A decade ago 15 year old rapper Yung Ro, out of St.Louis Mo. hit #3 on the Billboard Hip Hop Singles chart. Today he is the CEO of Black Pearl Entertainment/BPENT, his own independent label located in downtown St. Louis. The company consists of a tattoo and recording studio, both of which has been mastered by Yung Ro. Currently working on his forthcoming mixtape project, “The Wolf of Olive Street”, Yung Ro has dropped the video single “Like No Other”, taken from the mixtape.
The video was filmed by Craig Thomas (Film Legends) and the track is a Mook Beast production, who happens to be Yung Ro’s younger brother. The video illustrates the strong family ties that he shares with his family. His youngest brother, Jiro, is an artist signed to the label and currently working on his solo project. Yung Ro is a rapper’s rapper who, though not a tycoon just yet, has learned to exploit the current economics of rap that will keep him routinely stepping into a booth.
Yung Ro finds himself in a unique and chaotic time for the music business. The artists that came before him put their songs out, hoping to parlay any gathering momentum into what was then the normal motions of major label music: singles, videos, CDs wrapped in plastic, etc.
In the meantime, rappers – particularly Gucci, who had no presence in the mainstream, or later someone like Kevin Gates, who made a living through features and by playing shows to choice fans who were happy to support music they loved. Success was there for rappers who were good and savvy enough, but the process was inefficient.
At the moment, streaming has smoothed out some of those inefficiencies. Rappers may still need to perform multiple club dates per week to get anything more than cents on the dollar, but now more than ever, the reward for prolificy is direct and immediate.
So an artist with an executive mind such Yung Ro, may just be getting ready to move into the stratosphere of the independent game. However all these calculations amount to zero if there is no worthy merchandise to push your ambition with. Hence “Like No Other”, which describes Yung Ro on his grind – as the man says: “Everybody wants to be a boss, but they don’t wanna work.”
From smooth flow patterns to sharp, well thought out rhymes, Yung Ro has a distinguished voice, and an inspiring demeanor. He weaves his way through the banging, bass-driven beat with ease and finesse. No doubt, he’s “grinding hard like no other!”
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