Chicago Rising Star Pohhla holds Anti-Chiraq event

CHICAGO - Oct. 29, 2014 - PRLog -- Chicago is the city that has graced us with the musical talents of Common, Twista, and Kanye West now the Windy City blows a new hip- hop star, Pohhla onto the stage.

The 29-year-old rapper has lived in Chicago his entire life and wants to use his influence and music as a platform to stop the violence that plagues the city.

Pohhla, whose real name is ­­­­­­­Dexter Smith Jr, has been making music since he was 14-years old but decided a short time ago when he was 22 years that he would begin to share his gift of music with the rest of the world.

         Aspiring rap stars are born every second, check out any blog, or Sound Cloud account on the web. Pohhla believes his music separates him from other unsigned artists because he creates Vault Music. “I Vault talk, I don’t rap,” said the Chi-Town lyricist. He describes his self-proclaimed style of music, “vault talk” as music that discusses real life and issues that are important to him. Pohhla said, “Vault music is anything important, anything life-changing I’ve witnessed. It’s centered around real life, it’s more fact based than what a lot of rappers are talking about on their records.” He cleverly labels his niche genre vault because he keeps it all with himself, his heart is his vault.

         One issue Pohhla holds on to close to his heart is the anti-Chiraq movement which he is working tirelessly against in order to inspire change in Chicago’s violence ridden streets. The “Anti-Chiraq” singer grew up and resides in both the Westside and Southside of Chicago; he has seen first-hand what the gang and gun violence has done to the people and youth of his city. Chicago has been mockingly nicknamed “Chi-raq” the Iraq of the Midwest due to the disgustingly high crime rates. The name picked up popularity around 2012 when fellow Chicago native Cheef Kief was signed. Pohhla said, “They’re embracing Chiraq so much, everyone is running around with a gun, everyone wants to be known as the shooter.”

His track “Anti-Chiraq” has already g garnered over 12,000 views on WorldStarHipHop.com, which takes viewers directly to the streets to see the effects of the crime and the funerals of the victims of the senseless violence. “I haven’t seen many other artists step up and reach out to do anything for Chicago. What’s going on can be changed if the right person comes around.”

Just the name Chi-raq gets Pohhla frustrated because the name and everything it stands for has become a dangerous competition within music, which only fuels the anger and shootings. Smith said,“You can’t battle rap here, you’ll get shot, jumped…it’ll turn into something. It’s gang banging on wax basically.”

Pohhla, the father of three, has been involved in planning an Anti-Chiraq rally set to take place on November 8th at Cisco NYC from 12 to 5 p.m.  Pohhla will be performing his music, have special offers, giveaways and promote peace within the community.

When he isn’t focused on making his Anti-Chiraq rally a success, the independent artist is committed to working on his music and his untitled EP slated for a December release. Check out his Twitter @pohhla and Instagram  @pohhla_vision accounts.