Joseph Hamoui, better known as hip-hop producer Thanks Joey, tells Orlando Weekly that he still recalls the day Nikolai Paiva — Brazilian rap artist Niko Is — showed him his first rhyme.
“I think it was called ‘All My Hoes,’ something like that, and I’ve always been really critical, it’s like part of my nature,” Hamoui says. “So I was like, ‘It’s all right, it’s cool, but keep practicing,’ and then we would just hang out and start.”
Searching for his own unique flow early on, Paiva tells OW he would rap-battle in the high-school cafeteria and hallways, saying he was “pretty Eight Mile.” He remembers hanging with Hamoui when he showed Paiva a track that changed things forever: “Blueprint” by Jay-Z…