Rome Streetz
Rome Streetz
Rome Streetz wowed a crowd with the first rhymes he ever spit in public, and the impeccable bars haven’t stopped since that middle school rap battle. He’s amassed over 600,000 monthly Spotify listeners and 13 million plus YouTube streams with songs like “Big Steppa” and “Fire At Ya Idle Mind” with Joey Badass. Albums like 2022’s Kiss The Ring as well as 2021’s Death & The Magician (with DJ Muggs), and Coup De Grace (with Ransom) exhibit how his sharp technical lyricism, relentless flow, and vivid depictions of the grimy New York streets harken to his hometown’s nineties golden era. Those skills will be displayed on Hatton Garden Holdup, an upcoming Daringer-produced album dropping alongside a short film.
Rome’s name is derived from roaming the New York streets for ciphers on the come-up; that winding journey starts in Cambria Heights, Queens, where he grew up with his mother before they moved to Elmont, NY. Rome’s aunt introduced him to rap through the late, great Biggie, whose Ready to Die was one of the first rap albums he purchased (alongside Nas’ Illmatic). Around 10, Rome started writing his first bars. But while honing his craft as an adolescent, Rome says he was also “fucking up in school” and began selling weed. His troublesome ways caused his mother to leave him with family members in London, where he was born before moving to the States as a toddler. At 17, his talent had him on the verge of signing with a London-based record label, but his frustrated Aunt sent the still-wayward youth back to New York before he could ink the deal.
After returning to New York, Rome enrolled in college, only doing a semester before being incarcerated. While he did multiple jail stints over the years, he continued to make music in between those setbacks. Then living in Hollis and Jamaica, Rome found the Queens rap scene too slow, which spurred a 2011 move to Brooklyn. A brief association with Wu-Tang producer Mathematics fizzled out in TK. But he continued uploading music on YouTube and SoundCloud and dropped his debut album I Been Thru Mad Shit in 2016. He also paid his dues at open mics and 42nd Street battles which garnered peer respect and forged vital career connections. Since 2016, armed with a newfound marketing know-how, he’s dropped a whopping 19 projects, including his Noise Kandy series, 2019’s Headcrack with frequent collaborator Futurewave, and 2021’s Razor’s Edge, which dropped the same year he signed with Griselda Records.
He’s since become an underground darling with songs like Noise Kandy 3’s “96 Nauti Windbreaker Shit” and Kiss The Ring’s “In Too Deep,” which meshes street tales, introspection, cipher-worthy boasts, 5-percenter-rhetoric, and motivation that are all delivered with startling precision. On the Conductor Williams-produced song, like the rest of his catalog, no bar or inflection feels out of place. Reaching a new level of notoriety, and going on various international tours, has made him more calculated release-wise. Enter Hatton Garden Holdup, which he says is rife with “dark, greasy” bars over sinister Daringer production. The project features ScHoolboy Q and Cormega, who is on the first track recorded for the album. Rome says that although the album isn’t on Griselda Records, he wanted to take things back to the crew’s heyday when Daringer would craft the bulk of their songs on every album. Along with the album, which was largely created at Daringer’s studio, the two co-star in a suspenseful Calculated Risk short film created by Rome’s manager Coach Bombay.
The role feeds Rome’s budding aspiration for acting, which he’d like to explore more. When he’s not rapping, acting, or developing talent on his Bad Influenyce label, Rome says you can find him at the gym, staying in shape to keep delivering his bars at a high level.
Rome’s name is derived from roaming the New York streets for ciphers on the come-up; that winding journey starts in Cambria Heights, Queens, where he grew up with his mother before they moved to Elmont, NY. Rome’s aunt introduced him to rap through the late, great Biggie, whose Ready to Die was one of the first rap albums he purchased (alongside Nas’ Illmatic). Around 10, Rome started writing his first bars. But while honing his craft as an adolescent, Rome says he was also “fucking up in school” and began selling weed. His troublesome ways caused his mother to leave him with family members in London, where he was born before moving to the States as a toddler. At 17, his talent had him on the verge of signing with a London-based record label, but his frustrated Aunt sent the still-wayward youth back to New York before he could ink the deal.
After returning to New York, Rome enrolled in college, only doing a semester before being incarcerated. While he did multiple jail stints over the years, he continued to make music in between those setbacks. Then living in Hollis and Jamaica, Rome found the Queens rap scene too slow, which spurred a 2011 move to Brooklyn. A brief association with Wu-Tang producer Mathematics fizzled out in TK. But he continued uploading music on YouTube and SoundCloud and dropped his debut album I Been Thru Mad Shit in 2016. He also paid his dues at open mics and 42nd Street battles which garnered peer respect and forged vital career connections. Since 2016, armed with a newfound marketing know-how, he’s dropped a whopping 19 projects, including his Noise Kandy series, 2019’s Headcrack with frequent collaborator Futurewave, and 2021’s Razor’s Edge, which dropped the same year he signed with Griselda Records.
He’s since become an underground darling with songs like Noise Kandy 3’s “96 Nauti Windbreaker Shit” and Kiss The Ring’s “In Too Deep,” which meshes street tales, introspection, cipher-worthy boasts, 5-percenter-rhetoric, and motivation that are all delivered with startling precision. On the Conductor Williams-produced song, like the rest of his catalog, no bar or inflection feels out of place. Reaching a new level of notoriety, and going on various international tours, has made him more calculated release-wise. Enter Hatton Garden Holdup, which he says is rife with “dark, greasy” bars over sinister Daringer production. The project features ScHoolboy Q and Cormega, who is on the first track recorded for the album. Rome says that although the album isn’t on Griselda Records, he wanted to take things back to the crew’s heyday when Daringer would craft the bulk of their songs on every album. Along with the album, which was largely created at Daringer’s studio, the two co-star in a suspenseful Calculated Risk short film created by Rome’s manager Coach Bombay.
The role feeds Rome’s budding aspiration for acting, which he’d like to explore more. When he’s not rapping, acting, or developing talent on his Bad Influenyce label, Rome says you can find him at the gym, staying in shape to keep delivering his bars at a high level.
