Nickname by Qadir?

[RisingStar]

Something that always seemed odd to me was the existence of the song Nickname by Qadir on The Beat 102.7. The song has always been pretty awesome for me, and I can never unhear the way he says "I got a nickname for all my guns!". It's just all-around badass, so naturally I've looked up the Qadir - Nickname on the internet before to listen to outside GTA IV. That's when it gets a little weird.

 

Specifically, how Nickname is the only song by "Qadir", and there's actually no proof this artist actually exists. Nickname was created for GTA IV specifically, and has a music video that was made to promote it back then (the one up there, sorry that it's in low quality but it's the only one I can find). There's literally no other song, or credit, of this Qadir, which I wonder what's up with that.

 

Is there any known info on this? Is Qadir an alternate name for a real world rapper, a R* employee that volunteered to do it, someone who won a contest, or something else? For years this seemed weird but being a kid back then I didn't really look into it (and it was a lot harder to find very specific info in general back then), but after listening to the song again and still wondering about it, I hope to set the record straight once and for all.

[DOUGL4S1]

Quadir Lateef is the guy's real name. He has a YouTube channel with a few other songs (but no Nickname).

 

AFAIK most songs on The Beat were made by smaller artists, either specifically for GTA IV or released along with the game.

[RisingStar]

1 minute ago, DOUGL4S1 said:

Quadir Lateef is the guy's real name. He has a YouTube channel with a few other songs (but no Nickname).

 

AFAIK most songs on The Beat were made by smaller artists, either specifically for GTA IV or released along with the game.

Most songs were made by major East Coast players at the time (some of which well-known outside of it, others not) with some from the South and Midwest. But regardless of their fame, they still very clearly existed, which made Qadir's anonymity even more jarring.

 

But thanks for that share. Still, that channel only has 3K subscribers and was made in 2012. I wonder what's the full story with Nickname and how it got into GTA IV.