ICON The Mic King

A chilling, complex, and yet still uplifting MC, iCON the Mic King has spent most of his rapping career unsigned, picking up fans from his highly touted live shows of which he completes nearly a hundred per year. Born Michael King in northern Philadelphia, iCON the Mic King was first inspired to rap at age 14 as a freshman in high school. By the time he was a computer science major at Howard University, iCON was a high-grade, formidable battle-rapper with many championships under his belt. College began to appeal less and less to him, and after being turned off by the nine-to-five way of living from an internship, he finally quit school in 2002 to devote all his energy to hip-hop. Before 2002, iCON already had made several appearances on underground rap compilations, but that year released his first 12", "Ahead of My Time," which featured rappers Tonedeff and his cousin, PackFM. He officially left the battle-rap circuit in 2003 and put resources towards building his short-lived imprint Indieground. His first full-fledged work of all new material was actually the Intricate Spectrum EP, which came in 2004. However, critics began to take more notice of the hard-working MC in 2007 with the release of Mike & the Fatman LP, a conceptual and collaborative effort with Demigodz producer Chum the Skrilla Guerilla.