Nomadik headed up river from Memphis, Tennessee, with his family when he was a teenager. Sonny Santino was born and raised in South Hampton, New Jersey, and eventually headed north as well. The two met in Buffalo, New York, when they were teenagers. It seemed like an unlikely place for a future hip-hop duo to have their first meeting, as Buffalo had not generated many successful music artists in many years. Rick James, who died in 2004, was the last one. So there was no local music scene for the two boys to grab a hold of.The duo learned their music making together, creating their own raps and exploring the arts of singing, writing and production. In fact, they were even required to discover the engineering side of things, as they had no local backup for their music. They were definitely going to have to work their way to the top, learning everything from scratch and doing quite a good job of it. Fortunately their hard work would pay off.When they were finally ready, and had produced enough songs to approach a record company, they chose Jive Records. The company asked them to leave their songs, but they would not go until their music had been heard. Their sound and skills grabbed the attention of Clive Davis and The Boss Playas had their first contract to sign. October 17, 2006 saw the release of It is What it Is. Their album is about money, partying and,of course, girls. The creative vision that they shared had gotten them to where they could launch their careers and now the public is just waiting to see what they will produce next.