(Columbia, SC) – MASTER SPLNTA is performing his full-length album release concert for DOJO on Thursday, August 8 at New Brookland Tavern in Columbia, South Carolina with artists H3RO, MIDIMarcum, PATx featuring CO-FI, Quelle the Prophet, Elle Nikcole, SaintPat, and BIG FIT.
As a cornerstone of South Carolina Hip-Hop, MASTER SPLNTA began his solo career in the mid 2000s. By 2012, he was an established solo act, releasing several studio albums under the moniker FatRat Da Czar. His final album under that alias, Crucible, was released in December 2020. Since then, SPLNTA took time to reevaluate and reconcile.
“My initial transformation from FatRat to FatRat Da Czar, though challenging, was about staking my claim and then cementing my legacy, which ultimately was about controlling the outcome,” says SPLNTA. “On the way to and through my transition from FatRat Da Czar to MASTER SPLNTA, it’s been about relinquishing control and the power that comes with it in exchange for a new source of power that is generated from confidence, not control.”
MASTER SPLNTA credits his meditation mentors Hilda White, MD, and Jemme Stewart, LPC, PMHCNS-BC, Co-Founders of Upstream: A Center for Mindfulness and Holistic Mental Health, for equipping him with the tools to begin his internal journey, which ultimately resulted in an outwardly visible transformation as SPLNTA shed over 100 pounds with his new approach towards mindfulness.
“My mentors saw something special in me and instead of telling me what they saw, they guided me to a place that allowed me to discover it for myself. From there, I did what I thought was best: sit in peace and untangle my mind,” says SPLNTA. “This reconnection with myself allowed me to reconnect to Hip-Hop – 40 years after our first meeting – and give thanks for all Hip-Hop has done for me by devising new strategies to give back through using it.”
And reconnect SPLNTA did. Writing music-based curriculum for K-12 students, delivered by Love, Peace & Hip-Hop, whose mission is to create and develop initiatives for families and communities through the pillars of Hip-Hop, the OG presented his Beats To The Rhyme youth songwriting program to South Carolina schools.
In August 2023, SPLNTA revived his long-running Hip-Hop Family Day music festival, celebrating its 10th anniversary event at the University of South Carolina’s Koger Center for the Arts, headlining hip-hop’s first gold-selling rapper, Kurtis Blow.
The reconnection did not stop there as MASTER SPLNTA returned to the studio and began writing, producing, and recording several new songs, all while collaborating with the up-and-coming talent he would eventually bring along on his journey.
“At this stage in life and music, my contributions should reek of the wisdom learned through experience. As I see it, that wisdom is best delivered to and received by the youth. Likewise, that same wisdom serves as a guiding light in my efforts to celebrate and preserve culture through Hip-Hop Family Day. I’ve learned that taking time to rest and commune with family does wonders for the healing process. Hip-Hop Family Day provides a space for that healing as we enjoy our cultural creations and share them with others,” says SPLNTA. “Surrounding myself in the cocoon of that energy, from school-aged children to hip-hop elders, recentered me musically, brought me back to the studio, and afforded me the opportunity to collaborate with yet another crop of outstanding artists, which inspired my new project. I needed to return to the dojo to recalibrate balance. Hip-Hop is my dojo.”
Dojo /ˈdōˌjō/ – a place for immersive learning or meditation where one goes to study, practice, and learn about the truth and nature of one’s existence through a daily training regimen as a mental, physical, and spiritual forging process.
