“It was the storytelling and poetry that drew me in,” says Nino Nyce about his affinity for rap. The emcee and co-founder of By Any Means Records, is a Brooklyn born, Orlando bread emcee and entrepreneur with Dominican roots. “I speak a lot about my pain in my music ‘cause I’ve gone through so much in life; I’ve lost many people to death, and I can’t help but spit my truth,” said Nyce in an interview with Rap Seminar. Introduced to Hip-hop by a live-in uncle and his older brother, he was inspired by emcees like Tupac, and NAS – lyricists who told stories of the struggle. All too familiar with the struggle himself, Nino Nyce was rapping and telling his own stories by the age of 14. His debut EP titled, Born in a Curse (2018) was published under his previous moniker, Ghost, and is a gritty semi-auto biographical story of an attempted rise out of poverty, and the reality of existing somewhere on the verge of success and failure. His musical soundscapes are ornamented with crisp drums, and ominous atmospheric samples; they are the perfect anthems for those who have survived life’s gut wrenching setbacks and unforeseen tragedies. Nyce’s song, “The Mind of a Soldier,” for example, is a survivor’s saga where he proclaims, “the struggle taught me everything I know,” and establishes how he would risk it all for the benefit of family and community.