We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Luis Dominguez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Luis, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

When i was younger I was always watching movies both animated & live action and some of my favorite things to watch were musicals i love the songs they had in musical so much I would listen to them on the daily around 9th grade was when I was really going through some personal stuff and I didn’t know how to express it since I didn’t wanna go to anyone to talk about so I just decided to write a song about it which became my first song “God Damn Mind” after writing that song It made me feel good expressing what I felt at the time so then when decided to write more songs use different beats and came out with my first mixtape “The Negative Attitude EP” which going back to it it was amazing but good start after that I would keep going and keep on writing went through a few more things then came around and released my next mixtape “Floatation” which going back to it it only has a couple of songs other than that the tape was pretty bad After that I wanted to work on my craft more to see where I could improve as an artist, so after a year of working, I would release, in my opinion, one of my best mixtapes so far, “Just Gotta Wait,” which had better writing, different styles, & mixes with different genres of rap, and I think it came out great. After a year or so, I’ve released more mixtapes, some being better than others, with my last mixtapes being “Meanwhile…1&2,” and now I’ve just been dropping a few. As of now

My new album, at least on the lyrics side of things, “The Flatcaps LP,” is done, and I’m just trying to find a good time to start recording, and I do think this album will be better than my last, but in order to improve my craft, I really had to dive more into hip-hop, both old and new, and find what really inspires me on why I’m doing this. You need to find your inspiration when it comes to these things; otherwise, why are you doing this? Because it looks cool, because that’ll fade pretty quickly, but if you find your inspiration and why you’re doing what you’re doing, you can make whatever you want. the coolest thing in the world, so cool it’s never going to fade; it’ll live on forever, even after you & I pass.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Luis Dominguez. I’m an underground Houston rapper trying to make it big and bring my hometown, Alief, TX, the glory and put it on the map of hip-hop. I was always into music and even wrote lyrics back in 7th grade that I never put out. I really got into rapping in 9th grade and started realizing that this was something I really enjoyed doing and would probably want to do as a full-on career, so ever since 2022, I’ve been writing and making raps. Ever since, I feel like what makes me different from other rappers right now is that I’m more honest in my songs, whether it comes off as rude or not. I express what the outcasts of the world are like, or the people who never had a lot. Growing up, how do they feel about the world nowadays, how do they feel about new music, and how do they feel about discrimination? How they feel about the people who think they’re above us ’cause they got the money, I just feel like, damn, somebody’s gotta call these dudes out, and that’s what I’m going to do, like it or not.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

To look more into the underground and not just look into it when you see one artist that’s popping off at the moment, because sure, they’re hot right now, but how long till they’re cold as a popsicle again? I’ve seen other underground artists, some with amazing potential, but they can’t really go beyond because, like me, they’re not lucky enough to have money for a manager or the money to promote their music nationwide. I’m being for real; these labels really gotta look deeper because, trust me, some of us are bringing the most dope shit you’ll ever hear, so dope it’ll stay dope forever.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Honestly, to be the king of hip-hop is not my goal. I see that as a goal I can never reach; my goal isn’t to be the goat of hip-hop but the goat of Texas. I want to be known as the greatest Houston rapper to ever do it, so great that they’ll be putting me on their top five Houston artists. I want to put my city on the map of hip-hop where it can live on forever. I want to bring my city something the city couldn’t even bring it. You feel me? Like, after I die, years later, someone will bring me up like, Yeah, Flatcups is super dope. He’s the one who inspired me to do this rap shit. He’s the king of Houston, you know?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/Flatcups
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/f1atcups?igsh=MXdrOTNra2xrcm43Nw==
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61554860683901&mibextid=ZbWKwL
• Twitter: https://x.com/F1atcups?t=1D-0mQ-1ha3ygIBsaJJqZw&s=09
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@f1atcups
• Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/mevidCDofaPLpBrh8
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/144qqW1uYpJTHAbQWah5ZY?si=OlayQxxcRM2OQp4K91EL1g

  https://music.apple.com/us/artist/flatcups/1636608925?ls