 During the late 1990s, Nick Speed formed a hip-hop crew called 9-2-5 Colony with classmates Magestik Legend and iLLite, both of whom would go on to become part of the Subterraneous Records stable of artists.While still in high school, Speed and Magestik spent a significant amount of time with DJ House Shoes, who assisted them with their first production experiments while also introducing them to other like-minded artists in the Detroit hip-hop community.Among these artists were Elzhi, who was then part of the Breakfast Club, and One Be Lo, who was part of Binary Star.