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I.M.Me - Mike Shafer
I.M.Me - Mike Shafer
SALT LAKE CITY This was the proving ground of Mike Shafer and
where he still resides, but to go on a journey, you dont always have to
travel far.
The 24-year-old lives with his Dad and brothers in their taxidermy
service shop in West Valley, Utah. It is a small business next to a boat
shop in a very industrial part of town. There is a gas station on the
corner down from the boat shop and a few others businesses around
the surrounding blocks. The familys shop is converted into a home
with a few small bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. In the back
hang foam carvings of mountain lion. Taxidermy animal heads and
bodies are mounted everywhere, scaling the walls. The place is small
and humble, but comfy.
His family started the small service and now they all work to keep it
going and bring in a lot from the business. They do fishing and hunting
of their own for recreation. A couple of the boys in the family, including
Shafer, are also firemen. Just accepted late last year to the fire
From there he created rap groups with friends, battling and recording
in friends basements over beats on old tape players. Over time he left
the group and stopped battling as well. The battles were dirty and
wrong because people always got destroyed and it often created
enemies. Threats came from enemies who sometimes would follow him
after school, flashing a pistol hid underneath their shirts.
Shafer clearly remembers one time he was battling between him and
his friends. His older brother was also present who made an impact on
him from that day on.
At the end of it I asked him what he thought, thinking I was pretty bad
cuz I felt like I won the battle, and I remember him telling me
something that hit me hard, and I realized he was right.
Mark, Shafers older brother who first influenced his interest in rap,
said, I told him at the end of that battle, thats not who you are. He
was getting involved in some not so good stuff that I knew wasnt
really who he was.
Mike quit battling and decided to make his own music, his way, from
there on out, but it still continued to be a dark time. His life consisted
of smoking weed, huffing air wicks, doing graffiti, and rapping,
primarily with only one friend. They would skip school and go rap at his
friends cousins house with cheap computer software programs using
ten dollar USB microphones from Wal-Mart. Around senior year of high
school his friend and others got involved in more serious drugs. Shafer
fortunately distanced himself from his friends and spent a lot of time
down by the Jordan River thinking about his life, change, and what he
truly wanted.
The other major pivot point that came along, along with his brothers
perspective, was good friends from the LDS Church.
I met some good friends that where church going type people, and I
was a member but didn't like it much. I felt pretty awkward in a crowd
of goody goods, but the truth is I had nobody else to hang out with.
Eventually, Shafer met a girl whom he fell in love with, and also served
a two-year LDS mission in order to bring others happiness that he had
found himself within the gospel. But after those two years things had
changed between he and his girlfriend. Out of anger towards her and
God, he would beat his punching bag until his knuckles bled. He was
angry that God had take away something he loved so much after he
felt he had chose to do the right thing by serving a mission.