VCU student brings rap, experience back from Iraq

Spc. Phillip Harris Jr., 23, went from being a normal VCU student to going into the crossfire of the Sunni Triangle. But through it all the door of opportunity has opened for him through music.

Back in 2003, Harris, who hails from Dinwiddie, was a junior on the campus of VCU pursuing a degree in music. He was living the life of a normal college student on scholarship for his talents. But after a friend died in the terrorist attacks on New York in 2001 and with his bank account running low, he turned to the armed forces for help.

“September 11th made me want to join the armed forces,” he said. “A friend of mine was killed in the Twin Towers, and I also wanted extra money for college. I guess I got more than I anticipated, but it’s a move I don’t regret.”

Harris left school, and his first overseas tour of duty was in South Korea. He served there for eight months and then was assigned with the 2nd Infantry Division to Iraq in a place called Ar Ramadi, west of Baghdad. It was there where his life changed indelibly.

“In Iraq, we were stationed in the Sunni Triangle, which is the hottest area of Iraq,” he said. “The unit I was in, the 2nd Infantry Division, we lost the most soldiers in Iraq since they started the actual war.”

While stationed in Korea, Harris became a certified Emergency Medical Technician and currently is an E-4 specialist in the armed forces. He was in the line of fire every time he went into battle with a fellow soldier from his unit.

“I’m a certified EMT, and I was the infantry medic,” he said. “So, the guys that were kicking doors open and pulling triggers, I was right there with them. When they got hurt, I was the first round of medical care available to them. So, I had to patch my soldiers up who were shot.”

As a medic, he estimates he treated about a dozen wounded comrades during different events in Iraq.

“There were a few with gunshot wounds, but mostly the wounds were from shrapnel from roadside bombs,” he said. “We dealt with a lot of trauma.”

Harris had his father, Phillip Harris Sr., to look toward as a tower of strength before leaving to go to Korea and Iraq.

“My father was in the military for 22 years, so he knew that I had to do what I had to do,” Harris said. “He was concerned, but at the same time he prayed a lot for me.”

During the time he was in Iraq, Harris sought refuge in the very thing he loves – music. Whatever free time he had he devoted to making music. He and seven of his comrades formed a group and put on shows for his fellow soldiers.

“We had a little performance at a cookout,” he said. “The first show had 400 soldiers there, and the second show we put on we had over 500 soldiers out there. Basically, everyone who wasn’t out there fighting and on a mission, they were there being entertained by us. Because people like Britney Spears, 50 Cent and Jay-Z weren’t coming out there to perform for us. We had to find a way to entertain ourselves.”

Harris found a degree of solace in producing music for him and his comrades. His camp commanders allowed him the time to record and perform his music. Every day tested their mental, physical and emotional fortitude on and off of the battlefield. He produced many songs due to all the emotions he was going through.

“We easily recorded over 100 songs in Iraq,” he said. “If we weren’t in the field fighting, the little down time we had, we were in the studio recording. There wasn’t a lot of free time out there, but the time we had, we made the most of it. The music kept me sane out there. It was really stressful, and it took a toll on me. But the music helped me keep my mind off the fact I was in Iraq.”

Harris recounted the story behind the creation of the group’s 15-by-15-foot studio in Iraq.

“We built the studio out of scrap wood,” he said. “We took wood from the camp that we built up. .We soundproofed the booth with old mattresses by cutting them up, and the equipment we got was sent in to us. That took about eight months for the equipment to get there and for the studio to be finished.”

Harris has been playing the drums since the age of 12. He started playing in his middle school band and in the church choir. He was the drum line captain of his band at Dinwiddie High School from ninth grade to twelfth grade. He plays 30 percussion instruments, the piano, the keyboard, the trumpet and trombone.

Harris returned from Iraq last August and has been hard at work promoting the music he crafted while deployed in Iraq. Before being sent out to his current residence at U.S. Fort Myers, an army base in Denver, he had two stories published about him in the Progress-Index newspaper and the Mideast edition of Stars and Stripes, a military newspaper.

He was featured in a story on the Richmond CBS affiliate in August when he returned home. In Colorado, he has been on the NBC and CBS affiliate stations performing the music he produced in Iraq. He has been creating new music and selling his own CDs and DVDs.

He’s currently working on a new DVD titled “Live from Iraq,” which captures the harsh images of war and what he had to go through in Iraq.

All of his hard work has garnered attention from some of the top music labels in the country.

“There’s finally some major labels that are interested in my project such as Koch Records, Asylum Records and TVT Records,” he said. “But I can’t disclose all the details with that. I recorded all of our concerts over there; we shot a music video in Iraq showing real footage of what was going on over there. That’s what has these labels interested in me as well as my music talents.”

Through it all, he said he wouldn’t change a thing from his VCU experience to his Iraqi experience.

“I remember when I used to eat at Hibbs, and I used to complain at Hibbs that the pizza was dry,” he said. “I went to Iraq and I ate meatloaf that tasted like Alpo for a month straight, and I wished that I was back at Hibbs. But everything happens for a reason. It has helped me mature as a man. It has made me look at the world differently and not take things for granted. I want to pursue my career whether it’s in the music field or medical field and hopefully reap the benefits of my hard work.”