DMV Native, AkinG Kalld Pedro, Will Be Featured on NBA’s 2K20 Soundtrack!

AkinG Kalld Pedro is a skillful progressive Hip-Hop artist coming out of the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. At a young age, Pedro was introduced to Hip-Hop culture by his older brother in 2002; Since then, he has released three outstanding projects, ‘Afro-Brazil: Viva Sua Paixão’, ‘358/2 days’, and ‘Surrealism'.

In December 2018, while surfing the web, Pedro came across American businessman, Steve Stoute’s interview with Everyday Struggle. While watching, Pedro became fascinated with Stoute’s company and their mission to help independent underground artists. “Not only do I preach that, but I’m big on staying independent,” he stated.

Months later, in August, Pedro stumbled upon Stoute’s independent distribution company, UnitedMasters, and entered an online competition they were holding with the 2k franchise.

The golden song he ended up submitting was his hit anthem ‘Traffic Jam’ off of his latest album Surrealism. “Personally, that song is extremely special to me, it's my favorite off of the project, and it got me through my quarter-life crisis; It was literally like medicine for me,” he shared.

If you're not familiar, the NBA (National Basketball Association) 2k franchise, is a notable basketball simulation game played by thousands releasing annually since 1999.

This year’s 2k was released in the summer of 2019, with a soundtrack featuring notable artists, like Drake, Roddy Rich, Billie Ellish, the late Juice WRLD, and more. To expand their platform, they partnered with UnitedMaster to find various underground artists across the nation.

Although Pedro submitted the song without any expectation of winning, out of 20,000 contestants, Pedro was one of eight to strike gold! While he doesn’t play 2k often due to his busy life schedule, the producer of ‘Traffic Jam’, The22Fall does! “At the end of this whole experience, they gifted me the Legend Edition of 2k20, and I decided to pass it along to him; he deserved it more,” Pedro stated.

This win came just in time - on the way home from shooting a music video in his motherland Brazil. Pedro lost his five-year-old hard drive, and everything he had, was suddenly out of sight. “Pretty much my whole life, all my work was gone. But, receiving my finalist email came at the right time, I needed a big break,” he stated.

Coming from so little, this experience was everything and more for Pedro. Needless to say, the bar has risen yet again for the DMV, congratulations AkinG Kalld Pedro!

Keep up with AkinG Kalld Pedro with the following!

Instagram @akingkalldpedro

Twitter @AkinGKalldPedro