AARON DONTEZ YATES: Kansas CITY KING.
Aaron Dontez Yates (born November 8, 1971), better known by his stage name Tech N9ne (pronounced "Tech Nine"), is an American rapper from Kansas City, Missouri. In 1999, Yates and Travis O'Guin founded the record label Strange Music. Throughout his career, Yates has sold over one million albums and has had his music featured in film, television, and video games. In 2009, he won the Left Field Woodie award at the mtvU Woodie Awards.
His stage name originated from the TEC-9 semi-automatic handgun, given to him by rapper Black Walt due to his fast rhyming Chopper style.Yates later applied a deeper meaning to the name, claiming that it stands for the complete technique of rhyme, with 'tech' meaning technique and 'nine' representing the number of completion.
Tech N9NE, one of the most successful independent rap artist, joined the Radio Boys (Kev Lawrence, C.Truth) to explain how he did it all. The proud Missouri native was passionate in speaking on: his hometown of Kansas City, accomplishing a million albums sold without a major behind him, the struggles of being independent, pressure from his family to quit, connections with St Louis star Nelly and the labels that wanted him to imitate his sound, winning MTV awards without having a video in rotation on the channel, expressing real emotions on records (tears, confusion, happiness, sadness, etc), signing deals with Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Quincy Jones that didn’t work, the difficulty of getting on TV with red spiked hair and a tribal painted face, obtaining a fan base that has him in demand without having to pay a DJ, selling out 6,000 seat capacity venues that major marketed artist cannot sell out, his upcoming Canadian tour and continuing to build an audience from the ground up. Give your ears some entertainment.