Five guys sit on computer chairs in a sky blue room surrounding a Dell Dimension. The boys listen to different instrumentals and vibe until they find the right one. They freestyle and listen, freestyle and listen, freestyle and listen, until finally three to five hours have passed and everything has come out right.
A group of five seniors consisting of Erick “Fly Guy” Harvey, who cracks the most jokes, Davion “Davo the Deviant” Stewart, who talks the most, Garland “Galaxy” Allen, who is calm the most, Quincy “Q” Sharp who dresses the best and Greg “Gizzie Gizmo” Shinell, the most quiet, but who is also rumored by the group to get the most ladies, created their own rap group.
These five boys call themselves Sayga Team but are still individual artists. Sometimes they perform together, and at times solo. Stewart is the producer and chorus writer of the group, Harvey is the lyricist and who they consider to be the best rapper of their group. The rest add their own creative voices to help inspire the lyrics and add their personal touches to the raps.
Stewart always rocks his teal Hornets hat, Sharp wears his clear sunglasses, Allen and Shinell proudly let their rosaries sway around their neck, and Harvey is rarely seen without a backward cap. Sayga Team has their own style and swag, but according to them they are criticized for it. Yet, they still manage to overcome the hate and create songs such as, “Relieve The Pain.”
“[‘Relieve the Pain’] tells everything about us, like how people hate on us,” Stewart said. “It shows our desire to keep succeeding.”
Their first song, “Swag Watch Me Cook,” currently has 43,302 views on YouTube. According to them, the song is a hate magnet. They say it is not their best, but it has garnered them publicity.
“People think we cannot rap because of that song, but they don’t realize that was just to get noticed,” Stewart said. “If we do everything right, we could really make it big because the song got so many views already.”
Instead of talking about the usual rap topics of sex, drugs, alcohol and money, Sayga Team focuses on representing their interpretation of the St. Louis teenage life.
“We talk about our swag and make the whole teenage picture come together. We are showing people how we have fun in St. Louis,” Stewart said. “We’re trying to bring it back since Nelly [is] gone.”
For Sayga Team, the negative comments, the stares in the halls, and the judgments around them amount to nothing compared to their dream of creating music. Fighting the pressure of fitting in, these five individual rappers, acting as one, have realized what is important.
