Born in Monterrey, Mexico, Octavio Herrera aka OCTAVIO is an 18 year-old artist making a unique concoction of hip-hop and indie music. At the age of 5, he moved to Louisville, KY, learning English in six months. At 14, he taught himself how to play his dad’s abandoned guitar by watching YouTube videos. One boring summer, he discovered he could freestyle rap and his best friend egged him on to start writing for real. Shortly after, he began uploading raps to Soundcloud, using only an iPhone and an Xbox headset to record.

Due to the complicated nature of his parents’ immigration, he couldn’t get a job at 16, so he challenged himself to work on music instead. After tiring of only rapping braggadocious bars, he started putting his real life into his songs. Getting cheated on by an ex - that’s a song. Wanting to do something bigger than the standard college to job to retirement plan - that’s a song. The songs became his real life.

Art runs through Octavio’s veins; when he’s not coming up with rhymes and melodies, he’s painting his worldview onto a canvas, creating dark and surreal visual art. In many ways, Octavio’s just a normal teenager in America, but he sees his world through the lens of a Mexican kid who just wants to be able to get a job in the U.S. - the job of sharing his music with the world.

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