Actual Proof

Originally founded by producers Amp and Sundown and later joined by Amp’s younger brother and emcee, Enigma, Actual Proof is North Carolina’s latest, fueled-up team of hip-hop heralds. Signed to 9th Wonder’s The Academy imprint, Actual Proof occupies an opportune space, receiving guidance, pointers and beats from a label head who was once part of Little Brother, another group with a producer.

This isn’t a case of upstarts trying to pick up where LB left off, though, as much as it is a group who looks around at each other at the end of each day’s recording session, smiles, continues to improve, and suddenly finds itself on-stage in front of several hundred fans they never imagined they would get. It’s how all great hip-hop groups are made, and Actual Proof shouldn’t be any exception, especially if they’re the overachievers they proclaim to be on the 9th-produced track “Genius.” Sundown warns his combatants, “You can’t step to him without a mortarboard/while I transform a metaphor, prime optimus/ Einstein rockin’ in my rare form." —Eric Tullis