Mike Stud: Back 2 You Tour

Mike Stud's entry into music started with a crushing, life-changing blow. With dreams of being a major
league pitcher, the Rhode Island native was on the fast track to a career in baseball. He earned Louisville
Slugger Player of the Year honors in high school, scored a full athletic scholarship to Duke University and
was selected as an All-American during his freshman year. And then it was over.
After requiring Tommy John Surgery, his elbow never quite rebounded. "It felt like it never really healed
completely. I was pitching and it was clear I just wasn't as good anymore."
But while sidelined from the mound, he started tinkering with Garageband. He crafted "College Humor,"
a witty ode to undergrad hedonism as a lighthearted distraction from his sluggish recovery in 2010. The song
quickly took off.
"We would play it at the baseball parties and our teammates liked it. The bars at school would start to
play it. I went into that video thinking it would be the first and last video I ever shot," he remembered. "But
it went viral. It went from nothing at all to 100,000 views in a month." "College Humor" has since been
viewed more than 1.4 million times.
He continued to roll out more YouTube visuals – from his early tunes "In This Life" and "Happy Ending" to
a remix of Justin Bieber's hit "Boyfriend" – that astoundingly logged millions of views.
His first mixtape, 2011's A Toast To Tommy (a reference to the surgery that ended his career before it
began), pulled off a remarkable Top 5 debut on the worldwide and U.S. iTunes Hip-Hop albums charts.
In 2012 he launched a sold-out, 20-city tour – another impressive feat for an independent act with zero
previous music experience. By the time he dropped his debut effort, 2013's Relief, he was a rising star pulling
the sort of crowds and video views that established acts would envy.
Relief showed Mike trading out fratboy rhymes for meatier substance. The album traced his rise from All-
American college pitcher to his career-ending injury and his rebirth as a rapper. It reached No. 1 on iTunes
Hip-Hop albums charts and, along with his formidable tour figures, forced labels to ask, "Who is Mike
Stud?"
Closer, his newly released sophomore effort released on Electric Feel Music, will undoubtedly change
things for Mike Stud, as the rapper launched his #StudSummer Tour just days after the album's arrival.
What's more, the album's first single "Closer" made major waves on Rhythmic Top 40 Radio, developing
quickly at the format. "I'm somebody who had one door closed, and I found another outlet," he said. "If I
never got hurt, I would have never made a song ... I now look back on something that was such a low point
in my life to a turning point for the better. I try to project that in my music."
Stud will have a new album dropping Fall 2015 and will be embarking on a massive tour at the top of 2016
to support his new release.