Today we’d like to introduce you to JD Hill.
JD, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I was born in San Diego, California May 25, 2004, an ever since a kid even in elementary school, I’ve always been a very expressive kid. Once I got to middle school my passion for expression really came to life, through pushing myself outside of my comfort zone when it came to the way I presented myself through fashion. Mix matching two different shoes, Painting on my clothing, Distressing garments, and more. Fell in love with fashion early on for sure, and still to this date, I have an intense deep love for all aspects of fashion but before I settled with all my eggs in one basket, I found another outlet for everything I had to express, my true talent and biggest passion which is making music. Growing up, I lived in a household that exposed me to all genres of music, gaining a huge love and appreciation of all music, but I gravitated towards rap music the most. It wasn’t till sixth, seventh grade that I started to freestyle with friends over beats for fun, which led to recording really low-quality music on my phone. My mom’s old laptop would play the beat off YouTube, and I’d have voice memos record my vocals and the beat at the same time. Which looking back, I laugh, but it makes me proud of how far I’ve came. It wasn’t till I had shown one of my older brothers Jeffery, who was a musician as well; once I showed him what I was making that really pushed me to the next level in being a musician. He is who put me in my first real recording studio after hearing my potential but knowing the engineering aspect of my music needed to be majorly improved. I made my first single, and it was a remix to MadeinTYO’s “Uber Everywhere,” which showed myself what I could sound like in a real studio. My older brother had given me the nickname of “3D,” which he felt resonated with my loud personality of being in everyone’s face but that they couldn’t really grasp or touch me, just like a 3D movie, and the 3D came from my real name JD. I added the 4K to the end myself as I felt 3D was just one side of me which was my more egotistical personality, I wanted 4K to resemble the clear high quality woke an elevated side of myself. Allowing me to express my intricate double-sided personality hence the name 3D4K was born. Funnily As I grew up years later, after establishing my artist name, I found out more about the background of my zodiac I’m a Gemini, which resembles the duality of the twin personality, and it made my name 3D4K make even more sense. But back to my first track, the track was just a song I made for fun, and when I showed it to some friends in middle school, their full support and love for the track gave me a huge motivation to keep it going. The song was leaked on YouTube by a friend, and it sparked an intimate local buzz which inspired me to make my SoundCloud and soon after all streaming platforms. I continued to play with my craft then the universe introduced me to another very important person that had a strong influence on my life inside and outside of music my best friend and someone I’d call a brother from another mother Vlone Dream.
We met when we’re about 13 in Las Vegas, and finding a like-minded friend who was just as passionate about the music was a big push in productivity for us both. We started our collective of creative friends and branded ourselves the “V Boys,” releasing our first collaborative tracks on SoundCloud like “Pretty Bitch” “Bacc 2 Back,” “In The Night,” and more. Following those came our first music videos together, “Pippen” and “Replay,” and they are still up to this day. Which brought us both more buzz expanding our Audience within Nevada and California. Continuing to work on my craft and grow up in this world as teenager there were definitely times of life getting in the way stopping me from being able to pursue music as hard as I truly wanted to.
