Born Samuel T. Herring, he was rapping before co-founding pop band Future Islands, but it’s mostly in 2013, when his band took a break from touring that he started writing hip-hop again.

As serial collaborator he hasn’t released any solo records but is featured in a number of tracks by alternative rappers such as Busdriver, Open Mike Eagle and milo.

Herring got into hip-hop when his big brother Joel offered him three albums for his 14th birthday: “Buhloone Mindstate” by De La Soul, “Blowout Comb” by Digable Planets and “Station Identification” by Channel Live.

He took the MC moniker Hemlock Ernst in 2009, Hemlock being his original name as writer when he was in the 8th grade and Ernst taken from the character Herring performed in his first band—the Art Lord & the Self-Portraits.

In 2015 he released a collaborative EP with producer Madlib under the project name Trouble Knows Me.