Made in America

My name's Will Goff III. I'm one-third creative, one-third strategist, and one-third Slytherin—though the Sorting Hat was keen on placing me in Ravenclaw.

With roots anchored in Itta Bena, Mississippi, my family ventured north to Chicago's South Side—most of them by 1969—carrying with them the indelible grit forged on a cotton plantation, where labor wasn't a choice but a necessity. They didn't bring much, but they carried an abundance of unshakable resolve to build something greater.

They encouraged me to imagine and immerse myself in anything that sparked my curiosity, especially if it kept me away from the ruckus of the streets. So, I read. I tinkered. I played, a bit too much, and gravitated toward two worlds: Hip-Hop and its cadre of musicians and poets, and my Dell 2400 Pentium desktop. That clunky 2005 machine, with all its hums and whirs, became my portal to a digital diaspora—the beats, the verses, the ethos of Hip-Hop funneled through 2DopeBoyz and The Smoking Section. It fueled my fervor for the performative and visual arts, merging with a zeal for technology that transformed my screen into a stage, my keyboard into a bridge between worlds.

I obsessed over how things worked. Painstakingly assembling my first computer—and accidentally setting it on fire—taught me the intricacies of hardware and the balance required for everything to function. Separate from that, I spent hours organizing the metadata of every track from LimeWire and DatPiff, ensuring my MP3 player displayed the correct song name, artist, and album art. It wasn’t just about being organized—it was about recognizing the systems that made everything tick. I saw this same attention to structure in my favorite artists: Kanye meticulously layered his 808s, snares, and tom-toms, and Drake’s flow followed a careful syncopation. Systems weren’t barriers to creativity; they were the backbone.