Whatzisface

Brian Halladay,a.k.a. Whatzisface has since rhymed himself out of prison, off the East Coast, and into the heart of one of hip hop's most effervescent epicenters, Chicago, where he is collaborating with a collection of acclaimed artists. His troubled childhood in Ridgefield was fraught with insecurity and depression, but hip-hop culture and music helped him persevere. After that short stint in prison for defacing an overpass with graffiti murals, he has returned to society so provide similiar lessons and inspiration to today's listeners. His blunt lyrics and fiery instrumentals illustrate life's uncertainties and how to overcome them.
Halladay said music was what got him by while serving four months of his two-year sentence in 2000. " If I couldn't rap, if I wasn't nice with graffiti, I wouldn't have had respect,"he said. "You're in a place where you're a minority. I used hip hop as a tool to help me meet people and make peace." These were the same techniques he employed during childhoodm moving from state to state with his erratically employed father, overworked mother, and four siblings. "During shool, I was that kid trying to escape reality. Hip hop was that outlet for me," he said. Halladay has written rap music since seventh grade, the same year he moved to Ridgefield.
Born In 1980 in Cleveland, He lived in New Jersey and Massachussets before moving to Connecticut In 1993. Within a couple years, his parents split up, and poverty sunk in. Though, he said, Ridgefielders were accepting, Halladay was embarrassed to be accepting food donations on Thanksgiving. "I was depressed. You're in a place where everybody's got everything and you feel like you've got nothing,"he said. "I never liked life. Music was the only thing that made me feel better."
Halladay's father was not around too often, and his mother worked full time, attended nursing school, and was home a few hours a day. " I didn't have parents the way kids have parents. My friends raised me. I raised myself," he said. Confused and careless, he came across crime, and had persistent run-ins with Ridgefield, Danbury, and New York City police. He was arrested eight times- for fighting, vandalism, and graffiti- before being locked up. As he explainded, the mistakes he made were a reflection of the anger he felt, left alone in a warped world of adolescence without direction. In late September 2000, days before his birthday, a state judge in Danbury said, "You're going to jail today. What do you say to that?"
"Please don't put me away before my birthday," said Halladay, and the udge heeded his plea, offering him a week's postponement until the after he turned 20.
On October 4, Halladay was incarcerated.But once in prison, he turned his anguish into poetry. He had books filled with raps, a mind disturbed by both regret and a newly enflamed passion for positive expression. "That's the turning point," he said. "Going to jail taugt me it was time to make choices about my life."
Early the next year, free from the shackles, Halladay moved to Brooklyn, where he attended Long Island University. Two Years later, without a degree, he decided to dedicate his life to the music. "Hip hop is something outside religion and other structured things that provide a belief system. It gives you confidence, and more importantly, it feels so good to be a part of something you create,"he said.
Halladay left his friends and family and moved to Chicago, hip hop's newest hot spt, boasting big-selling newcomers Kanye West and Twista. "I wanted to make in the rap game," he said. Within a year he went from unkown Easterner to inspirational independent artist. With more than 60 songs and a dozen performances under his belt, Whatzisface is working on recording a Chicago mix-tape 1900-mixxxtape- with his "partner in rhyme," Reach and Dj Syzygy.
Halladay said "It's our time. Everybody who's really listening will say that now."
But he doesn't just want people to listen.
"Im not trying to talk to people. I'm trying to relate to people. It doesn't if you're rich, poor, black, white- a struggle is a struggle, stress is stress. Knowing others understand that makes you feel better," he said. "This is not about making money and being successful in the sense of glorifying Whatzisface. It's about completing this task of mine, this dream of mine. I'm going to do that if it takes my whole life." - The Ridgefield Magazine