Born in the city of Fort Worth, Texas, Siyf was first influenced by his father - Larry \Dr. Disco\ Smiley. His father, a regional working event and club DJ, exposed Siyf to white-label music from all over the world. Dr. Disco had a regular gig at the YMCA in Fort Worth and at one of them, Siyf witnessed his father move a crowd to tears as they danced (there was something turbulent going on in the country) and it was then that Siyf decided that he wanted to affect people like that. <br>A few years later, Siyf went to a house party that had Ernie G on the Wheels of Steel. Ernie G mixed LL Cool J\s \Bad\ with the Biz Markie instrumental of \Make the Music with Your Mouth Biz\ and the party went BANANAS! That night, all that was on his mind was \Music can make people cry and it can make people hype... I\m soooo IN!\ Siyf married Hip Hop that night and boy has it been a bittersweet relationship with a plethora of babies born of the union. <br>Siyf started off as a DJ like his father. His father, a progressive man, put computers and synthesizers in the studio for his sons and encouraged them to explore, to do more, to accomplish more than he had accomplished. We
e talking the early 80s. We
e talking Atari, Ti35s, TRS-80s, Commodore 128s, boom-boxes, and monster house systems that the whole damn neighborhood can hear when \the knob\ on the receiver is on 5 out of 20. We
e talking about that era just before NWA spoke to the world as if they were Siyf. <br>Siyf and his brother, Eric, along with their friends, had a blast growing up in Forest Hill. Danny Powell\s family had a video camera and Siyf and Eric\s family had the space and DJ equipment (of course, they didn\t have their parents\ permission to use it at that time LOL!) and they recorded break dancing routines, their spoofs of Saturday Night Live, and themselves singing along to their favorite music. This was an everyday occurrence during the summers while their parents were at work. Then in 5th grade, Siyf and Marcus Raven created a commercial for a class project. The product was Star Wars Dog Food and they did the whole thing from scratch. And in 8th grade, Siyf participated in a spoof of the Tastes Great! - Less Filling! campaign at school. By then, Siyf was convinced he would work in media affecting people by telling stories with music and video and that he would also be that \tech head\ that knew how to professionally use the equipment required to produce media. <br>Family issues put Siyf in an ominous situation at a young age, however. Siyf became involved with a street organization and was taken to prison for several crimes. <br>\Stop 6 and Forest Hill was like the place that had me in like this protected, almost utopian place that everybody wanted to be in. But Lake Como... That was a whole other situation. I was in the elements with wolves and sheep without wool. And that\s all there was in Lake Como - Wolves and Sheep. I had to pick what I was gonna be.\ he says. \And I ain\t no damn sheep.\ <br>When one looks at Lake Como in the mid-80s up to the mid-90s, a West Fort Worth community that is about one square mile big, you begin to see the story of how Fort Worth became known as Fort Murder Worth. Siyf was square in the middle of it all. The whole city was against Lake Como or so it seemed to Siyf. Talking to him about that time period in Fort Worth you find a reason to understand why Siyf became a wolf. <br>\For a few months, I was actually on the fence concerning the wolf-sheep issue,\ Siyf quips with a smirk. \I credit a cat named Cedrick Yarborough for making me pick. Probably the worst fist fight I EVER had.\ <br>The felonies began to find Siyf. And so did the plantation. Prison. Uh... They
e the same thing if you did not know. If you did not know that the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution LEGALIZED slavery and flipped plantations into prison facilities and that plantation owners and their supporters did everything they could think of to criminalize the formerly enslaved, you might want to have a conversation with Siyf. He has lived it. And despite knowing right from wrong, he still got caught up in what many have excellent reason to think the \powers that be\ made available. <br>The crack cocaine epidemic (along with the heroine and cocaine – Boy Girl – epidemic as well) across the country in cities like Fort Worth destroyed the nuclear family. It separated Siyf\s generation from their parents\ generation and then dubbed Siyf\s generation as \Super Predators\ and their parents as \Crackheads.\ And from there, young people like the young Siyf was taken to prison at record rates only rivaling the prison rates associated with the mass imprisonment of ex-slaves when the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed and enacted in conjunction with the Black Codes, Pig Law, and Jim Crowe. It\s still happening today people... <br>\I always look on the bright side of that,\ he says looking back. <br>\It was bleak at best while I was in the middle of it. I was in a dark place in here [pointing to his heart] and though I still to this day wonder how I made it out the other end, I am glad I went through it all and is here to not only tell others about mine but to help people who want help who are in the middle of their’s. I was actually put in a position to find out who I am and to also change what I did not like about myself. I was able to transform myself, and don\t get the shit twisted - the Texas prison system only provided the place. It had absolutely NOTHING to do with who I am today. I did that with the help and personal tutelage of the Most High through brothers and sisters who Allah, Subannah Wata’Allah, sent directly to me.\ <br>Today, a graduate of Alvin Community College and Texas Southern University, Siyf produces media that tell these stories in a tasteful tactful manner. That\s what he produces. Media. Radio. Television. And film. He\s done everything but porn. Even so, at the heart of all of this is Hip-Hop. <br>Staring into nothing, Siyf had this to say: \Everything has always been about the music. Music kept me sane. Music gave me a voice. Music saved my life...\