“I wrote I wanted to be a rapper, I fucked with Lil Wayne, I wanted to do music with my life” was what the Houston rapper E Cruz wrote on his career choice list. you know the questionnaire the school gives you around 5th grade. E Cruz had his mind made up since then. now dropping two albums called “eternity” and “endless” which created a little buzz, to now almost dropping his third one which is on the way this month. E Cruz is starting to create a name for himself as the upcoming Houston rapper.
Originally born in Mcallen Texas, E Cruz has been moving around since the age of 8 from city to city. Starting from Mcallen to Florida, to Georgia finally to Houston all by the age of 12. having so many changes in environments E Cruz says “ I feel like moving to all of those places made me more culturally, well more environmentally sound… more diverse.” Seeing so many different sceneries gave E Cruz enough stories to push out. “I thought I was gonna drop an album in the 5th grade.” Continuing his passion for his junior year of high school, Cruz began wanting to dabble in the music production which led to him getting back into recording music heavily and more seriously. this honing in led to his first single “play” which gained 5k streams on Soundcloud. Fast Forward a little later, this Milestone felt good for the moment but after some time, E Cruz saw it was time for a rebrand. All around the time Cruz’s grandpa passed to having to move out of home, Cruz started to take his music even more seriously. Along with getting two jobs to support his music Cruz also did a reboot as he says, “I rewired my whole IG, I just platted everything differently. It’s all about appearance ya know, all about how it looks.” Locking himself in the studio for 6-7 hour sessions. Cruz had nothing but a passion to let flow through his first album “Eternity” which was made in the span of 2 weeks. Following his first release, a month later Cruz dropped his second album “Endless”, and it’s been creating a buzz for him around Houston from featured Production credits of “NoFriends” and more.
Now with a Lil buzz happening in Houston. The journey has not been easy, or not how he’s been wanting it to be. One of his hardest obstacles in getting to this point has been his resources. As he says “not a team bro, but if you had money, you’d have more things done, you’d have more studio time, more results, and better product.” Even though he’s still doing it mostly alone, Cruz has developed an understanding of what needs to be done. “ Gotta stay down for the come-up.”
So far, out of his catalog of music, “Eternity” has been Cruz’s favorite content that he’s made mainly because of the hard times he was going through, it really means something to him. Having the Gift to express his emotions and people being able to connect with his words is said to be his favorite part about being an artist. Getting people to see “I’m just tryna help them out just for those 2-3 minutes that they play my song.” Seeing that his music affects people is one of the main reasons Cruz stays motivated to keep going. Feeling disgusted if stagnated is another reason as well. “I always need to progress or Ima feel like I’m taking a step back.” This is why he took a little break to really hone in and develop some quality work. “I feel like those first two albums were enough there, so now I gotta go up here, and give them something totally different.”
Remaining conscious of the content he puts out and the quality of it, E Cruz lets us in on a few of his flaws or skills that he should work on. One of them was making beats. with E Cruz being inspired by J Cole, he wants to branch away from industry beats and produce a whole album catered to himself with his own unique sound. But Producing and him have to spend more time together as he says “it just kinda hard to put it on the keyboard for you to describe it that way, but if you got the vision, you can do it…. once you perfect yo sound, then you can really dial in and make something special.”
having his father pass away has been his biggest inspiration to rap as he says. “I do this so he can be here with me.” And the journey has only just begun. with a vision of seeing how he wants himself to be seen and remembered, E Cruz sees 5 years down the line signed to Interscope records and hooping in the all-star games with J Cole and having a staple name with high-quality music. Stay tuned into his journey for his outcome.
