Taco Hemingway

Filip Tadeusz Szcześniak (born July 29, 1990), better known by the stage name Taco Hemingway (earlier FV), is a Polish rapper, songwriter, and musician.

Filip Szcześniak was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1990.

At the age of 2, he moved with his parents from Egypt to Guangzhou, China.

Initially, he attended an English preschool before transferring to a Chinese preschool, where he experienced communication problems due to differences in culture and language.

Upon finishing preschool, Szcześniak and his family moved to Warsaw in 1996, where he experienced little to no difficulties in school while simultaneously developing his bilingualism from his early years.

In an interview with Metro Warszawa, Szcześniak stated that he spoke English with his mother and sister and that he spoke in Polish with his father.

He listened to various rap artists with his father, developing his passion for the rap genre.

His parents divorced in 2004.

Szcześniak completed his studies at Prywatne Gimnazjum nr 1 and Copernicus Bilingual High School in Warsaw, where he met his future producer, Maciej Ruszecki.

He is also a graduate of cultural studies at the University of Warsaw.

He began recording in 2011, at which time he released - under the pseudonym Foodvillain - an English-language mixtape entitled Who Killed JFK. A year later, he adopted the pseudonym Taco Hemingway, under which he released the English-language EP Young Hems.

In 2012, he began studying for a master's degree in anthropology in University College London.

While studying in London, he wrote lyrics for his mixtape entitled Who Killed JFK.

He began posting his first songs on YouTube, using the alias Foodvillain at the time.

The rapper unsuccessfully tried to pursue music making as well.

He rapped in English on illegally downloaded MF Doom beats in his friend's basement.

In his lyrics he referred to the work of rappers such as Childish Gambino or Jay-Z.

The project itself did not meet with much publicity.

On December 26, 2013, he released his English-language EP titled Young Hems via Bandcamp.

The artist adopted the pseudonym Taco Hemingway, which was taken from the football game FIFA, in which he played under such a pseudonym.

The material was recorded in Brussels in the basement of his mother's house at the time.

The album again did not receive much publicity.

The rapper was initially employed in the advertising industry, but abandoned it in favor of becoming an English translator, and in the meantime he was writing his second EP.

In 2014, he released a second EP, this time recorded in Polish, titled Trójkąt warszawski.

The album brought the musician publicity, thanks to which he joined the label Asfalt Records, under which he released a re-release of Trójkąt warszawski and a new EP entitled Umowa o dzieło.

These, as well as subsequent albums released on the label, made the rapper famous, and he quickly became one of the most popular musicians in Poland.

He has sold over 400,000 albums in Poland, making him one of the best-selling rappers in Poland.

Almost every rapper's album can be downloaded for free from his website.

The most successful was the joint album with Quebonafide, titled Soma 0.5 mg, which was sold in over 150 thousand copies.

Also successful were the albums Szprycer, Marmur and Pocztówka z WWA, Lato '19.

For the sale of albums he repeatedly received the certificate of platinum, gold and diamond records.

He created hits such as "6 zer", "Następna stacja", "Deszcz na betonie", "Polskie Tango", "Tamagotchi" or "Nostalgia", which all went trending on YouTube with millions of views shortly after release.

On December 19, 2014, his second re-released EP, titled Trójkąt warszawski, was released.

The album was made available as a free digital stream on his YouTube channel and as a free download on the rapper's official website.

He has been nominated for the Fryderyk Awards thirteen times between 2016 and 2020, including four times as a winner in the hip-hop Album of the Year category (for the albums Umowa o dzieło, Szprycer, Soma 0,5 mg, Pocztówka z WWA), including being the only artist to win the award three times in a row and being the only rapper nominated and awarded in the Song of the Year category.

He was also nominated for the MTV Europe Music Awards in the Best Polish Artist category and Empik's Bestsellers in the Polish Music, Hip-Hop Music and Streaming categories.

However, the musician does not pay much attention to the awards, and he did not collect any of them.

He was ranked 10th on the list of Most Influential Poles 2019 by Wprost.

He is the first Polish artist whose songs have been played over a billion times on the streaming platform Spotify.

Despite his immense popularity, the rapper does not spend much time in the media, rarely giving interviews and not appearing in advertisements.