Dom Pachino was born in uptown Manhattan and later moved to Staten Island's Stapleton Houses. He started out by showcasing his talents in public school lunch rooms while urging friends would provide a beat for him by banging on tables with fist and bare knuckles. During that period he became good friends with RZA's younger brother 9th Prince and they would later form the group Killarmy. He went from rapping in the survival dorms of C-74 and C-76 in Riker’s Island Correctional Facility, while completing his juvenile bid for Gun possession and Assault charges, to making a name for himself locally in the slums of Staten Island's then small hip hop circles in the early 1990s.