photo by Armand Hayes
Ramon Diaz de Leon was 9 years old when he met Marshall Mathers.
Except, that's not how Mathers introduced himself: "Hi, my name is… What? My name is… Who? My name is Slim Shady."
Diaz de Leon listened closely, but he couldn't see Mathers' bleached blond hair or his pale white skin. He could only hear the Detroit rapper's voice through his parents' radio, which picked up a frequency it had rarely if ever held before.
This is how Diaz de Leon met Eminem, how a 9-year-old boy born in Monterrey, Mexico, became acquainted with rap music, or “the devil’s music,” as he says his parents used to call it.
But what matters more is what Diaz de Leon has done for the 11 years since, how he and rap music have moved beyond acquaintances.
From age 9 on, Diaz de Leon has learned the art of hip-hop. In the meantime, his father, Jose, helped open and now co-owns the Mexican restaurant chain D'Leon's. Ramon graduated from Lincoln North Star High School, and enrolled at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as an advertising student, intending to help out with his parents’ business.
Now, with "six or seven projects" in his discography, 21-year-old Diaz de Leon would like to introduce himself to the rest of the world as a hip-hop artist, though he's also been going by a different name for a few years. Ramon Brown — or simply, Brown — hopes to grow his fanbase with the album And I'm… released by Original 5 Productions.
ALBUM STREAM
At the end of the record, in "The Now," he says, "Lincoln, put your trust in me, and I swear I'll take it to the top." And perhaps it's Brown's Lincoln-centric songs you've already heard, even if you didn't know it.
In August 2011, he helped produce "Big Red Anthem" for a Friday night Husker football rally. The song would later be played throughout the 2011-2012 season.
In September 2012, Brown followed up the anthem with "This is Nebraska," which continues to donate song download proceeds to the TeamMates Mentoring Program. After hundreds of thousands of YouTube plays on his videos, Brown released Academic Probation in October 2012.
"With this last project, we’ve seen an increase in people that support us, listen to us," Brown says of Academic Probation. "I love it. I love that people are actually believing in us, following us. But I think we need more."
Note the use of the word "we." Longtime collaborator Heavy Z produced three tracks on And I'm… and others including guitarist Ben Havok and rapper Tommy J make appearances. Brown says conversations with his friend and the record's engineer, TJ Saddler, would serve as a cure for writer's block.
