John Flores aka Sertified is an artist bred right in the heart of Austin, TX. Sertified started rapping around the age of 5 and was taught by his mother, who was an aspiring rapper herself. His father was also heavy into the Hip-Hop culture and represented his art through graffiti. His early influences were down south pioneers under the No Limit Records umbrella, led by the one and only Master P, who showed the young Sertified how to cook up your own product and ultimately deliver it to the consumer. Originally, music was nothing more than a hobby to pass time until an incident occurred where Sertified was facing state jail time in 2005. Learning from that experience, he took his craft more seriously with a group of childhood friends who shared the same passion of music. The collectives are known as Die Slo and quickly established themselves in the local scene. Sertified is the Die Slo General, while the producer Chamothy The Great supplies the sounds.
Sertified as a solo artist...
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John Flores aka Sertified is an artist bred right in the heart of Austin, TX. Sertified started rapping around the age of 5 and was taught by his mother, who was an aspiring rapper herself. His father was also heavy into the Hip-Hop culture and represented his art through graffiti. His early influences were down south pioneers under the No Limit Records umbrella, led by the one and only Master P, who showed the young Sertified how to cook up your own product and ultimately deliver it to the consumer. Originally, music was nothing more than a hobby to pass time until an incident occurred where Sertified was facing state jail time in 2005. Learning from that experience, he took his craft more seriously with a group of childhood friends who shared the same passion of music. The collectives are known as Die Slo and quickly established themselves in the local scene. Sertified is the Die Slo General, while the producer Chamothy The Great supplies the sounds.
Sertified as a solo artist stands out right away with his unorthodox delivery and diversified styles. His stage presence is filled with energy and unlike most artists Sertified focuses on original material rather than recording to 'mixtape beats'. Never without tons of merch, Sertified is always with a load of shirts, hats & stickers, which have branded the city with the "four wise monkeys", a trademark that graced his latest album cover entitled, 'FilthyFckingHumans'. With the release of the latest album, entirely produced by German Producer "Heartbeatz", his latest efforts resulted in a positive buzz that started traveling very fast and gained local acclaim by the city's weekly paper, "The Austin Chronicle"[1]. Amongst this and other positive reviews, the long distance working relationship between Sertified and Heartbeatz has proven to be golden. With the release of the first single and music video off of the EP "Where I Live"[2] Sertified focused on sending a global message of "Peace" that has taken his efforts to a whole new realm of creativity. Sertified continues to build relationships with producers outside of Texas, from Germany's (HeartBeatz, Beatmashine), Louisiana's 0017th (Whop, Jon Mecure) to Atlanta, Georgia's DJ Burn One.
Sertified has blessed the stage consecutively as an official SXSW performer starting in 2011, and was featured on Austin’s local Chanel News 8 his first official year. [3] Four years later and climbing the ladder, he is currently highlighted as one of the "Four On The Floor" for SXSW 2015.[4] Sertified stays active year around by partaking in other festivals such as Atlanta's ever growing “A3C Festival” and Austin’s newly created, "Weird City Hip-Hop Fest", that is ran by Matt Sonzala of Pushermania. There is no doubt that we will be hearing a lot more from Sertified as he continues to evolve as an artist. Clearly, with his original concepts and a team of creative like-minded individuals, Sertified is undoubtedly one to watch out for! You can learn more about Sertified or follow him by visiting his website.
