The Break Presents: Dice Soho

Houston has a rich hip-hop history. From Fat Pat, Big Hawk, DJ Screw and the Screwed Up Clic, to the Geto Boys and Rap-A-Lot, to UGK to Devin the Dude to Lil Keke to Z-Ro to Paul Wall, Slim Thug, Mike Jones, Chamillionaire and now Travis Scott, the sound and style of H-Town is one of the most influential forces in rap.

Brewing now is a new generation of artists coming out of the City of Syrup. One of those new artists is Dice Soho, a 21-year-old rapper who supplies a number of sounds that can you can vibe to in any setting. Dice, and his running mate Trill Sammy, have been tearing up the southern region of the hip-hop world and are starting to make noise nationally. A year ago, Dice released 0 Degrees, which featured “Just Watch” — his collabo with Sammy that has over 10 million plays on YouTube and 8 million plays on SoundCloud alone.

He struck gold again with his recent loosie, “Ripped Jeans,” and caught the eye of legendary hip-hop wizard Mike Dean.

“I met him with my bro Gustavo at Mike Dean’s crib,” Dice tells XXL while in New York City. “I was on a tour with RiFF RAFF and Gustavo pulled up after the show and we went to Mike Dean’s crib. I met him there and we were chopping it up, he was fucking with me, I played him some of my music and he was vibing and he made a beat and we made a hit that same night and after that we just started rocking. I learned a lot from him. He taught me a lot about the music business and different sounds that I don’t be hearing but he be hearing on certain records, situations with labels and doing stuff independently.”

Dice Soho is currently gearing up to release his You Could Have EP, dropping this year. Until that drops, read up on him here in XXL‘s The Break.

Age: 21

Hometown: Houston

I grew up listening to: “I grew up listening to UGK, Pimp C, Bun B, Paul Wall, Chamillionaire, Mike Jones, all the Houston legends. I started rapping around the age of 9. My uncle was rapping at first and I started watching him. I wanted to make music really because of him. [He] really inspired me to just start practicing, but then it took me a while to get better and better.

“I got serious around middle school. As I got older I was just addicted to it. I just started being around my uncle a lot and he was around other artists and other engineers and I just started going to the studio and watch other artists record and I just go home and write to beats all day. It took me a while to get better though. Around that time I was just watching other rappers record in the studio and seeing how they float on beats.

“About two years ago I knew [I had got so much better]. It was around right after high school when I was like damn; I’m really making music now.”

My style’s been compared to: “I seen someone said Vic Mensa before but I guess because we’re both light skin [laughs]. I like having fun with my music. I like making music that people can feel, can vibe to, have fun to, drink to, pop whatever you do to. I like trap beats, I like slow, R&B beats, I like rapping but most of the time I like fuckin’ with the Auto-Tune. I’m trying to get better at singing and get more onto that side.”

Most people don’t know: “My race, I’m Colombian and Mexican. Half of my family was hip-hop and the other half was just Spanish music.”

My standout records to date have been: “’Ripped Jeans,’ that was a crazy ass process. I think Dez Wright had made the beat and I had recorded a whole song to it and a few minutes after he deleted it. He threw all my vocals in the garbage and said re-do it. I didn’t want to say, ‘What the fuck?’ because most of the time the producer is right.

“So I was kind of fucked up, I rolled up a blunt, a big fat blunt Backwood and just thought about it, got back in the booth and just came up with a whole new hook, whole new verses and that shit came out crazy at the end. Dez Wright is a genius. Everybody that listened to it fuck with the song heavy.”

My goal in hip-hop is: “My goal in music is to tour the whole universe and win Grammys. I’m trying to make sure all my people are good and my kids are good and my kid’s kids are good. I’m trying to be in the game for a while. I’m trying to turn up forever for real.”

I’m going to be the next: “I’m going to be the next big thing, the next big star. I put in the hard work, no sleep type shit. We’re moving around everywhere, we’re doing whatever we need to do to make shit happen.”