While some people think that San Diego is all palm trees and sunny skies, the background of Sonny Bo is quite different. Despite his cool nature and positive vibes Sonny Bo grew up in a rough area of San Diego where he had no choice but to find a way out. Relying on a background in music after his older brother was in a relatively popular group out in SD, Sonny Bo knew that music was his ticket out of his area.
But Sonny Bo always had his own name and that started when he was getting teased on in the streets as a young kid.
"In the hood a lot of names start off as as a diss, my Aunties would call me Sonny, so then they would tease me and call me Sonny, then it was Sonny Bono. I'm from an area called the bottom, so they started calling me Sonny Bo short for Sonny Bottom. There's a lot of people from my hood with the Bo on their name so I had to embrace the negative and turn it into positive."
The name Sonny Bo stuck and since then he's sound his way gaining some notoriety after a few street friendly mixtape tapes got going in his hometown. Most recently Sonny Bo switched up his style on mixtapes to be more inclusive of females and people outside his hood, incorporating more pop sensibilities in his music.
"I describe my music as an evolution, because I went from making real street music to making music from the ladies and stuff that is more in touch with the feelings," Sonny Bo explained. "I sampled a lot of pop artists before they were big and added some street stuff to it for a tape. We don't do anything cheesy, but we add a street edge to the pop side and that party stuff that people can enjoy and vibe to."
Showing his versatility Sonny Bo is back on his street music and he's dropping a visual for "We Ballin" which was filmed in his hood at the cross streets of Los Soneto and Springford.
"I had to get the street stuff out the way with the new visual, the previous five videos have been melodic and the visuals feature me with women in hotel rooms, but as far as a West Coast artist, people can't take you serious if you aren't good in the hood. My turf still love me even though I don't just make music for them. I'm really trill like the video shows, but I'm still a cool dude," Sonny Bo explained.
"If you have a choice you shouldn't be doing this at all. I don't promote gang banging, but for a lot of people there is no choice. Things are a lot different than the 80's, there's a lot of artists that are from different neighborhoods even thought they didn't grow up there. But now even though people are dying and they are still shooting, the beef is different. I do music with the crip dudes and they are like my family, so the beef people have is more personal as opposed to over colors. I was born into this so I can't put it away."
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