Early Life & Musical Roots
I grew up in a small town called Rantoul Illinois. My mother who was a singer and a musician in the church who taught me how to sing at an early age where I instantly fell in love with singing in the choir and having numerous solos. While continuing to have a huge passion for singing i taught myself how to play the drums then became a drummer for my church as well playing alongside my mother. At an early age i also could keep a beat it became natural I started learning how to make beats off of keyboards that had a built in drum pad as well as me teaching myself how to play the piano and watching my mother play on the piano and organ as well with her giving me pointers and lessons.
Discovering Talent
I started to own my craft at my musical talents but singing is what I loved more then anything I loved performing and practicing with my mother being my first true music teacher. As I got older I started performing at different events and music competitions and talents shows. That is where my journey began.
Early Recording Journey
Around the age of 8 I started recording music using a karaoke machine with a microphone. I would take old cassette tapes and record over them and making up songs while putting the microphone to the keyboard speaker recording myself making beats.
The inspiration that inspired me to choose this path of music was simply the love for music and singing and performing for my friends family and hometown. I knew early on that’s what I wanted to do that was my passion as well as having many different music teachers encouraging me and believing in me to go further and getting me ready for bigger opportunities outside the state of Illinois. I would describe my style as being very innovative thinking outside the box and not limiting myself to just one style of music I like making songs for every genre and not being afraid to be different I might sing on one track or you might even hear me rapping on another or doing both on one track my creative identity can be described as having synesthesia. That’s the ability to see colors and sounds while hearing the melody of a song and music.
Achievements
My achievements that I’m proud of so far is my very first music project having over 26,000 streams as well as my second and third project having streamed over 15,000 streams as well as winning the state choral award back in 2007 and winning the golden microphone award for best singer in 2021 as well as earning a music streaming award back in 2021 as well.
Challenges & Growth
The challenges that has shaped me in my career is just learning how to be consistent when times get rough and maintaining life outside of music. It gives me motivation to never give up while having the right support system in my corner. The biggest challenges that have really shaped my career is the doubt of people that gave up on me. That has always kept me motivated and also the passing of my manager Ingrid Jackson who taught me so much about the business and always continued to believe in me when I had doubt in myself but she took me under her wing and because of the things I have learned from her I was able to succeed and network with other artist as well as my music engineer Mark Whyman who records all my music and brings out the very best in me when I’m recording my songs he’s been helping me for the past 6 years and I have excelled working with him and owning my craft.
Future Vision
I see my industry evolving in the next few years with more of the talent my hometown has to offer we have many good artists who deserve some recognition but I see the industry as a whole just evolving with different styles and sounds that will bring new artists to the forefront and continuing to grow and elevate the music to another level. I see myself in the next 5 years just growing as an artist performing on bigger stages winning more awards and changing the culture of music and sound as well as taking new talent under my wing and helping the next generation reach their goals and dreams in anyway that I can as well as putting out tons of music and more albums and more collaborations with other talent.
Message to Fans
The message I would like to give to my fans and new readers is do what you love and don’t give up and stay tuned for more music and my upcoming album that will be dropping this year my artist name is T-Epps and my music is on all streaming platforms and I wanna give a big shout out to Rantoul Champaign and Urbana all those local towns shaped me to be the very best artist that I can be and most of all keep God first
