Embis

**Michael Blake Sinclair** (born January 26th, 2003), known professionally as **Embis**, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. In 2016, he founded the independent record label Roll With It Records. After wiping his early work off the web in July 2021, he started fresh with the release of The Showcase, a colab mixtape with producer Lezter. A year later on July 10th, 2022, he released another collaborative project entitled Mindful with Syndrome, which was also his professional debut.

After meeting CusaX in May in 2021, Embis became deeply involved in the creation of many Yeo Records projects. All the while, Embis and CusaX were planning their official collaboration album. The album was in the planning stages ever since they met, but was mostly conceptualized by June 2022. Partners In Crime finally released on May 26th, 2023, making it Embis' third official colab release.

Embis' debut solo studio album has still yet to be released but it is expected towards the end of 2023. No Mind is the lead single for the upcoming project.

## Early life

Sinclair was born on January 26th, 2003 to Susan Denise Del Bello Sinclair and Steven Ray Sinclair in Galveston, Texas. His grandmother nicknamed him "bogie" (standing for "Born on Galveston island"). His parents were lower class, often moving around constantly to different apartment buildings. He spent most of his early childhood at Baystone Apartments in Webster, Texas. It was there he began to gain an interest in technology and computers, opening the gateway for the discovery of music production later in life. His father often played rock music around the household, but Sinclair's aunt was responsible for introducing him to hip-hop. She often played Eminem, Linkin Park and Lil Wayne around him at a very young age.

### 2010 incident

Shortly before his parents divorced in 2010, Sinclair was sexually assaulted by an acquaintance who lived in a nearby apartment. Upon alerting his parents, the police ultimately became involved. Detective David Nettles of the Webster Police department was in charge of the case. Nettles chose to ignore claims supported by Sinclair's and his fathers testimony. He became convinced that Sinclair's father molested him on multiple occasions. Despite denial by both Sinclair, his father and mother, Nettles was determined to find supporting evidence for his beliefs. Sinclair was often pulled away from family in order to be questioned by the police. Under order of Webster PD, an anal examination was conducted to find evidence of abuse, however, nothing was found. The case was officially dropped later that year. Sinclair's father was personally defamed by these allegations. Sinclair and his family continue to reminisce upon the period with immense anger and disappointment by how they were treated by Nettles and Webster PD.

## Career

### Before Roll With It Records (May 2016 - February 2017)

In 2016, Sinclair and his father moved to another apartment complex in Houston. It was at this time Sinclair began first creating music. He was initially inspired by Smule's app for mobile devices called AutoRap, which would take non-rhythmic voice memos and sync them to rap instrumentals. He came up with the name "Embis". It was inspired by Eminem's name, as it's a respelling of his initials (MBS). He posted several of these remixes under that name. Shortly after, Sinclair became a fan of the rapper Desiigner with the release of the hit singles Panda and Tiimmy Turner, which influenced his style. That same year, he founded Roll With It Records along with his mother. At that time, this was simply in jest as nor Sinclair or his mother had put effort into writing or recording.

### Early songs and mixtapes (March 2017 - January 2018)

In 2017, when Sinclair was in the 8th grade, he wrote his first rap with heavy influence from trap rappers of the era, such as Desiigner. He began to create songs and share them with his friends at school, which made him very popular. He also wrote diss tracks on classmates and made several songs featuring his mother. In late 2017, he released an EP entitled The Raw Rejects, a compilation of all the songs he had made up that point. It was removed from sale shortly after in favor of his first mixtape Prototype, which released in February 2018. It included all songs from The Raw Rejects and 5 more additional more recent tracks.

### A Whole New Art era (January 2018 - January 2019)

Near the middle of 2018, Sinclair moved with his father into a trailer park in Alvin, Texas. It was around this time Sinclair rediscovered his love for Eminem's music. He met John\_Banana and the two bonded over fan albums, recreating scrapped Eminem releases based on research with leaked songs, art and editing. He was creating another mixtape during this time, called A Whole New Art. It was completed and released in early 2019. The influence of modern hip-hop took a backseat, and Sinclair was utilizing flow patterns and production that resembled Eminem's later work. Due to this, the tape was pulled in late 2019, along with Prototype. It was in the latter half of 2019 that Sinclair had formulized his next musical approach and style for the years to come.

