You’re from Brownville in Brooklyn, how has your hometown influenced your career?

Stro: As far as the way I talk, the slang I use, and the way I dressed it’s definitely influenced it on that part. I do a lot of story telling in my rap so that’s also been highly influenced by it. I speak about life experiences and they’re based off from these places I grew up in (Brownsville and Flatbush).

How did you come up with your name?

Stro: My stage name went through a million different transitions. At first I was the “Astronomical Kid” when I was younger, but that name was way too long. I then shorten it to “Astro,” and that’s how a lot of people know me by but that name is so common. If you type in “Astro” everything else will come up first before my music, and just recently, we switched it over to “Stro.” I actually like to call myself “Stro The MC” so people are starting to call me “Stro or Stro The MC.”

You’re dropping your new project, Grade a Frequencies in a few weeks (April 28th), talk to us about the inspiration behind it and the creative process for it?

Stro: I would say this is my best project thus far. It’s very musical and there’s a lot of substance. All in a nutshell, Grade a Frequencies can be read in many different ways but ultimately, it’s just me trying to prove what I think is missing in Hip-Hop right now. Creating it felt like a very long process and it might of not even been that long but it did feel like it. For the first time in a very long time, I went to varies studios to record it (usually I record them in my crib), so I wanted this one to feel different.

Moral of the story for this project was trying to create better music. When it comes to lyrics and bars, I know what I’m capable of and it’s time to prove that to people who are still sleeping on me.

This is your first album as an adult, how different is it from any of the other ones?

Stro: The ones that I dropped before were dope lyrically and beat wise, but they didn’t really reflect who I am. Matter a fact, I can’t listen to them right now because I sound like some depressed a** kid, and I’m trying to step out of that. While I do choose to be that person most of the times, I’m really trying to step out of that dark, lonely circle. So this album reflects much more color and what I listen to on a daily. There’s a little bit of everything from Jazz, Trap, R&B, to Hip-Hop, and people are definitely going to see it.