What city are you from/ Where are you based now?
I was born in Bronx, NY and moved when I was five to Queens, NY. I always lived in NY but I have visited and performed in Atlanta, South Carolina, North Carolina, New Jersey, Virginia, and a few other states.
What is your artist name? What is your real name? How did you get your artist name?
My artist name is Aaron Reflex. My real name is Mustafah Aaron Steele. I came up with Aaron Reflex by mixing my middle name with Reflex. I also wanted something that a million other people didn’t have. When I googled it no one came up so I claimed it. Now I come up on Google and it’s a blessing to see the growth over time. Reflex honestly use to be part of my Xbox gamertag so I put it together. At what point in your life did you decide to pursue a career in music? Music has always been something I wanted to do. It doesn’t matter if it was singing, playing instruments, or trying to teach myself from YouTube. I always had fun doing it and enjoyed seeing myself level up. I taught myself how to sing. I have always known music is something I would like to do because it’s fun to create. I like being in control of what I’m doing and have fun doing it. Who wouldn’t want to do what they love? Where I come from, a lot of people are not successful. Music started out as a recreational activity that I took very seriously but is constantly turning into something bigger. I would always work on music and my sound after school or work. All of college I made music and constantly released to SoundCloud and did singing covers and remixes consistently to different songs.
Has your upbringing played a role in shaping who you are and defining your sound today? If so, how?
Music has been part of my life since I was young. I always liked singing and was dared by my friend in third grade to raise my hand and audition for a solo in chorus class. He bet me $5 and I was thinking this is an easy $5 at the time. I raised my hand and actually sounded okay. Fast forward, I sung every year after that in elementary school and did many solos in chorus class. In middle school I learned to play guitar and piano thanks to my music teacher and many YouTube videos. I performed for the graduation playing guitar every year in middle school. In high school I was still singing but not performing as much as when I was younger. I was performing for friends. I got better at rapping because I use to sing and my friend rapped — they said I just liked singing to the girls so I worked on my rapping a lil bit more and got better. Now I can freestyle really good and can even have people throw in words. As I’m rapping and incorporate them well into the freestyle.
