Before he would drop songs like Billion Dollar Baby Freestyle, which has close to 14 million
views on YouTube, Ashley which has more than 10 million and “Double D’s” which has
close to a million views in less than a week!
Before he would collab with Lil Durk, Moneybagg Yo, Offsett, Young Nudy and of course, DaBaby
Before Stunna would be living his best life in Hawaii:
Before he would give Nardwuar a makeover with DaBaby:
Before he would have over 180 thousand subscribers on YouTube, more than 30k on Twitter and over
800k on Instagram.
Before Stunna would become one of the hottest new artists in the game, he was back in Salsbury,
North Carolina looking for any way to get on.
He tried everything from creative marketing, to paying DJ’s to let him perform a song
at their club nights.
But nothing was working.
Until he met the artist that helped change his life forever.
But we’ll get into the whole story in this video.
What’s going on good people in the comment section?
I hope you’re having one Hecht of a Day, my name is Jeremy Hecht and I’ll be your
host today as I take you through the life and career of Stunna 4 Vegas prior to fame,
here for you on Before They Were Famous.
I’ve done other videos recently on DaBaby and Playboi Carti so be sure to check those
out later.
And of course you can hit me up on Insta and send in your requests or comment down below!
But before we start, I’ve got a trivia question for all of you super fans out there.
“What was the Stunna’s old Twitter @ name?”
If anybody guesses that right without cheating I’ll follow you back.
Alright, let’s get into the show!
Stunna 4 Vegas was born Khalick Antonio Caldwell on January 1, 1996.
Stunna grew up in Westside Salisbury, North Carolina.
The city is located between Winston-Salem and Charlotte, and has a population of around
33 thousand people.
Stunna grew up without a father figure and didn’t have an older brother to show him
the way either.
He said:
“I damn near raised myself with my mama.
Teaching myself how to be a man.”
Stunna always loved music.
Some of his early musical influences were 2 Chainz, T.I.
Gucci, Wayne and Fat Trel.
He was a big fan of southern rap but also loved Tyga, Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa and local
Carolina legend J. Cole during high school.
He then saw the success of Kodak, NBA Youngboy and Blocboy JB, which inspired him even more.
I found some of the early songs that Stunna posted on his old Facebook account, but the
links were no longer available!
That was all the way back in 2012, so he’s been at it for a long time.
I even found some old posts from 2011 talking about dropping new songs.
That facebook account also lead me to the fun fact, that Stunna’s first kiss was in
the 6th grade with a girl named Abi.
I have her last name but I won’t put it out there.
So Abi, if you’re watching this, shout out to you!
While attending West Rowan high school, Stunna was on the basketball and football teams,
but he was by no means
the star:
But, we CAN confirm that he stepped onto the basketball court:
Even if that was the only time he got on the court, it’s documented and they can’t
take that away from you bro!!
During his senior year of high school, Stunna started rapping more frequently and dropping
more songs.
But it was after he graduated high school that he began to take his music career seriously
as something that he wanted to go hard with.
Before music, he had his rap name already.
The 4 in his name is to rep the 704 where he’s from.
And the Vegas part:
He says him and his click were living like they were from Vegas and even the people back
home in Salsbury always knew his crew was different and willing to take risks.
Vegas, lotto, risks.
I see it.
In 2017, Stunna began to drop mixtapes including Stunna Season and 4 Way or No Way.
And he built his catalogue along with his local buzz.
At the time, he was doing shows for 250 to 300 dollars, while he continued to work on
his craft.
He was trying to come up with ways to blow up, and spending money to try to promote his
music, but nothing really worked for him.
He was trying to hit up rappers and DJ’s to see if someone could help him get his music
heard:
But everything changed for Stunna when he met a fellow Charlotte rapper who was going
by the name of none other than, DaBaby.
Baby had been building his buzz locally and was well known within North Carolina.
And Stunna was just starting to get his music heard by people within the local scene.
Him and a couple of friends would go around to different cities in North Carolina and
try anything they could to get noticed:
And this time, it finally worked.
One of Stunna’s music videos was reposted onto local DJ, DJ B Eazy’s page.
Baby saw the video and liked it.
So Stunna shot his shot and sent Baby a message saying “Let’s do a song.”
Stunna payed Baby for the feature and got in the studio with him.
This story is really similar to how Baby got on at first.
When DaBaby was coming up, HE paid Boosie for a feature to help build his buzz.
So it’s cool that things could cycle back.
DaBaby was down and saw the potential.
The two created the song Animal, and from there the rest is history.
The song blew up with more than 29 million views on DaBaby’s YouTube.
Page.
Shortly after “Animal,” DaBaby signed Stunna to his Billion Dollar Baby record label.
The two planned their takeover out and began to work together on a one to one basis.
A lot of people around Stunna were telling him not to sign to another rapper so early
on, but Stunna knew the partnership was something special.
From there, the two began working on music and constantly trying to improve their situation.
DaBaby told Billboard:
"I saw raw talent.
I could look at him and tell he never had anything.
In a room full of his peers, he would stand out.
I could tell that without having anything, he still walked and talked like a star.
So I felt like it was only right for me to help that star shine."
Baby landed a deal with Interscope records in January of 2019.
And six months afterwards, after vouching for his signee as the next up, Stunna inked
a deal with Interscope as well.
Stating:
I never seen a rapper bring another rapper in the game and it take em’ six months exactly
-- it took us six months to get me signed, but I was really rich in like two, three months
just off us booking hella shows.
Like me going everywhere.
Stunna traveled around with DaBaby as his buzz was blowing up and the two did shows
around the country.
Stunna says he only had one weekend off every month.
And on top of that he was doing a lot of features and making his money.
Their marketing director at Interscope says that Stunna and DaBaby are both very hands-on
with their marketing efforts and are always brainstorming ideas.
Stunna’s Interscope debut came in May of 2019 when he released Big 4x.
The project included features from DaBaby, Offset, Young Nudy, Lil Durk and more.
As for
the future, he says he wants to continue to drop music and build his buzz.
With DaBaby as his mentor, if Stunna’s career trajectory is anything like Baby’s then
we’re in for a massive assentation into superstardom.
And he seems like a really grounded dude also who knows what he wants and won’t get distracted
by all of the industry BS around him.
As for his old @ name, well one of them was @Antonio_Lsz.
But he also had another Twitter with the @ name Wiz_Khalicka.
Which is a solid play on HIS name mixed with Wiz’s.
That was back when he was rocking camo shorts and chuck taylors.
I went through the same phase!
And there you have the answer to your question from the beginning of the video!
But that’s it for this one.