Artist Spotlight: Kontakz

 Kontakz (born Gabriel Thomas) is an up and coming 20-year-old rapper from Chicago. The stage name stems from his idea of seeing music and certain aspects of life in general better than a lot of people, "like contacts".  Kontakz began writing music at the age of 9 and his passion to innovate the genre and create a legacy has only grown with age. Influenced by artists such as A Tribe Called Quest, Kanye West, UGK, Outkast, and The Cool Kids, Kontakz makes positive music and at the same time lives the lyrics that make up his songs. He prefers to be unbound by a label, proclaiming “you can’t put me in a box, because as soon as you do you’ll hear a song that’s totally different from the first one and have to reconsider”. He has a knack of flowing through his bars with an introspective but yet never boring poise. His brand of versatile, sometimes genre fusing hip-hop is a nice breath of fresh air that has personified the new school hip-hop scene rising from Chicago lately. Kontakz is poised to take major position amongst the bevy of new Chicago artists rising and gaining steam.

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