A young, up-and-coming rap artist walks the halls of Community. Most know him as Talin Khanna, but few people know his rap alter ego, Talin B Ballin’. While he is only a novice to the rap game, he takes it very seriously and is always looking to improve. Khanna only began to gather interest in rap and creating his own music earlier this school year. For him, Community’s poetry class was a gateway into rap. While not an avid listener, Khanna occasionally listens to Drake and some Eminem here and there.

After encouragement from friends, peers and fans, he decided to make his own music in the form of a “fire” mixtape. Currently, Khanna is about one month into his mixtape creation. The process is fairly simple, but can be quite time consuming. First, he types out each rap. Most take up roughly a page and last about a minute and a half. He often asks others for their opinions on his work. “I send them snippets of each one and they give me some tips on how to improve,” Khanna said. From there, he uses apps such as Rapchat and Smule to find beats and eventually record.  

Khanna is widely known throughout the freshman class. “He’s like LeBron James in the studio,” said Cortez Thomas, a fellow student, friend of Khanna and basketball superstar. “He can dunk on a ten foot hoop.” Khanna stands at a whopping 5’4″ and has a 7” vertical leap. It’s safe to say he’s dropping buckets on the court and in the studio.

Khanna says we can expect his mixtape, “The Rise of Talin B Ballin” on March 27, complete with up to nine tracks. However, this is a rough date as he is often busy with school and other extracurriculars. Don’t expect much explicit language. “I use [swear words] a little. I’m trying to cut them out, that way I can show it to more people,” he said. “I think when most artists use it though, that it’s good.” As for price, it will range from three to five dollars. However, if you are broke, have no worries because he is pondering putting the tracks up on Soundcloud after the initial release. This way, no one will miss out on the musical experience of the year.

No one knows for sure where Khanna will go from here, but Thomas has hinted at a collaboration. “It’s called ‘Oreo Cookie.’ You can expect it in April,” he said. It is rumored to have almost 300 songs.