Mims had to prove himself outside NYC

By: Adrianne Stone

The New York-based track "This Is Why I'm Hot," from Shawn Mims'upcoming debut album, Music Is My Savior, is Number Two on the Billboard Hot 100, having dropped one place this week. The rapper climbed the charts unconventionally, by taking his songs outside of New York to clubs and radio stations rather than working it to local mixtape DJs, contests and radio stations. "I love (New York) to death," he told Billboard, "it runs through my veins. But I had to prove myself as a different MC. I had to show them that I could be heard in other markets.

Music Is My Savior, which arrives in stores on March 27th, is more than just a title to the 25-year-old. His mother died due to complications from his sister's birth when he was 13, just two years after his father had died. In his grief, he turned to the two turntables she had given him only a few weeks earlier.

"Playing music put me in a position where I had to go one way or the other. I could be the biggest negative person in he world, or I could turn around and turn it into something positive," he said. "This record is about that. You hear a lot of fun in there. I love all hip-hop -- I love listening to the struggles, talk about the 'hood, how it's hard where they come from. But what I don't hear enough of is the fun side of hip-hop. That's the other side to New York and I want to show the rest of the country that we know how to party."