As a teenager, Samuel Torrian Alizia Ball won a freestyle rap contest for a chance to meet and perform for Twista when the rap artist performed at the Col Ballroom in Davenport.

The Quad-City youngster idolized the rapper, known for his fast lyrics, and rapped in a style similar to the artist. Then Twista asked Ball what his rap name was.

“I didn’t have a rap name back then. I was like 13,” Ball said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know, Torri, T-Money?’ And he was like, ‘Calliko, it suits you.’ ”

Fast-forward nine years and Calliko is working on his second album, which will feature Twista on one of the tracks.

“To be able to have people that you grew up idolizing, to be able to just call them at any given time, like I could call Twista right now, they’ve literally taken me under their wings,” he said.

The rapper from East Moline didn’t get back in touch with Twista until after he had graduated from high school. Calliko moved to Chicago to pursue his music career, got in touch with Twista’s former manager and landed an internship at Impact Studios, where he helped work on Lupe Fiasco’s first video.

“I really got to learn the business side when I went to Chicago,” Calliko said. “I built a lot of contacts, a lot of relationships that are still strong today.”

He took that knowledge and established his own production studio, 80’s Baby Entertainment, which has an office in Chicago and a studio in East Moline where he records and mixes both his own music and that of artists from around the Quad-Cities. Calliko recently was offered a distribution deal for his upcoming album, but he turned it down because he would have had to fund the promotion.

“We’re keeping the buzz alive and trying to make the buzz bigger and bigger because the more you make your buzz bigger, the more the industry wants to spend money on you,” he said. “Hopefully, with the support of the Quad-Cities, I can do it.”

In addition to organizing Swag Fest at the Redstone Room next week, Calliko will travel this summer to Los Angeles, Atlanta and Miami to promote his music. He recently returned from a trip to Myrtle Beach, S.C., where he performed for several of the top DJs in the country.

As serious as Calliko is about rap today, he wasn’t always as invested in music as a career. He said he was raised by his mother in low-income housing while his father was in jail. When he was 16, he cared more about football than music. Then, he said, the power steering went out in a car on his way to school one day and he got in a traffic accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down for 10 months.

“I felt like it was God telling me, ‘Hey, I’m going to give you the world, but I can take it away just as quick,” said Calliko, who still bears a large scar on his forehead from the crash. “I literally came from nothing, and now I’m making something out of it and getting recognition for it. I see a lot of kids and I talk to a lot of younger cats and they really don’t feel like they have anybody to connect with.

“I want to be that person that they can connect with and show them that there is a different way. You don’t have to go out there and get in trouble. You can do something positive and still be cool with it.”