Meet Brendon Henshawe | Rapper & Influencer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Brendon Henshawe and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Brendon, what do you attribute your success to?
I think the most important factor behind my success so far has been delusional self-confidence in my dreams. I started rapping in the 4th grade and I’ve been rapping every day since. I obviously didn’t take it as serious back then but I’ve been telling people that I was going to be a rapper for as long as I can remember. As you’d probably assume, not too many people believed in me back then, and honestly, I can’t blame them. I wasn’t always good at making music but I always thought I was. Nobody could tell me that I wasn’t going to achieve my dreams because I always thought I had what it took. I never let the laughing get to me. I never let the backhanded compliments get to me,. I never let the lack of support get to me. I just kept working on my craft and knew that when my opportunity came that I’d crush it. The truth is that the world is bigger than your hometown or wherever you’re living and with all the opportunities that technology has presented us with, the possibilities of achieving your dreams are limitless. All it takes is a little self-confidence to get you started.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I am a full-time rapper/influencer. Rapping has always been my passion and something I dreamed of doing. It took years and years of rapping every day, releasing music, and failures to get to where I’m at now. If you really want to succeed at something, you’ll have to continue to work for it by any means necessary. Truthfully, that’s what led me to be an influencer. My friends, Angelina and Halle, pushed me to download TikTok because musicians were blowing up on there every day. They thought my personality would be perfect for the app. I downloaded it, made a profile, and let it sit for about 7 months before I made my first video. The pandemic happened, the world “shut down”, and there wasn’t much to do so my roommate Dallas started making TikToks. He eventually got me to be in a video and then it kind’ve took off for me from there. I started making comedy videos every day and slowly started gaining a following on the platform. When I started to collaborate with my best friend, Hali Murray, and started doing my “Say Less” videos, I started to notice that people were actually engaging with my content. At that point, I decided to try and drop a few remixes to popular songs as TikToks to see how they’d do. Truthfully… They flopped. I took them down, gave up on the remixes that hadn’t been released, and went back to the drawing board. I kept collaborating with my friends, kept making videos to trending sounds, and kept doing my Say Less videos. After a year and a few months of that, I was around 75k followers and still never tried rapping on the platform again. Luckily, I posted a Snapchat memory of my remix to Cardi B’s WAP, which I never dropped, on my story. My friends, Mont and Jordan, swiped up and told me that I needed to drop it immediately. That’s the day I had my first viral Tiktok of me rapping. I surprised my sister in the car with the rap, recorded her reaction, and from there the rest is history. It went viral after a day or two reaching 2.6 million views. I decided to try to surprise my mom with the same rap and her reaction was perfect. The video took off and ever since then the surprise rap videos have been my thing. It’s significantly grown my following on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube while also providing me with a platform to promote my music. I’m going on my first two tours in August and October and I think the sky is the limit due to social media.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I’m not from Denver but I’d like to take the time to shout out some places at where I went to college. Clarion, PA has a ton of great low-key spots that only people from around that way no about. The first place we’d have to hit is Daddy’s On Mainstreet. The food is delicious and you’ll 100% want to go back again. They have a specialty menu that people love to order from but I’m lame and get the same thing every time. My go-to are the Messy Eddie hot dogs and a small side of cheese fries, The hot dogs are covered in chili and nacho cheese and then they sprinkle nacho cheese Doritos on top! YUMMMMM! After that, we’d have to hit up Ice-O for some dessert. Their Italian ice flavors are amazing and their menu items are named after basketball legends. My favorite is the Black Mamba named after the late Kobe Bryant. It is amazing and it comes with gummy worms. Can’t go wrong with that! To finish the night off, we’d hit the Loomis to shoot some pull and get a few drinks, They are by far the best bar in town and the manager, Joe, is a personal friend of mine. He makes the best drinks in Clarion so the Loomis is a must.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The honest truth is that I wouldn’t be anywhere without my support system. At every stage of my life, I had amazing people in my corner so my shout-out list is going to be long. First I’d like to shout out to my family. my mom, grandma, and sisters. They have been there through every up and down with me and never gave up on me so they deserve all the credit in the world. Plus, they had to listen to me scream lyrics at the top of my lungs my whole life so they deserve the love. Lifelong friends like Cord, Jordan, Fox, Lonnie, Jor, and many others have always encouraged me to chase my dreams as well. Last but not least I want to shout out all of my college friends from over the years. Without people like Rique, Hali, Nick, Kaison, Nate, Emma, Kt, Dallas, and many others I’d never be in the position I’m in so I am forever grateful to have them in my corner.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bhenshawe/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhenshawe

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/bhenshawemusic/posts/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brendonhenshawe/videos

Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@bhenshawe

Image Credits
Thomas Randal (trandallphoto) on pictures where I’m in blue Red shirt was from a friend so no credit needed Henny Gang logo is the logo for my brand