-By Nate Brown Many of the houses are vacant on the street, with windows boarded or nonexistent and gang tags marking the exteriors and laying claim to the half-empty neighborhood. An old school building, long abandoned, sits defiantly in the rough area on the east side of Cleveland, its parking lot full. On a cold, slushy MLK Day evening, what used to be a school gymnasium is lit by holiday lights of green, orange, blue, red and pink. A state-of-the art mixing board adds to the hazy glow illuminating the large, open room. Like a gunpowder haze over a recent battlefield, sweetly acrid smoke-saturated air seems to vibrate to the beat of the bass emanating from surrounding speakers. Wearing a dark University of Pennsylvania hooded sweatshirt and light-blue jeans, Celeb Forever stands in the recording booth he’s called home for several weeks. His latest attempt on the second verse of a new song called “PNC,” which stands for something unsuitable for print and comes off his upcoming mixtape “Make Believers,” is being played back over the studio speakers. After some discussion with the sound engineer, Celeb tells him to take the track from the top: He’s going in again. Cleveland has seen its hip-hop profile rising nationally over the past several years, with acts like Kid Cudi, Ray Cash, Chip Tha Ripper and Machine Gun Kelly garnering commercial and critical success. The 21-year-old rapper and producer wants to be the next Cleveland sensation. During its recent renaissance, the Cleveland rap scene has thematically eschewed played-out gangster bravado in favor of “real hip-hop,” rhyming about life with its trials and triumphs authentically playing out over dirty beats. Celeb Forever embodies this refreshing sincerity, with each of his four (soon to be five) mixtapes clearly genuine in representing the different states of mind an emerging rapper might experience. If you’ve listened closely, you’ve heard him attack his early adult years with tenacity and literally heard him grow up over dope beats and rhymes, being as he says, “me.” As he’ll tell you, at 21, he’s right where he’s always wanted to be. Born Lorenzo Asher in Philadelphia, Celeb migrated to Ohio at the age of 5, and that’s when his love affair with music began. “I started playing the keyboard when I was 5,” says Celeb, “and not too long after that I started recording.” It was at the tender age of 8 that he was introduced by an uncle to the music of Jay-Z and others; the impact it had on him at an early age resonates today. “He let me listen to, like, Nas, Illmatic and shit,” he said, “and I was just like, ‘Shit is just crazy!’ I want to be a part of this, man. Like, it’s who I am.” Young by any standards, Celeb has an ambitious vision for his future. Considering some of the artists he’s already worked with, such as Curren$y, XV, Donnis and Rick Ross, among others, fellow rappers should be nervous. “In the next three years, people will listen to me and be like, ‘This guy just makes great music,’” he said. He aims for this reality by truly owning the music released with his name on it. Hip-hop superstars like Kanye West and J. Cole have created unique sounds by producing many of the beats they rhyme so successfully over, and Celeb seeks to do likewise, wanting to be constantly “crafting a song that’s like no one else’s.” To distinguish himself, the rapper and emerging producer, who seems to never lack a smile, says, “What we’re trying to do is incorporate classical music and bass-driven hip-hop with, like, futuristic imaging, samples and shit. It’s going to be a completely different sound. People are going to be like, ‘What is this shit?’” This shift to full-service musician has been long coming, “I started on Fruity Loops [a recording program], man, when I was like 10, you know, as soon as it came out. That’s how I used to make money, by selling beats.” On the upcoming “Make Believers” mixtape, listeners will finally gain insight into his comprehensive musical vision. With a work ethic that’s about to produce his fifth mixtape in just two years now unleashing itself upon the entire recording process, Celeb Forever looks to be a hip-hop force repping Cleveland nationwide. “I want my shit to sound a certain way, and you know what they say: ‘You want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.’”