In the spring of 2019, the world was graced by a song that would take everybody's summer playlist by storm. That song, being rancened by 16 year old rapper Lil Tucka. The New York born star didn't know it at the time, but in years to come he would become the leader of a generation. This is how Lil Tucka influenced an entirely new wave of hip hop. The Queen's bass rapper got an extremely early start to his music career, starting at the age of just 9 years old. He even states his first song was actually a diss track he made about a friend on Xbox. I started rapping because of Xbox. Really? Yeah, like one of my first friends on Xbox, we was just chilling. And we always roast each other. So I was like, nah, I'm about to make a song on you. The song has since been taken down, but Tucka didn't stop there, officially releasing his first song on SoundCloud in 2017 entitled Tokyo. After putting out a handful of tracks Lil Tucka and a group of other New York rappers would create MBM, also known as Moneybag Music. A rap collective that would expand in early 2019, but more on that later. Tucka would continue dropping music, but it wouldn't catch the attention of listeners until he found himself in an online feud with Toronto rapper LB. After various Canadian music outlets, accused Tucka of stealing his sound. Although Tucka was still extremely young, he was well aware of the benefits that came from rap beats, explaining in an interview that he was not going to take this opportunity lightly. And 6 of us comments on our posts, and it's like, you guys are being exposed tonight. I'm like, wow. I'm going to get some clothes, I'm going to get some clothes, nothing to waste the opportunity. He pulls me on the page. He plays LB song, then he plays my song. I remember that. It's perfect. I start going crazy. I pull to preview on my page. I go live. I start adding it. I'm like, these nid is all sound the same. So I'm going to try to sound like them. And then I just keep seeing the views going. Oh, oh, oh, oh. The dispute did exactly what Tucka was hoping it would, stating in that same interview that his follower account nearly doubled after the 6buzz post came out. As he continued to drop hit after hit, he finally got his breakout song in 2019 with Did It Again, which had a music video that was posted on World Stars' YouTube channel, and now sits at over 81 million views. Just three months after he dropped Did It Again, Tucka alongside Lyrical Lemonade would drop ransom, which awarded the young star with his first globally viral track and a spot on the Billboard Hot 100. In the years following the release, he would drop three albums and a handful of singles with features from artists such as Gunna, The Kid La Roy, and 24K Golden, just to name a few. On top of that, ransom would eventually amass over 1 billion streams on Spotify alone, which is an achievement that only 274 songs to date have been able to earn. It was also around this time Tucka would create a soundcloud account with the name First Class Angels, and on June 25th of 2020, the page would go on to upload a 5 minute long composition called Angels on the Way. They would only go on to post 6 songs the year after its creation, but after Lyrical Tucka tweeted out that he was looking for new artists to bring onto the team, it was clear that he had rebranded the collective and they were ready to start taking it seriously. The replies of this tweet were quickly flooded with thousands of soundcloud links from artists all around the world, including some that you may recognize today. The same day Tucka would tweet this out, and EPN titled Rebirth would be uploaded to First Class Angels Soundcloud. The 7 track project included songs from two previous MBM members, Lil Benny and Vel, Tucka's longtime friend and collaborator Proud, and one new face that seemed to stand out among the rest, Baby Santana. In an interview with our generation music, Santana said that Lil Tucka DMed him back in early 2020, after seeing his music video for his song Made It, popped up in his YouTube recommended. The EP dropped just under a month after Baby Santana would link up with Slump 6 for their arguably most popular song the day Anti-Social. Just 8 days after this EP came out, a 12 song album would be posted onto the Angel Soundcloud, and this project is filled, and I mean literally filled with gems. The album features songs from Young Faiso, Jono FTF, Guuaprain, Baby Santana, DCX Shai, Token V-Lone, Producers like ZSkills, Modgins, Pink Rills, The List goes on. All songs combined in the project would have massed nearly 300,000 streams on Soundcloud. Nell is diving to the official roster for the Angels, because I think that's really where Tucka's gift for finding stars really shines. The first one being Young Faiso. Faiso at the time of being featured in these collab projects already kinda had a name for himself, getting his start making Fortnite and other gaming related YouTube videos. He then started