Florida rapper Hi-Rez combined influences from the golden age of hip-hop with socially-conscious rhymes delivered at breakneck speeds, diving headfirst into his own music when he was a teenager and never letting up as time went by. Persistence resulted in several videos and singles with high streaming numbers, tours where the rapper both headlined and supported other acts, and non-stop music in the form of multiple mixtapes -- including 2011's breakthrough A Walk to Remember and 2013's first chart appearance Impatiently Waiting. In the late 2010s, he issued more fully realized studio albums like 2017's Missing Pieces and 2018's Humble but Hungry.

Hi-Rez was born Jesse Friedman in 1993 in the Bronx, New York. He quickly relocated to Fort Lauderdale, Florida where he got an early introduction to East Coast hip-hop from his older brother. Inspired by albums like Kanye West's The College Dropout, he began writing his own rhymes in his early teens, eventually taking it more seriously by his high school years and releasing early tracks online in 2010. His first mixtape, Early Release, was issued in 2011, and the songs already exhibited the high speed flows and East Coast influences that would later meld with the sunny, party energy of Florida production as his catalog grew. A 2011 single, "Smiling" -- built around a sample of M83's hit "Midnight City" -- was streamed in the millions and landed on his breakthrough release, A Walk to Remember.

During the next two years, his discography doubled in size with the tapes The Window, Lost Time, and Product of My Environment. Additionally, a five-track EP, Impatiently Waiting, became his first Billboard placement, reaching number 65 on the publication's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.

From 2014 through 2017, the rapper devoted much of his time to touring, issuing the 2016 mixtape Never Say Die, which featured verses from the likes of Riff Raff, Smoke DZA, and Masta Ace. His official debut album, Missing Pieces, arrived in 2017 amid a series of one-off tracks and new mixtape material, and was followed the next year by Humble But Hungry. That set included "We Want Change," written in response to the mass shooting that February at his alma mater, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Among the victims were his cousins Nick and Alexander Dworet, the former of whom was killed.

In July 2019, Hi-Rez returned with the full-length Only for the Fans: The Album, which made the Top Ten of Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart and peaked at number 28 on the Independent Albums list. Forgive Regret quickly followed in 2020. Subsequent singles grew increasingly political, with Hi-Rez offering social commentary through singles such as "Woke Up," "Make God Cool Again," "The Vaccine," "Programmed," and "This Is a War." In 2021, he teamed with Tech N9ne, Twista, Bizzy Bone, and more on the tongue-twisting group cut "Overdrive." ~ Andy Kellman & Fred Thomas, Rovi