Columbus, Ohio artist G. Finesse has been rocking stages for over a decade, and is now ready for the world to hear his “East Side Pain”
Developed over the course of a year through collaboration with producer and close homie, Jay Greens, the album is a gateway into the mind of an individual who has been through hell and back living in a place most of the country forgets exists but oozes musicality. Coming out of the Midwest requires a different type of person. It wraps one in a cloth that is built to last, tested through almost every mental and weather condition imaginable. The story of G. Finesse is wrapped in this cloth and everything that has come with it, defined by the resilience and hard-earned belief in himself that can only come from years of grinding to make it happen by any means.
G. Finesse was raised by his grandma in the Greenbriar projects on Columbus’ East side, in the shadows of Columbus’ wealthier enclaves. It wasn’t the type of place many would choose to hang out at voluntarily, “There were dudes, whose parents were from the hood, who weren’t allowed to come over there”, G Finesse explained. His grandma did everything in her power to show G that there were other ways out of their current situation other than falling into the age-old societal traps set-up by the complete lack of government support. For her, and a few generations of their family, music was a binding force driving them forward into new arenas of life, like the members of his family who performed at the “Carnegie Hall of the South”, Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Tapping into his musical lineage, G. Finesse began his musical journey when his grandma pushed him into playing violin and bass at a fairly young age. While making the strings sing gave him all types of joy, his heart began pulling G more towards the noises coming from his older brother’s turntables. A decade older than G Finesse, his brother helped to keep him on the leading-edge of what was popping, introducing him to artists like Ghetto Boyz, A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, Outkast, Company Flow, The Roots and Mobb Deep. Adding on to his brother’s schooling, G’s mom was a huge hip-hop head, consistently blasting her favorite album, Doggystyle.
Columbus is a city known for its live music, with venues everywhere that have been rocking for a minute. Although the live music scene is well known, Columbus’s isn’t exactly known as a place where hip-hop artists come from. As with the rest of the midwest, this general lack of representation on the national scene means listeners have no real direct expectations for what the artist is going to/”should” sound like. This lack of standard opened up the realms of sonic possibility for a young G. Finesse as he worked to find his sound through those first few years making music. The ease which G. Finesse displays when hopscotching his way across different genres of instrumentals is rooted in the fact that he has put in well beyond his 10,000 hours behind a mic. Those hours first began stacking up when G was still a ten-year old spending hours listening to whatever his well tapped-in older brother had bumping. In addition to being a music aficionado, his older brother was a fledgling producer who put together the first instrumentals G put vocals onto, writing the first lines of the latest chapter in their families musical history when G was 13.
Although barely out of middle school, G had proven himself to be a quick study in the art of the artistic grind. He understood that the key to success’s door could only be carved by himself, and his hard work would the whittler’s blade carving and shaping that key. After countless hours spent studying the game and working on his nascent craft, G. Finesse got his chance to step onto a stage for the first time at the age of 15. While it wasn’t the biggest or brightest stage he’s ever stepped on, that performance at a little hole in the wall spot in the hood he grew up in confirmed that this was exactly what he wanted to be doing. That show was the spark that would lead to G Finesse opening up for legendary artists such as Slick Rick, Curren$y, and Ohio’s very own Bone Thugz-N-Harmony.
After years spent working on his craft as a solo artist, G Finesse came to a crossroads. He was 22 when he jumped into the front man role for G. Finesse and the Black Eagle. This chapter started when G moved in with one of his bandmates who was trying to look out for him. A friend as well as a bandmate, Jake Levy saw the whirlwind that was G’s life was slowly beginning to consume him and encouraged him to step away from the bullshit and go full-in on music. To help with the process, (bandmate) opened his door for G to move in, and after taking a minute to think, G realized he was right and took him up on the offer, kicking off a decade plus long run of rocking stages across Ohio’s heartland.
As much fun as it was to rock any stage within a hundred mile radius of Columbus, G began to grow restless. Yes there was plenty of opportunity, but it wasn’t the same level of opportunity that he could gain access to by uprooting and relocating to a bigger market. Plus, getting away from the bullshit that seemed to be constantly cropping up around Columbus was exactly what G. Finesse knew he needed to continue growing as an artist and more importantly, as a person. So G packed up and left the nest he had known his whole life, leaving Black Eagle and Columbus behind for Denver, moving into a house with a group of people he had become friendly with. One of them, Jay Greens, happened to also be a producer, and the two of them clicked as people off the bat. Jay is about a decade younger than G, lending their relationship a big/little brother vibe that helped lead to Jay eventually proposing that G sign to Jay’s label, Perception Records, for a one album deal. Conveniently enough, G had been whipping up a project with his producer Brian ‘Doctah Brown’ Harrington, so when the opportunity presented itself he told Jay about the project, who immediately jumped at it.
At the time, G Finesse and Jay were no longer living together, as G had moved back to Columbus to help take care of his aging grandma. It was a time period that tested his mental strength. It was a heavy energy that enveloped him, and helped provide the genesis of inspirations for his upcoming debut album, East Side Pain, a compendium of life seen through the eyes of a man who’s seen it come full circle in his city. G. Finesse is still in the process of cutting and arranging the final tracklisting but the most recent single from the project, “Keep The Fame”, is currently available on all platforms. It is a beautiful, soul-touching track, with the lyrics coming from the perspective of a man who has been around the block a couple of times and understands that life is about a hell of a lot more than being on the cover of a magazine or top of the follower lists.
As of right now, the project is slated to be released sometime in early spring 2023, so make sure to follow G Finesse on all his social medias to keep up to date on the drop information. In the meantime, check out the lead singles “Keep The Fame” and “We Gon Make It” on all streaming platforms, and dive back into the rest of G’s fantastic catalog.
Instagram: @the_captain_g.finesse
Twitter: @G.Finesse614
Facebook: @G.Finesse & Black Eagle
Youtube: @G.Finesse
Soundcloud: @G.Finesse & Black Eagle
The Come-Up 