MYKE TOWERS RAPS with a natural ease — effortless, fluid, like he was born to do it. Except, when he was growing up in Puerto Rico, being a performer barely crossed his mind. “I swear to you, I never, ever, ever thought that I was going to be an artist,” he says on a recent phone call from his home on the island. “I thought maybe I’d work in the music industry, but never as a singer or rapper.”
He first began rapping as a hobby, inspired by his heroes Biggie Smalls, Jay-Z, and Tego Calderón; when he began uploading tracks to SoundCloud, his music broke out in Puerto Rico’s underground. Now, Towers, 27 — whose real name is Michael Torres — has gone from being a reluctant MC…