"You just don't become a leader in one year. You're prepped for it. When you're at your lowest -- but you got that faith -- that gives you motivation. And when you have that motivation, that's what makes you a leader," says Las Vegas native Dizzy Wright. Beyond his years at 22, Dizzy has been one of the first Sin City rappers to grab the spotlight and carry it across the globe.

"My mom kicked me out when I was 17," Dizzy reveals of the woman who both raised him and managed his career since childhood, "I was thrown out into the world." With a similar story to his inspiration, Tupac Shakur, he took to local clubs to build a network and fan-base by being both skilled and flashy. "I was all about getting people to know my name. I knew the vision, but I didn't know the gesture. You've got to live through this to get an understanding of it." Along the way, Wright says that life taught him to keep a tight circle and to be concerned with how his music sounded in venues just as much as the writing. That dichotomy of substance and swagger has made Dizzy Wright an independent charting sensation with three 2012 releases, "SmokeOut Conversations" (along with the 200,000 times downloaded promotional mixtape), as well as a follow-up EP, "The First Agreement." In turn, the youngest member of Funk Volume has been one of the most active.