August Alsina Puns

August Alsina has had a very successful music career, but his way to the top wasn’t as easy as you might think. Born in New Orleans in 1992, August spent his early years navigating a high-crime city and the difficulties that came with having parents in the drug game–but the way he describes it, he and his siblings didn’t realize how much they didn’t have, because of the excess of love they had for each other.

The talent for singing was always there, but it wasn’t until August posted his first cover video on YouTube in 2007 that his love of music started to become a career.

The buzz he earned from that video (as well as a number of other popular covers) gave him an important foothold in the music industry, as did his first untitled mixtape (which was also made up entirely of cover songs). In 2013, his career took another leap after he landed a Trinidad James feature on the single “I Love It.” Its release brought more national attention to the New Orleans singer and started to catch the eyes of record labels.

This was also the moment I first caught on to August Alsina’s music. I became a fan instantly when I heard his EP Downtown: Life Under the Gun. Out of its eight tracks, the two that really stand out to me are “Survival of the Fittest” and “Don’t Forget About Me.”

In the first, August describes how tough it was for him growing up in New Orleans, and the conditions that he faced in his day-to-day life. He also speaks of how he had to deal drugs to make ends meet, and how eventually this led to him getting caught up with the wrong crowd.

“Don’t Forget About Me” hits even deeper for me as August talks about how his brother was murdered in 2011 due to gun violence, and how he knew the lifestyle he was living would only lead to prison or death. In order to make it out, he had to look in the mirror and decide to lead a better life. This song goes into detail about how his talent started blossoming, and he knew he would have to take it to another level, even if this required him to leave some of the people behind who he came up with.

August’s 2014 debut studio album Testimony*,* was his first project to gain national attention. “Testify” is one of my favorite tracks from this project. In it, Alsina digs even deeper into his life experiences and how they shaped him, detailing his unstable home, his years-long drug dealing, and his experiences prostituting. On first listen, it might be surprising to compare those difficult experiences to the la