Lefty The Southpaw Making His Rap Dreams Come True

When Marcus Hill was playing baseball he had an uncle who used to call out for "Lefty" all the time. Marcus hit and threw righty but was ambidextrous and wrote with his left hand. Opponents would have no idea who this crazy guy was yelling for when he said "Lefty"

Now the Connecticut Rap scene doesn't know what's coming next from Marcus "Lefty the Southpaw" Hill. He grew up in Newington as a huge rap fan, listening to Biggie Smalls, Jay-Z the Wu Tang Clan and others but says rap music today is "unlistenable." 

He would write lyrics and post them to message boards where people online could read them. 

"The feedback on all the boards was always super positive and they would ask if I was recording any of the lyrics," said Hill, who now lives in Berlin. "Just like with anything I knew it would take a long time. I played sports growing up and I knew just like sports you have to figure out your style and for me, my sound."

Hill got a message from a promoter two years ago who said he could put him in clubs to perform if he could guarantee he could sell 20 tickets up front. So Hill, not knowing if he was ready or not, sold his allotted tickets and appeared at Vibz in Hartford. From that night, he was hooked.

"It all just felt like a tryout in the beginning," Hill said. "There were a few places in the state that would let unknowns get up and rap. I was getting on pretty regularly at The Shadow Room in Middletown and Zen Bar in Southington and Vibz in Hartford. Every time I was there I got great feedback from people. I sold some CDs and people seemed to like it."

Hill was then asked to do a verse or two on a few songs by a group called The Replacements. 

"I knew all the guys and one of the guys had a studio in his house which was great," he said. "I did my part and at the end they asked me if I wanted to join the group. The whole time I was working with them I was hoping they would ask me to join but I was playing it cool. Since then we have been playing out once or twice a weekend and doing really well."

The group play Up or on the Rocks in Hartford Saturday night.

Hill gets a check every few months from i-tunes because he initially put up music there as a solo artist. The Replacements and Hill's solo songs can also be heard at Soundcloud. 

Hill works for a property management company doing landscaping and tough manual labor.

"It's hard work and it's tough sometimes to have a really long or hot day at work and then go out and do a show at night," he said. "My motivation is to be able to do this full-time and I'm going to keep trying until I don't have to do both jobs. 

"We are all super realistic about this. We don't expect to make 100 million, that would be nice, but we don't expect it. We want to be able to do this full-time and have a comfortable life so we can provide for our families."

Hill and the other members of his group are all white. So is the stereotype tough on the all-white group in a world of mostly African-American rappers?

"It's a blessing and a curse," Hill said. "We have been at shows waiting to go up, especially in an urban setting, and people will be looking at us and hoping that we don't suck. There is a preconceived notion that is still there for sure but there have been enough white rappers who have done well that it's not as hard. I think it's a blessing sometimes because people will see us and have much lower expectations and then we blow them away."

To hear some of the The Replacement songs, you can go here or search Lefty on i-tunes. Warning explicit lyrics.