The album is called 5816 Forest. 5816 Forest is the address where I lived where my mom married a Muslim named Abul Hassan Khalifah. He moved us to 5816 Forest when I was 12. On the album, I’m talking about all the stories that occurred while living in that place. I call this album my audio series with 17 episodes about my life on 5816 Forest from age 12 to 17, the age I ran away from home on a quest to become Tech N9ne.

I had no plan to do this type of album at all. It was an old friend of mine. He just got released from jail a few years ago. He’s the one that gave me my name in 1988. His name is Black Walt, and sometime last year, he told me, “Hey, man, real Tech N9ne fans don’t want to hear all those collaborations that you be doing, man. We want to hear an album of all you rapping.” I’m like, “That’s boring as f**k.” The next day, I told my partner, Travis O’Guin, what Black Walt said, and Travis said, “Tech, he’s right.”

GET THE BIG PICTURE AT XXL