Sleep (rapper)

Tafoya grew up in the small town community of Farmington, New Mexico. He is of Mexican descent.^[7] At the age of five, Sleep was already rapping and b-boying with his friends and relatives in the small town, with himself naming Run DMC as an important influence when he first began.^[8][9]

Tafoya comes from a family with deep roots in New Mexico music and broadcasting. His great-grandfather Ernesto Tafoya was among the first Spanish-speaking radio personalities on CBS Radio in New Mexico. His grandfather, Richard "Dick" Tafoya, was a saxophonist and combo leader in Albuquerque during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and was later inducted into the New Mexico Music Hall of Fame.^{[citation needed]} His grandmother Marcella Tafoya (née Padilla) also performed with her band "Marcy and the Talk Abouts." His uncle, Alfonso "Pal Al" Tafoya, was a prominent radio disc jockey and program director at KLOS-1450 in Albuquerque in the late 1950s, known for his evening show "Night Train."^[10][11]

In addition to the hip hop he heard early on, his father was a former bass player for blues musician Gatemouth Brown, and would play a wide array of music, from Mariachi, to blues, to rock. Sleep also grew up with seven other brothers who all played musical instruments and had a grandfather who was also a multi instrumentalist.^[12] Entering the world of rap, he felt that his talents as both an MC and a writer were overly slept on, hence the creation of his name Sleep.^[13][14]

Growing up in New Mexico, Sleep went to the same school as Onry Ozzborn, which led them to meet Pale Soul.^[15] Together, they formed the group Oraclez Creed, which would later become Oldominion after combining with Frontline (Destro, Nyqwil, and Snafu).^[16] After the join, the massive Pacific Northwest hip hop collective grew to over twenty members.^[17]

Sleep's style has been described as "having intricate rhyme schemes and rapid-fire delivery," with his lyrics being both witty and personal.^[29][30]