I can remember being a last second replacement judge for my college radio station's beat battle a few years ago and having some dude named Pradigy continually blow the other judges and I away round after round with his production that was just a notch above everybody else in the competition. Well that guy is a Charlotte native and he's back home performing with his band, Pradigy GT.

The band, who describes their sounds as Jimi Hendrix's and Kanye West's lovechild, didn't even have a name yet when they did their first show and features Pradigy on guitar and vocals, Huff on guitar, Phinesse  on bass, Cannon on drums and Nikki C. on keys. They've recently been doing gigs and pushing their single, "Believe," all over town (it's currently in rotation over at Power 98).

Pradigy GT - Believe [<-- Click to listen]

The inspiration behind "Believe" is as much a personal challenge as it was President Barack Obama.

"The idea of playing guitar while rapping... I didn't know if it could be done because of the timing of rapping and timing of guitar playing," said Pradigy. He tried things out with his drummer and bass player, with whom he'd jam with every weekend before, and after things got dope, they learned his solo album, converting the studio tracks to something for live instrumentation.

Inspired by election of Barack Obama is when they went from being, "Pradigy & Friends" to Pradigy GT (Grand Touring) and have been grinding since. "In my mind, it means the big show," said Pradigy. "I felt like it was a bigger level of hip-hop than the normal stuff I was doing before the band, so I wanted to make sure people recognized that."

You can catch Pradigy GT in concert tonight at Bad Dog at 7 p.m.,  April 16 at UNC Charlotte and April 25 at The Money in Rock Hill, S.C. "Believe" is also available now on iTunes.