K-UTE Radio recently had the pleasure of sitting down for an interview with the fast rising hip hop duo 4Ternity. During the encounter we chat about their single “Bag Alert” popping on Soundcloud, moving from their hometown  to NYC, signing to Island Records, and more!

4Ternity is a rap duo bred in Salt Lake City, Utah, but their reach extends far past the Wasatch mountains. This past year, the duo signed a 4.8 million dollar joint venture contract with Island Records. This deal made them Utah’s first rap artists to sign to a major label. This is no normal record deal either, as it comes with an imprint provision. That will allow 4Ternity the opportunity to open up the doors for other aspiring Utah artists to be discovered. It was evident from our interview with the rap duo that paving the way for Utah’s hip hop future is among their top priorities.

“

“I want there to be other artists after us… I just want to create a pipeline… in 20 years I want people to say those kids made sure there was a future in hip-hop in Utah.”

They spoke with passion about wanting to make the most of this opportunity they have been given. They want to be the trailblazers for SLC’s untapped wealth of talent.

Origins

K-UTE also got the inside scoop on how 4Ternity came together in the beginning. The artists let us in on the fact that the two actually couldn’t stand one another at first. Their confident demeanors clashed heavily upon meeting. Lake God reminisced about having jokingly referred to Tay Krew as ‘pompous’ after their first interactions in the studio. Tay Krew remarked that when he figured out what pompous meant, he was not taken aback by the comment at all. Instead, he made it clear that carrying himself with confidence is not something he will apologize for. As time went on, the two started to realize all the commonalities they shared.

And thus, 4Ternity was born. Fast-forward the clocks, and after years of working hard on music together, the two now come as a pair. When the labels first contacted Lake God to fly out to New York, he initially declined. He stated that he would go only if both he and his and musical counterpart Tay Krew could go. “It was all or nothing” said the rising stars, showing their dedication to each other when it actually came to down to it.

The road to success

When asked how they managed to pop out of Utah as a hip hop act, aside from their obvious God-given talents, 4Ternity accredited a large part of their rapid growth and success to their methodical approach to networking their music online. Lake God elaborated that he was always good at using social networking. He began to study the algorithms that these social networks rely on, and from there was able to quickly amass large followings on various different social networking platforms. As 4Ternity was eventually born, Lake God implemented this same strategy with their music and their Soundcloud page. The two describe the feeling of first waking up to 1,000 plays on their song “Bag Alert”, and the next day 10,000 plays, spreading more and more every day until they were officially part of the “mil club” on Soundcloud.

2020: the year of 4Ternity

Sitting on a plethora of unreleased music as well as an album set to release in sometime in 2020, it’ll without a doubt be the year of 4Ternity. We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the two young guns behind Utah’s fastest rising hip hop act. Most of all though, it was a pleasure to hear about their unique and humbling experience of coming up in Utah and going from locals to legends. If you want to hear the full-length interview between @thelakegod, @taykrew, and @kute_radio, follow this link. Listen in to hear more about the duo including the origin of the name 4Ternity, their deep ties to Utah and the U of U, joking around about getting kicked out of every hotel in Jersey, and the abysmal state of breakfast cereal in 2019. Check it out below!

K-UTE Radio/University of Utah does not own any images in this piece.