Member-only story
Intro:
Smeen Shah, better known by his stage name SHA-G, is an international hip-hop artist from Toronto.
Early Life:
SHA-G was born in Scarborough, Toronto on February 7, 1997, to a Pakistani family. In his early childhood, he was raised in the city of Toronto, jumping between his maternal grandmother’s home in Scarborough and his mother’s apartment in the city of Toronto. SHA-G grew up on the streets of Yonge and St. Claire throughout the early 2000s while his father lived in Pakistan trying to gain American citizenship.
In 2002, SHA-G moved to Atlanta, Georgia with his family when his father arrived in the States. Living paycheck to paycheck, SHA-G had a front-row seat to his parents’ struggle as Pakistani immigrants living in a country post 9/11. His father was a taxi-driver, and his mother was actively trying to learn English while working at a local library. Shortly after moving to Atlanta, their no-frills apartment burned down in a terrible accident which caused further disruption to SHA-G’s childhood. In order to obtain financial stability, SHA-G was sent to live in Toronto again with his maternal grandmother as his primary caretaker. His parents decided to move closer to the Canadian border and found shelter in Niagara Falls, NY where SHA-G later joined them in 2006 with an American Green Card. He attended schools both in Toronto and in Buffalo, NY, but it wasn’t until he attended schools in Buffalo where he experienced extreme racism and islamophobia for the first time. While living in Niagara Falls, SHA-G was exposed to horrific living conditions where drug movement and gun violence was prominent in the area. As a result, SHA-G often returned to his grandmother’s home on the weekends in Toronto to seek solace from the violence and poverty he experienced.
Once his parents were financially stable, SHA-G moved to a small residential apartment in Grand Island, NY where he would finally obtain his American citizenship in 2017. He attended the local high school and the University at Buffalo where he was kicked out twice due to an undiagnosed learning disability. SHA-G would later obtain his bachelor’s degree in Psychology, proving all his critics wrong.
During his late adolescence, SHA-G found solace in rap music particularly listening to the works of…