making music during the pandemic, which quickly caught the attention listeners, and he even had songs with Sofego that came out almost 3 years ago. Baby Santana also obviously makes it on here as I touched on his and Tucka's relationship earlier. Next we have DevStacks, who's a rapper and producer, whose name has been widely known in the underground for years now, and has even worked with artists such as Summers and Autumn. Following that we have Jono FTF, who is actually one of the people who responded to Tucka's initial tweet about the Angels, where he linked his song Litushit, which features a Baby Santana verse. The song is incredibly underrated, and if you haven't heard yet, I'd definitely suggest Tucking it out. Vell and LilBenny also find their way on the roster, both of which again I kinda touched on earlier, being a part of Tucka's old collective MBM. By far one of the most underrated people on the roster is Jades. He's one of the smaller artists of the Angels, but I would argue that his music is within the top 3 in comparison to the other members. I think he adds a great balance being that most of his biggest songs have been slow and melodic, rather than the rage that we see someone like Faiso or Santana jump on. He just dropped the project 3 months ago called Romanticism, and it's probably on track to being some of my most listened to songs of the year. The most notable song from that being Convenience. Only Bino is one of the more well-known artists in the group working with some bigger names in the industry, like Ennit Money and No Soap, as well as signing a deal with Columbia Records earlier this year. But he's also garnered a lot of success before he even had that with his song Butterfly Doors, now sitting at over a million and a half streams on Spotify. Next we have Lewis, a New York-born rapper mostly known for his drill remixes. I think Lewis gets a lot of unwanted hate from the community. Personally, I don't really listen to a lot of this stuff, but it's not bad. My biggest gripe with his music is what comes with everyone who does remix or covers a lot, and that's making sure it doesn't outshine your own tracks. Obviously, with drills, sampling is a huge component of the culture, but it just doesn't do it for me, when comparing it to other sample drill songs like If You Know You Know by a Be Love or O'Boy by Young Chris. He's still young, and I think with a few mixing tweaks he could be putting out some really good content. Atlanta-based rapper DCX Shy also finds a spot in the roster. He's the smallest set of everyone, and definitely still has a few kinks in his sound that need improvement, but I think he still deserves to be up there with names like Tekken Tana. He dropped a song a few weeks back that's actually performing pretty well right now, now sitting at over 21,000 streams on SoundCloud in the short span that it's been out. Benji Koto is another producer-turned-rapper most notable for his work with yeet in Summers, producing songs like Linkin by Slump 6, Summers Bros. Fallout, and one of yeet's biggest songs Poppin. Last but not least, we have Modgins, who has gotta be one of the youngest producers the industry has ever seen. He's co-producing not only anti-social, but anti-social too when he was just 12 years old. He's sudden an interview that he started making beats on FL when he was just 10, but he used to make beats on his mom's phone when he was only 7 years old. There's not really a lot this kid can't do. He's also recently started rapping, and he's had countless songs blow up on TikTok with tracks like Paper, Lie, and Issues all sitting at over 100k on Spotify. Most of these artists and even more who aren't officially under Tekka's wing catching global success, it's really hard to turn a blind eye to his gift when it comes to Finding Talent. The direct inspiration might not be as apparent in their songs, but it's very clear to see parallels between the new generation and Lil Tekka's rise to fame. Although the Angel SoundCloud hasn't been active since December of last year, the guidance and advice Tekka will provide will stay with all the members for the rest of their careers, and be used to fuel the inspiration for generations to come. As a reminder that yes, while Tekka is a mentor to these artists, he is still only 19 years old and has so much time in his own career to go. But as clear no matter what path he takes, whether he's rapping, producing, or being behind the scenes, Lil Tekka will always find a way to spark inspiration. I hope you guys enjoyed the video. I'm gonna try and put out a new one every week, but there is kind of a lot of effort that goes into making and editing these. So any kind of support on the video is extremely appreciated and it actually helps out a lot more than you think. Also feel free to leave a comment or DM me on Instagram, what some other artists you'd like to see me make a video on, but other than that, I hope you guys have a great day. Peace!