Billions

Semin Topalovic, born in Germany in 1992, spent the first six years of his life in Mannheim, Germany with his Bosnian family as war refugees. In 1998, the family’s refugee visa expired, and they were kicked out by the German government. Minnesota had a good immigrant refugee sponsorship program that helped them come to the United States. The Twin Cities, Minnesota, is where Semin started getting into hip-hop. He started listening to hip-hop at the age of seven through his cousins’ influences. At this time, he listened to mostly Eminem and Dr. Dre and eventually all other popular hip-hop. In eighth grade, he met his current best friend, Ghaazi Wessman. The two connected because of their common passions in cars and business. Eventually, Semin started rapping as a hobby and was persuaded to create a career out of his rap skills. This is when he became known as “Billions”. He started off writing political rap and never was swayed away from that subject matter. Through his own political lyrics and agenda, he discovered the underground scene and the political rap that later inspired and heavily influenced his music. At the age of sixteen, he started his first project called “A Secret Worth Billions”. It took him three years to complete that album. Two years after he started his album project, Ghaazi and him invested into their own record label now called “East Bloc Records”. Billions is now working on more projects including a mixtape called “The Killing Fields” and another album.