Mighty Mike (14)

It’s easy to be fooled by the warm, inviting weather, thrilling theme parks and pristine palm trees of the Sunshine State. But beyond Florida’s sandy white beaches and deep, blue coastlines as seen in colorful travel brochures lies the hideous underbelly of Tony Montana’s backyard. While tourism adds billions of dollars to the state’s economy, the ghetto streets of the Gunshine State are financed by drugs, riddled with guns and managed by gangsters. A product of this rough-and-tumble environment is Panama City rapper Mighty Mike. After surviving prison time, losing friends to the penal system and suffering the loss of loved ones to gunfire, Mike brings the ups and downs of his hard-knock life to the music. “The most important thing about me is that I always keep it real. Rappers nowadays are talking about keeping it 100, but that ain’t enough for me,” says Mike. “I’mma keep it 1,000k. Rappers done copied being 100, pasted it and the music ain’t real no more. I’mma keep my music gangsta with my own swag.” Mike’s latest round out the chamber is highly anticipated mixtape The Panhandle Boss hosted by DJ Chuck T set to be released late Summer. He has already had Florida blocks bubbling with a five-song sample disc aptly entitled The Leak and street-sweeping lead single “D Boi Swag.” And Mike intends to turn up the heat even hotter with two back-to-back mixtapes quickly following. One will be hosted by Jacksonville-based DJs Bigga Rankin and the other by DJ Sugar Black. “The fans tell me my voice is unique by itself- whether I’m rappin or talking,” says one of the hardest working men in Hip-Hop. “Then, on top of that, I can ride any beat you throw at me. It don’t matter.” Raised in Panama City’s notorious St. Andrews Projects, Mike has been hustling more than half his life. Like a right of passage for every other teenager in his neighborhood, Mike was only 13 years old when he plunged head first into the streets. “When you cross the bridge leaving the beach, the St. Andrews is the first projects you get to. The projects are by the beach,” explains Mike. “When all those people come in from around the world, people tell them to go across the bridge into St. Andrews to get their drugs. It’s like a big circle, like a drive thru. You come in and leave out. He continues, “That’s what kept the young cats rich. There are little guys at 12 and 13 years old with big knots of money. They wake up, get money all day and go back to sleep.” At 16, Mike along with his best friend Lil Joe caught his first case when security officer patrolling the projects was killed by a stray bullet. Lil Joe was convicted of manslaughter because he admitting to shooting a gun in the area that night. Mike, however, insisted that he knew nothing regarding the case. As a result, the murder charge was thrown out due to insufficient evidence. Instead, when Mike got caught up again with a drug trafficking charge, the infamous Judge Clinton Foster threw the book at him and handed Mike 15 years. “The judge told me,” Mike remembers, “’you got away with that murder, but you won’t get away with this. I’m going to make an example out of you.’” Luckily, his conviction was overturned after serving three-and-a-half years. Mike entered new evidence on an appeal to his case which deemed his sentencing unconstitutional. “I was sentenced over the guidelines and gave me too much time for my charge…I started reading up on cases the Supreme Court was overturning,” says Mike. “It’s up to you to go to the law library. If you don’t have the money to get a real lawyer, you got to rely on yourself.” As soon as his feet touched free ground, Mike plunged right back in the streets. And over the years, he would find himself in constant battles with the law. But throughout his every ordeal, music was always there as his crutch helping him through the good and bad times. While doing dirt, he would constantly freestyle off the top of his head with his cousin Lil Bruce (now known as CTE/ DefJam artist Bloodraw). “I was always doing music with my cousin Bloodraw,” says Mike. “We both were in and out of prison. When I was coming out, he was going in and vice versa.”