Apollo Fresh: The Anime Rapper
If you’re on Tiktok, then you’ve definitely heard of this upcoming artist! Proudly dubbed “The Anime Rapper” Apollo Fresh sits down to talk about his journey as an artist in college, going viral on TikTok, and how he sees his music evolving over the years.
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Jordan Steele: Tell me about who you are and where you’re from.
Apollo Fresh: I’m Jonathon Appolon. I’m from Broward County, Florida. I was born in New York but moved here when I was three. My parents are Haitian, and I am first generation American.
JS: How did you get started in music?
Fresh: Growing up, I was always freestyling in the hallways in middle school and playing in the school band. I made my first song when I was 15 and was so excited, so I felt like I had to make more! After my third song, I thought, “This is it – this is what I want to do with my life.” I was so shocked. I thought I was going to be a vet. I love animals and my dad is a psychiatrist, so if I was an animal doctor, he’d be happy and I’d be happy to work with animals.
“When I made the song, I felt like I looked behind me at every other option… I was like, ‘hell no!’ I looked back and thought this is going to be a lot of work, but I’m going to do, and I’m going to do it well.”
JS: What’s the music scene like in Florida? Did you get any inspiration from there for your music?
Fresh: Definitely, I got a lot of inspiration from there. When I first started making music, I was really just on my own. Then someone put me on to a small scene that was growing at the time, which was xxxtentacion. I started going to shows and realized that there was something going on. I didn’t understand the concept of underground music at the time… I went to an X and Lil’ Uzi Vert show in the club (before they were well-known) and experienced my first mosh pit – it changed my life. I was able to expel all of the emotion that I felt within that mosh pit without any judgement. From there, I decided to go to every single underground show that was happening at the time. The scene and the artists that come from Florida inspire the way I perform and the sound that I make. Haitian culture is also big in South Florida and allowed me to grow up speaking Creole.
JS: I read somewhere that people call you the “Anime Rapper.” What do you think about that?
Fresh: I am THE Anime Rapper. There’s a lot of people that try it and do it well, but my purpose right now is to let all the kids know that you can be you, be cool, and love anime. Right now, I own that title. “Anime Rapper” – I own genre, I’ll take it. And I’m going to take it far.
JS: You recently graduated from Harvard and FGCU. How was being a student and an artist?
Fresh: It was amazing! It gave me space and time to grow up. I was like the regular college student, but as time went by, I would dedicate more of my free time to improve myself and my music and to network. I told myself that my music would blow up before I graduated, that I would be making money off of myself before then, and it happened. “Jojo Pose” happened while I was in school. It was because of the amount of time I put into my music that I achieved this goal.
JS: Do you think it’s valuable for artists to receive a higher education?
Fresh: It depends. Every single one of us on this earth is different and have different needs. School is evolving as we speak. I almost dropped out before an entrepreneur major was added at my school. I changed my major when I realized that this new area of study would actually help me propel my career forward. I think going to school is great because it allows you to be around and meet new people from different environments. However, maybe it’s not for you if you’re going to rack up so many loans and have trouble paying them back, especially if you don’t have any end goals for after college. It just depends on you.
“If you’re in it, if you meet people and really give it your all, it’ll be easier to make something out of whatever you’re doing in a school environment. The biggest thing is education. You don’t have to go to college to educate yourself on what you need, but college is another source to receive that education.”
JS: How does anime inspire you to create?
Fresh: I think anime is such a beautiful art form. It embodies so many different things from music to acting to artistic visuals. I think the biggest part about it is a lot of the philosophy and mindset – it instilled great values in me. A lot of animes are very purposeful; they taught me how to believe in myself and how to put myself out into the world. Now I’m doing that with my life, and anime showed me how to do it.
JS: What kinds of messages do you want to get across to your listeners?
Fresh: Believe in yourself like you’re the main character. It’s okay to be you, to believe in yourself, to give it your all. You’re safe.
JS: You’re anime focused right now – do you see your music changing in the future?
Fresh: I see myself showing more sides of me. I can really rap, and I can sing lowkey. I think the music is gong to evolve, but I’ll always throw out some anime bars here and there. I don’t know how far it’s going to go. I can definitely see my music in tv and films. I can see myself collaborating with Netflix and Crunchyroll. I want to act and build up businesses, just bridge all of these different worlds together. Anime will always be a part of it somewhere.
JS: Are you working on any projects that you can share with us?
Fresh: Yessss! I’m working on a project called “Life is Anime” that’s coming out December 4th, I believe. It’ll have a lot of fire anime tracks just back-to-back. It’s my best work I’ve ever done.
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