### COVID-19 and early work (March 2020 - May 2020)

In 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sinclair was isolated and began to grow deeply depressed. He befriended many people over the chat service Discord. Despite the release of an off-label comedy mixtape, there were no serious musical endeavors from Embis in the year of 2020. However, due to quarantine, Embis was able to practice and develop his style for the releases to come.

### Yeo merge era and The Showcase (May 2021 - July 2021)

In May 2021, Embis befriended fellow artist CusaX. Through him, he met ChampyG, 44RON and M.C.D. who were signed to CusaX's label, Yeo Records. Roll With It Records then effectively merged with Yeo, however, both labels still stand as independent entities, though tightly affiliated. With a freshly cleaned slate, he dropped The Showcase in July of 2021, using beats all from the producer Lezter.

### The Showcase: Deluxe (April 2022)

In April 2022, Embis dropped a deluxe edition of his mixtape The Showcase. It featured 5 additional tracks, *showcasing* his improved delivery and song writing during the period, but over the same style of production as the original. Embis then took a break from dropping music to focus on his next release.

### Mindful era (July 2022)

On July 6th 2022, Embis announced that he would be releasing Mindful, a colab album produced by Syndrome on July 9th. Due to complications, it wasn't released until July 10th. The album featured a consistent and cohesive boom bap theme. It's a conscience hip-hop record, addressing topics such as gun control, racism, religion and depression. Embis considers it his lyrical magnum opus, but that sonic appeal was sacrificed as a result, and that his next project will focus on making more catchy songs.

### Executive and musical production (January 2022-present)

After becoming affiliated with Yeo Records, Embis became very involved with the projects released through the label, starting in early 2022. He first executively produced and engineered ChampyG's reflection in January, of which he was featured on. He also co-produced the intro track along with CusaX. In March, he embarked on yet another large project by CusaX, his second album Murder Scene. CusaX wanted Murder Scene to improve on his previous album's weaknesses. Embis executively produced, engineered and even made several vocal appearances on the record, alongside his feature on the track Never Forget. He also co-produced the final track, I Do which inspired CusaX's next album Talking To The Dark which released Halloween 2022. Embis executively produced this album as well as having two features and a production credit on the song Interrogation. In the months prior, he organized a remastered version of Matthew The Artist's Narcissist which included a complete sonic overhaul of the record, a revised tracklist and even additional bonus tracks. Embis produced the bonus track Parables, a reproduction of the remix of Cordae's song of the same name. He also has executive producer credit on Matthew The Artist's Ego Death and 44RON's Catalyst 4 Glory. Embis was deeply involved in the creation of both of these records.

### Partners In Crime era

An overarching, multi-album storyline, beginning with the release of Violent Poetry, spanned across multiple CusaX releases. It documented a fictional caricature of CusaX and Embis as criminals, who led lives of violence and murder, using their rap skills as weapons against their victims. It was revealed to the public in the outro of Murder Scene's Expanded Edition to seamlessly transition into the LP which would be the official conclusion to the story, dubbed the MSU. Alas, on May 26th 2023, Partners In Crime was released.

## Discography

### Collaborative albums

* Label: Roll With It Records
 Partners In Crime
(with CusaX)
* Label: Roll With It/Yeo Records
* Format: Streaming, digital download

#### Mixtapes

* Label: Roll With It Records
 ~~A Whole New Art~~ | * Released: January 19, 2019 *(removed from sale)*
* Label: Roll With It Records
 The Showcase | * Released: July 15th, 2021
* Label: Roll With It Records
 The Showcase (Deluxe)
* Label: Roll With It Records
* Format: Digital download

### Singles

#### As lead artist

* Label: Roll With It Records
 War
(with CusaX)
* Label: Roll With It Records
 Lonely Road
(with Matthew The Artist)
* Label: Yeo Records
* Format: Streaming, digital download

#### As featured artist

* Label: Yeo Records
 End Of Days (CusaX featuring 44RON, Embis, Angelicly,
ChampyG & Matthew The Artist)
* Label: Yeo Records
 The Omen (Remix) (Cersia featuring CusaX and Embis) | * Released: November 6th, 2022
* Label: Self-released
* Format: Streaming, digital download