A3C Hip Hop Festival Blog

Artist Spotlight: Fokis

Written by Mike Walbert | Sep 29

Performing Live on Saturday, Oct 9th @ A3C

An innovative force, Fokis continues to forge his path towards success through the frontier of a technologically advanced world. Born William Heredia to Dominican parents, Fokis was raised on New York City’s Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was during these formative years that Fokis developed a love for music and a work ethic that placed him amongst hip hop’s hardest working entrepreneurs. Fokis began rhyming at an early age and later began to produce beats of his own. Seeking to enhance his career, Fokis pursued formal training as a recording engineer later opening his own recording studio Krystal Clear Recordings. There, Fokis has recorded and mixed records for many artists including Kool G Rap, Trife Diesel, Mic Geranimo, Bubba Sparxx and Rahsaan Patterson.

His passion and commitment to success literally placed him on the “Road to the Riches.” Early in his career, Fokis developed and produced an online reality show based on his own experience as an independent hip hop artist seeking to secure a record deal within a year’s time. Consistent with reality, the “Road to the Riches” did not result in Fokis signing a record deal. Not deterred, Fokis went on to release several albums collaborating with various established artists such as Joe Budden, Olu Dara (Nas' father), Deemi, Joell Ortiz and various producers such as Focus...(Aftermath Ent.) Charlemagne and Dahoud Darien. Through his persistence, Fokis independently distributed over twenty thousand compact discs and digital downloads combined. Projects like the “20/20” EP exclusively produced by Focus of Aftermath and “The Appetizer” LP with Punchline of eMC were well received by his fans.

Fokis has toured the United States, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic and performed as an opening act for Common, Busta Rhymes, M.O.P. the Beatnuts and many more. Through his experiences, Fokis has developed a relevant broad appealing style and sound that remains true to the core foundational elements of Hip Hop with a commercial appeal. Though achieving success distributing his own music, Fokis realized in this era it would take more than pursuing a career as a recording artist to rise to the level of success he sought to achieve. As his experience with the business side of the industry grew, Fokis seized upon the marketing facet of the industry and opened his digital media company Loyalty Digital Corp. Through Loyalty Digital Corp, Fokis has worked with various artists to develop, record and mix musical compositions and successfully market them online. In no time Fokis managed to develop a strong and diverse client base for Loyalty Digital Corp.

Working with that network, Loyalty Digital Corp. successfully produced and released two installations of “A Walk Through MySpace,” a musical collaborative effort of worldwide independent artists banding together to create a stronger market for their careers. Loyalty Digital’s success with its marketing campaigns resulted in multi platinum producer Ty Fyffe reaching out and together they developed an online competition called “Raw N Uncut” which enlisted hundreds of entrants. Fokis and Loyalty Digital’s many achievements have been recognized by not only many established industry members but also featured on various industry websites such as HipHopDX, NahRight, 2DopeBoyz, DubCNN and HipHopGame. In his own words Fokis states that he is “a dreamer, a visionary, and a grinder with a capital G.” True to his name, Fokis will remain focused so that his dreams and visions become reality!