But as I got into high school, there was now a whole new network of people to be able to spread my music to. Mutual ties introduced me to another important character who’s become a brother as well, is Infahmus, who I was going to school with both of us being artists other friends really were eager to hear us collaborate on something together. Soon as we did, we had our social web of high schoolers from ours and local schools tuned in running up streams immediately for tracks “Kurt Kobain” and “F22”. I continued to release more tracks like “1V2 Ft. Vlone Dream,” “Molly Inna Mansion,” “Forget That,” “Codeine Ft. Jubie E, “ and more. At this point, I had built up a bit of a portfolio of music, and the opportunity of performing my first concert presented itself in 2021 at Legacy Nightclub in Newport Beach. After a month of promoting the show and slapping flyers for the show all around campus and people’s Dm. The night came and was a success; my stage presence, engagement with the fans, and overall energy surpassed a lot of people’s expectations of the “Sound Cloud rapper boys we go to school with” I performed about 10 tracks and brought every musician friend I had music with Vlone Dream came out all the way from Vegas, Infahmus gathered everyone in OC, and Jubie E and I came all the way from south San Diego with the rest of my real day one friends. Being able to get a taste of what my future career could look like it gave me a push unlike any other one I had received yet. Shortly after, I dropped a music video for my song “Errytime,” shot by San Diego videographer RoachFX in my hometown San Diego. Both of our San Diego fan bases brought attention to the video, and it’s still climbing in views today. Continuing to do my best at staying creatively productive meanwhile experiencing the trials and tribulations of my life as a teenager. Trying to chase a dream of mine but also finding spirituality along the way and diving very deep into my spiritual awakening and purpose as an individual, and the unexplained sides of life that aren’t taught in school. Like how we are capable of manifesting our reality, the importance of being in tune w ourselves, and the realization of all the negative distractions and unsupportive conditioning that has been fed to us through our society that prevent us from living as our highest most authentic self. And through a lot of shadow work, meditation, and plant medicine experiences have embedded the download that we will all prosper to the fullest, moving through life as our highest self. Creating new music moving forward was a bit of a challenge due to me knowing I wanted to now use my talent to be able to uplift others and spread hints of enlightenment throughout my music, which wasn’t an intention I really set when make all my music prior. So, entering 2023, my first release of the year was a song named “Frequency,” and it’s definitely my most spiritually influenced song taking a step in a whole new direction of uplifting through my creativity. The visual for the song has been shot and will be released soon be on the lookout for that as it will for sure be an intriguing treat. Entering the new year, I also knew I wanted to finally release my first debut album. It took some time to be fully complete as a lot of thought went into the making of this project. The title of the album is “3D4K’s Renaissance,” as I wanted the album to express to the world my rebirth as not just an artist but an individual as well. The album consisted of 15 tracks of versatility, with different type beats on each song, and wanting to establish my close circle of artist friends that you will see me collaborate with, often being Vlone Dream, Infahmus, Jubie E, Kwesi, and even a special bonus feature from my older brother Rico Freako on a track I made with him over 5 years ago when I was 13. Showing the listeners my growth as an artist. The album did wonderfully and granted the beginning of me being able to receive an actual income off streams from doing what I love most. I’m now gearing up to release two more singles that will lead up to my 3D4K’s Renaissance bonus tape as an extension to my first album with new tracks, some older tracks that I didn’t throw on the first album because I didn’t want it to be too long, and some of my favorite features. So, stay tuned because everything that’s taken place so far has just been the trailer for my movie, and my real movie is about to premiere.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I always try my very best to remain grateful and have a positive outlook on everything thing, but when I hear this question, I believe I definitely did. I don’t want to get too deep focusing on the unfortunate sides of my past, but I definitely still am one to be open about my struggle and the battles I’ve faced with myself and use it as huge inspiration in my music. An I carry the perspective that I chose every single one of my challenges for my soul to experience while I’m here, way before I came down here to live this life. Knowing that once I do persevere through all the struggles dealt, I will be molded into a literal God, the absolute highest version of myself and able to achieve anything I desire.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m 3D4K, and I’m a spiritual steppin’ rapper I’m going to be an individual you’ll remember forever for his creativity, and I’ll prove it. Being from South San Diego, California starting off my first music gravitated towards a much more aggressive street sound, on everything from SD, LA, ATL, and Detroit-type beats. But as I’ve evolved as an artist, I’ve branched out into melodic rap playing with auto-tune, slower songs for the laddies to emotional music u can resonate with when in your feels. And spoiler alert I have some Hyper pop, traprock, Indie, and even a Reggaetón slapper fully in Spanish all in my vault right now coming soon! Reading this back, I feel like it’ll seem like I’m lying with all the genres I said, but I swear on my soul I’m not, and I’m so excited to let the world hear it!
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up.
A childhood memory I will carry with me throughout the rest of my life is a memory shared with my older brother Rico. I was Probably about 12 years old and had just made my first few songs with my older brother’s help in his studio, and I remember telling him, “Man, I can’t wait to be famous; I wanna be famous.” And my brother’s response was, “Success over the Fame cause you don’t really need that clout.” He elaborated to my twelve-year-old self what is fame without success you’re just known by others, and you can be widely known for anything. He told me you need to be known for your success. Let your success grant your fame, and success forever be your dream, not fame.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/3D4K
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/january_2_december?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@DKDK-pn6xv
- SoundCloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/TtmTTbQm8uCD2CVQ6
- Other: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2ZPx61XpMQ8F5BxNSY41WQ
Image Credits
Matt Giordano
Josiah Brown
Jaden Sexton
