GemStones

“It's hard being a Lupe fan, go to Harvard to be a Lupe stan.”This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia.The original article was at Demarco Castle. The list of authors can be seen in the page history.Category

## **GemStones**

### **Born**

Demarco Lamonte Castle
June 20, 1981 (age 42)

### **Other names**

Gemini
Gemstones

### **Occupations**

* Singer
* rapper
* songwriter

## **Musical career**

### **Labels**

* Malaco
* Xist
* Bahari
* 1st & 15th

**Demarco Lamonte Castle** (born June 20, 1981), formerly known as **Gemini** and **Gemstones**, is an American singer and rapper from Chicago. He began his hip hop career under the stage name Gemini, signed to Lupe Fiasco's imprint label, 1st & 15th Entertainment, where he was set to release his debut studio album, *Troubles of the World*.

## Background

Castle graduated from Bowen High School as part of the visual and performing and arts program. Afterwards, he met the then-unknown rappers Fiasco and Stack Bundles. Fiasco was impressed with Castle's skillset and, in 2001, signed Castle to 1st & 15th Entertainment. Castle recalled to *Rapzilla*, "I ran into Lupe through this guy I knew named Eric. Eric was a rapper. We booked a recording session, and when I got there he was like 'yo my friend's gonna feature on the record.' So we waited on this dude to come for hours, and when he finally showed up this nerdy dude came through the door, and I'm like 'yo this is who we've been waiting on this whole time?' So anyway, when he started spittin', he was really really good. Then he told me all the things he had his hands into and he was signed to Arista Records, and about to drop an album. He told me how he was working with Jay-Z, and he was then where I wanted to be and where I was trying to go. So we exchanged math."

Castle was featured on Fiasco's first two studio albums, *Food & Liquor* (2006) and *The Cool* (2007), across seven tracks. In 2007, he changed his stage name from Gemini to GemStones due to legal technicalities. After the death of his best friend, Reginald "St. Nic" Coleman, Castle delayed the release of *Troubles of the World* and stepped away from music. During this period, he focused his life on Christianity, later announcing that he planned to leave hip hop in favor of pursuing gospel music. He first "broke the news to" CEO of 1st & 15th, Chilly. He continued, "He was hurt. Lupe heard about it, and we had a conversation on the phone but we didn't really speak specifics. We talked about what needed to be taken care of so we can both move on. But I mainly spoke in depth with Chilly about the situation. Chilly told me that 'something understood shouldn't have to be explained.' [...] I still love Lupe, Chilly, Sarah Green and the whole team. It's just time for me to grow and move on."

In a 2014 interview with *HipHopDX*, he said, "I would love to work with Lupe again. I know he would love to work with me. That's my brother, man. We rarely even talked about music. We did music because that's the profession we were in, but we are brothers. Lupe would pick me up every day. We would ride around, go eat, talk about UFOs, the government, how the world would be in the future and the things people were afraid to speak on record. It was like, 'Where do you think the world is going to be in 20 years?' We spoke on that. He is Muslim and I'm Christian, but we didn't look down on each other. It was all love. We spoke on religion. We would be like, 'Do you think you're serving the right God?' 'How do you know the God you're serving is the right one, Stones?' Our conversations and chemistry was off the chain. Time heals all wounds. We'll be working together soon."

## Discography

### Mixtapes

* Label: Self-released
 *Fahrenheit 1/15 Part VI: The Testimony of GemStones* | * Released: 2008
* Label: Self-released
* Format: DL

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "GemStones Interview: From a Gemini to a GemStone – On the Road to Glory: His Story". *Rapzilla*. September 17, 2010.
2. ↑ Martinez, Paul (February 3, 2014). "GemStones Details Lupe Fiasco Relationship & Releasing "After" Mixtape". *HipHopDX*.