t until Persia was in his early teens that his life took a twist of fate that re-directed him towards music. He recalls a specific event "One day my uncle who had always been one of my father figures was about to leave my house and for some reason who decided to ask me what I wanted to do with my life. He said “What you wanna be when you grow up mike? You wanna be a rapper?” and I said “Nah man….I want to be a wrestler (laughs).” His uncle died months later, and to deal with the death he turned to writing music. He explains “I wasn’t really too familiar with the music process, I didn’t know anything about the business and I wasn’t really interested in learning at that point, I was just writing to get my feelings out.” This was really the beginning of his development as an artist.
Persia got together with J Flow, His Father, Yung City & Devon Spurlock to create “Jaw Dropping ENT.” He says “We named it that because we were all jaw dropping. We were very young but we were very developed in our styles so people could never guess our ages by our music.”They began building their own studio from scratch and everything seemed like it was headed in a good direction.
This feeling was short-lived though. Shortly after the studio was finished being built, Devon died in a tragic car accident at the hands of a drunk driver. Persia and the other members all wrote individual memorial songs, bringing local fame to them for giving the community something to grieve with. Despite the devastation spread wide throughout the community, Devon, Erica, Stephanie and Jordan (the others who passed in the crash) began to leave blessing for the members from that point on.
Persia’s song ended up on FOX NEWS as they covered part of the story. The entire group put on their own show in memory of the lost teens, having 100+ people in attendance. The show was covered by FOX News yet again, being the first time Persia had seen himself on TV. They all began doing shows from this point on and developing themselves at a rapid speed and quickly obtained a buzz from all parts of the Metro Detroit area. At this point, Persia had developed his own style and his own voice, launching him into his own artist development. He began writing music at an intense rate, having 3 full 5 section notebooks full by the end of 2010, amounting to about 200 songs, verses and hooks. Persia learned to express himself fully and creatively through songwriting, often writing about past and present experiences, lost love and real life situations though his lyricism in superficial songs was kept up to par. Continuing to grow as an artist, Persia built his own studio, learning the trades and filling up a couple more notebooks. He began to try to develop himself as a “Made Man”, paying for his own photo shoots, videos, and mixing, mastering & all other services to push himself.
Persia is currently working on getting his first album done and writing music for the second one. Though Detroit doesn’t have much going for it in the Music Business, Persia anticipates the future he know is coming and believes he is ready for what’s to come. “I have a lot of people around me that tell me they know where I’m going and they believe in me. There are also a lot of people telling me the odds and that I might as well give it up, but if I ever lose anything, it won’t be because I gave up on myself. Ever. Promise.”