St. Thomas senior Brentley Farber aspires to be a renowned rapper.

“I got started in rap when I was in 6th grade,” Farber said. “My best friend’s parents were DJs, and they were throwing a bunch of rap CDs away… so I just picked them all up and listened to them all that night, and I fell in love and wanted to be a rapper.”

Farber is currently a rapper in the band FressssshAir. The group first took the stage at St. Thomas at the 2009 Ebony Mic Night sponsored by the Black Empowerment Student Alliance.

“We’ve been performing here every year, every open mic, every chance we can get at the student center or at events put on by clubs or organizations,” Farber said.

FressssshAir has released two mix tapes. The first was recorded and released in March 2010.

“One called ‘Dedicated to Veronica Von,’” Farber said. “It’s based off of the greatest movie in the world, ‘Billy Madison.’ We just love that movie and thought it … captured us in that moment at that time in our lives.”

The second mixtape, “Rebels without a Pause,” was released in 2011.

“We just make music off of who we are,” Farber said. “We felt like we’re some rebels who can’t be paused, so we just speak our minds at all times.”

Farber works with his music partners and friends Nicky Gwiggs and Jake Astle. The crew collaborates to generate music, sharpen skills and keep content current.

“What inspires us? I don’t know. Other good music; other bad music. When you hear a cool song, and you’re like, yo, I wanna make something that’s cool,” Astke said.

Farber said that the band realizes that some of its content can be perceived as offensive.

“Our lyrics are written in the heat of the moment,” Farber said “We wrote the lyrics about what we were feeling at the time, and that’s how we wanted to come across. For people who are feeling those same emotions, they can listen and understand how we feel.”

Their most recent release, “Man’s World,” depicts a relationship falling apart due to infidelity and dishonesty by a female partner. The song contains profanity and uses derogatory terms to describe women. Gwiggs said that the content didn’t discourage FressshaAir’s fans.

“We’ve heard numerous women say how much they like our songs… and I feel good in that,” Gwiggs said. “(The music) is relatable to a lot of people, whether it’s wrong or right. At some point in real life, you would’ve felt that way. I feel like it makes our content relatable.”

Overall, Farber’s ultimate aspirations for FressssshAir are simple.

“We hope to make a change to the music, to the world, two ears at a time,” Farber said.

Katherine Curtis can be reached at curt1354@stthomas.edu.