"I'm not trying to save hip-hop. The music is just my outlet to tell my story". People that have sat back & watched the ascension and growth of Ca$h, have all had this to say about the Queens, NY native; "wow". Richard Contreras started off writing poems at the age of 10. "It was my everyday break from the stresses of life". Those stresses included an absent father & a responsibility to help his mother raise his two younger sisters, all while getting an education & pursuing a dream to play professional basketball. Eventually he relied more & more on writing to express himself. "I was always a happy kid on the outside, but if I really let people know how I felt, they would look at me sideways. Writing was my way of showing everybody what was going on in my life". As a teenager, Ca$h moved to Orlando Florida and joined the Air Force shortly after high school. While training he met Jeff Thompson, also known as Enygma, who was an aspiring MC/producer. One day Enygma read one of Ca$h's poems & suggested he try to turn them into rhymes & eventually songs. Soon thereafter he was stationed in Okinawa, Japan. Being so far away from family & friends for the first time in his life, once again Ca$h turned to the pen in order to help cope with adapting to his new situation. While there, he met Armond Goss & Marco Webb, aka epideMIC & Quote respectively. The three young men soon formed a friendship grounded in God & a genuine love for music. Ca$h soon found out that epideMIC made music, and he had a studio in his dorm room. One day after being invited to record, he was hooked instantly. Anthony Williston, Cornelius Harrison, and Robert Shavers soon joined the fold (Will, H $ Bagz, NHBC_Rob) and the Triangle Effect was born. Explains Ca$h, "our goal was to be honest to our fans with our music". Ca$h finally gave his fans the chance to see through his eyes with his 2006 release "Ca$hualty". Although he had only been making music for under a year, the CD made a strong connection with his fans, reaching Japan, Germany, England, Korea, and the United States in only a few months time. Performing at spoken word events such as Okinawa's "Lyrical Lounge" & several showcases being presented throughout the island, Ca$h & the rest of the Triangle Effect quickly made a name for themselves and watched a surge in their popularity. "Bearing my soul and showing people my demons and pain, as well as my joys & triumphs struck a chord with everybody. They appreciated the fact that I was so open. Honesty is pretty much non-existant in today's hip hop". And now with his upcoming 2007 release "Redemption", Ca$h sees it as a celebration & a testimony to his success.