Pinoy Hiphop Superstar: Russel aka pryd

Russell Llantino, better known by his stage name RUSSELL and formerly Pryde and D-Pryde, is a Canadian rapper from Brampton, Ontario, and is based out of Toronto, Ontario.

Llantino started releasing rap tracks online at the age of fourteen, and decided to pursue rapping as a professional hobby . Start making music at early age with his cousin Chachu.[7][8] Many of his rap tracks are uploaded onto YouTube, many of which are accompanied with music videos. At the age of sixteen, Pryde was signed to underground record label Mars Music Group in July 2010,[9][10] in which he released his first mixtape through the label entitled MARS on June 3, 2011. MARS features Toronto based recording artist and record producer August Rigo, who also produced a track on the mixtape. In July 2011, Pryde was featured on RapCity, where he shot his music video.[11]

Starting on August 23, 2011, Pryde embarked on his first tour around Canada, where he performed along with rapper J. Cole. The tour first started at the Vogue Theatre in Vancouver, British Columbia, and subsequently at venues in Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta, and then Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Winnipeg, Manitoba; Toronto and London, Ontario, and then finishing off on September 7, 2011, at a venue in Montreal, Quebec.[12] As of late December 2012, he is signed to record label, BMG. On July 9, 2013 Pryde released an EP under BMG entitled “Canal and Richvale”.[13] The EP includes a collaboration with August Rigo in the song ‘Ridin Thru LA”. There is a CD version of the EP available in Canada and New York which features two bonus songs. ‘Bottom Dollar” which is available on the “Flagship” mixtape, and “Rollin'”, which is exclusive to the CD.

On October 13, 2014, Pryde announced his mixtape “Plan A” via his music video, “Bitches and Gold”. It was originally set to be released on February 2, 2015, but in his video “Foolish Heart”, it was announced to be released on March 2, 2015. The first single off Plan A was “Low Key”, released on February 10, 2015. On March 2, 2015, Plan A was released via Datpiff with overall downloads of 10,000. Plan A was released independently. The tape recollects the many personal struggles and scrutiny Pryde has faced in the industry throughout his career thus far.

Pryde previously recorded his music at the Mars Music Studio on Canal Street in Chinatown, Manhattan, New York. He has since moved back to Toronto and now records his music and music videos there.[3][14]

Llantino’s mother, Rosalie Llantino died from cancer on April 9, 2015, after suffering for more than three years. He went on to release “Rest Of My Life” on YouTube in her memory.

As of May 14, 2015, Llantino announced that he was changing his rap alias to Pryde instead of D-Pryde, saying that “[he] felt D-Pryde wasn’t hitting well and didn’t sound easy to remember, nor did it sound as cool as [he] thought it did 3 years ago. So with that being said, [I’m] dropping the unreasonable and unnecessary D from [my] name.” On May 26, he released his first song as Pryde called “Day One” and at the end of the video, it was announced that his new EP would be released on June 3, 2015 called Richvale Summer.[15] Now he has a LP coming out called Russell. And also a mixtape before the LP, coming out after much pushback on the Russell LP. On March 25, 2016 Pryde released the mixtape, I Don’t Belong Here.[16] Afer a commercial success on “I don’t belong here”, Pryde began gearing up to release his debut LP, Russell. On February 13 he released his project “Loverboy.”

source: Wikipedia