Story
“Tell a story with my words cuz that’s really all I really have.”
Blur, 2009
Born in Burlington
MC Solar Wind was born in Burlington, Vermont, and came up on the South Shore of Boston. He started writing poetry at ten. Eminem was the way in. The next four years he studied hip hop the way you’d study literature: Nas, Rakim, KRS-One, Tupac, Mos Def, Common, Talib Kweli.
He found his own lane in college. Hip hop, to him, came down to being true to yourself and never selling out, so he wrote only about what mattered to him and kept writing songs that challenged his own beliefs.
Valedictorian, four-year college striker, Pentagon intern the semester his first tape dropped. These days he lives in numbers by day and writes at night.
World first, home last
I didn’t start with America. The early Facebook posts and ads went to Africa and the Middle East first. The plan was to break there, tour there, and let the US find me last.
The page grew to about 64,000 followers that way. Most of those people have never seen me in a Bay Area club. That was the point.
Solar Wind
Solar wind (science): the continuous flow of charged particles from the sun that permeates the solar system.
Solar Wind (hip hop): breathing life into hip hop music. A positive and mysterious agent of change.
From the I AM SOLAR WIND spoken word: “simply put, I will SOLAR WIND, the VERB.”
Landmarks and legends
Every bill below is documented by contracts, flyers or listings. He shared the bill with these artists on one-night Bay Area dates.
- 2007
Valedictorian
Graduates first in his class at Sacred Heart High School. The name Solar Wind is already picked, settled during a senior-year calculus class.
- 2007 to 2011
Stonehill College
Four years as a varsity soccer forward. Over a hundred songs written by graduation.
- Feb 12, 2010
Classic drops in DC
Spring semester interning with the U.S. Army G-8 at the Pentagon. The mixtape goes out the week Snowmageddon buries Washington.
Pentagon, spring 2010 - May 2011
Summa cum laude
Highest-ranking graduate in Business Administration at Stonehill. Moves west.
- 12.21.12
I AM SOLAR WIND
The second mixtape, originally slated for 12.12.12. The title track started one night after a snowstorm, up late at the Bloomberg terminal.
- 2014
Theme song for Palo Alto Networks
Writes a theme song for Palo Alto Networks and performs it outdoors for the whole company.
- Aug 27, 2015
First San Francisco show
Monroe, SF. More dates there through January 2017.
- Spring 2016
Found on ReverbNation
Gene Maze of Tastemaker Live finds his ReverbNation page, then emails and calls. Gene becomes basically a manager, and the bills with legends follow. Every one of them is a presale slot, and he sells a lot of tickets.
- Jun 17, 2016
Pete Rock & CL Smooth
Shared the bill at Mighty, San Francisco.
Mighty, SF - Jul 28, 2016
Black Milk
Shared the bill with Black Milk and the Nat Turner band at Brick & Mortar Music Hall.
- Sep 29, 2016
Dizzy Wright
Shared the bill on the Still Movin Tour at The New Parish, Oakland.
- Oct 7, 2016
Caliber: Best MCs of the Bay
The End Up, San Francisco.
- Nov 11, 2016
Wax
Shared the bill at Starline Social Club, Oakland. His post that week: “This is the beginning of what I hope will be a great partnership one day.”
With Wax, Oakland, November 2016 - Dec 14, 2016
TME PRO Recordings, New York
Recording with Big D. Immortal Technique came through the session. “Tech was down to earth; can’t wait to body a track with him.”
With Immortal Technique, TME PRO, 12.14.16 - 2016
Theme song for MZ
Writes a theme song for Machine Zone (MZ) and performs it at the company’s holiday party in San Francisco.
- Feb 20, 2017
Yonas
Shared the bill at Brick & Mortar Music Hall, San Francisco.
Brick & Mortar, SF - 12.21.20
The Solar and the Fury
The album with Faulkner, released exactly eight years after I AM SOLAR WIND.
- Aug 19, 2021
A Giant in the Making
Sequoia Real Estate commissions “Big Dreams (Road to a Billion)” as the theme song for its documentary, directed and produced by Gary Seto. Produced by Sulto, mixed and mastered by Jorge Hernandez. Recorded on a Sunday, scored into the film by Wednesday, performed live at the premiere at Landmark’s Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco that Thursday. It plays over the credits. Watch the premiere.
Premiere night, San Francisco - 2026
Sequoia holiday party
Performs Big Dreams again at Sequoia’s holiday party at a rented mansion in the Bay Area, and gives a speech.
12.12.12 / 12.21.12
I AM SOLAR WIND was slated for 12.12.12. It came out 12.21.12.
Those same two dates show up in an archived 2012 interview about TYLER, the platform tied to Anonymous and Project Mayhem 2012. It names December 12 as TYLER’s release date and a leak window running December 12 to December 21. Its second idea was “Dare to Kreate,” a call to create. Same dates, same name as mine. I read it as a coincidence and an artistic parallel, nothing more.
Then The Solar and the Fury landed on 12.21.20, exactly eight years after I AM SOLAR WIND.
I call myself a reality artist. I make the work, and I pay attention to the patterns that show up around it.
Rooms and booths
The writers who built the ear
Pen game first, then the beat, then the story. The list from his first MySpace page still holds:
- Nas
- Rakim
- Gang Starr
- Tupac
- Mos Def
- Talib Kweli
- Common
- KRS-One
- Eminem
- Jay-Z
- A Tribe Called Quest
- Wu-Tang Clan
- Mobb Deep
- DJ Premier
What stays in rotation now leans toward the technicians: Black Thought, Lupe Fiasco, Elzhi, Binary Star, Wax, Joey Bada$$, Mac Miller, Logic, Apollo Brown, Statik Selektah.
“The game needs more MCs, not more rappers.”MC Solar Wind, 2006