Spotlight On BreeTheRapper

Spotlight On BreeTheRapper

Get to know this Columbus-based musician!

By Kaylee Duff

Photo by @killr_aesthetics; t-shirt by @7fortygear.

Name: BreeTheRapper

Age: 21

Genre: I don’t really have a genre to classify — it’s everything. I don’t really have a specific title for that. I record, mix, master my own music.

Kaylee: Why is creating music meaningful and important to you?

Bree: I battle depression a lot, so for me, music is moreso just a way I can express myself, a way to let out emotions I really don’t wanna talk about to anyone else. I can pretty much vent in my songs. With my platform that I’m creating for myself musically, I just wanna spread love. I feel like music for me, is the thing that I love. Music doesn’t have to be the thing that everybody loves, but good music can create a vibe. So for me, it’s all about spreading love. Even with the people I work with — I work with people. I want for you to achieve what you wanna achieve. If I’m mixing a song for you, but at the end of the day, I want you to love it.

Kaylee: Who are some of your favorite artists?

Bree: I’m inspired by everything. Favorite artists right now… I listen to a lot of Columbus artists. I’ve really fallen off the mainstream wave, but I’ll drop a review. Like Drake’s Scorpion album was fire. Right now, I’m listening to SB Noonie; he’s a Columbus artist and I’m really liking his sound. Yogi Split, he’s a big person I listen to. Tobilla. Brady, he just dropped an album on 614 Day called SPEAKS and it’s amazing. A$IA, she’s another artist from Columbus and I listen to her a lot.

Kaylee: How did you start making music?

Bree: I started when I was little. My grandma actually taught me how to play the piano. That plays a big part with me producing. It kind of opened that gateway. I’m a self-taught pianist, so I didn’t really go to school for it. I got into elementary school and I started playing the violin. I learned actually how to read music, what a tempo was, things like that.

I’m a radio-baby; when I was little, my mom only let me listen to gospel. She did not let me listen to hip-hop. She thought it was gonna brainwash me. But she let my aunt babysit me a lot. She has five boys, and they all listen to hip-hop. And then I went to daycare. We watched 106 & Park all day. I loved everything that was mainstream at that time. It was Lil Wayne first, and he started doing the autotune, “How To Love.” Then I really got into T-Pain, because I really got into that sound, and I started seeing other people do it.

So it really just started with me wanting to get into autotune. I just wanted to autotune my voice; I didn’t necessarily want to make a song. I was just bored and wanted to, like, play with autotune. So I downloaded this program on my grandma’s computer. I figured out I could do more than autotune, I could record full songs. So I would record voice notes on my phone and email them to myself. I made a whole mixtape in a week.

Then I went to Fort Hayes. Because I was recording myself, but I really didn’t know what I was doing. So I actually went to school for it. My teacher got me all the way into shape. When I was in high school, I started investing in my own equipment, so that by the time I got out of high school, I could just record myself. Because I got so good at it, other people would come to me, like “yo, I want you to mix this.”

Photo by @killr_aesthetics; t-shirt by @7fortygear.

Kaylee: What’s one of your favorite performances?

Bree: I actually had my own stage [at Columbus Pride] this year. That was really big for me. Columbus Pride has really been a major gateway for me. They’ve helped me create so many relationships with people, even people I still am connected with. I am forever grateful for that. I want to say I’ve performed there four years, five years, in a row now.

This year, I reached out. They’re under new leadership. They had new things that they wanted to do, and no one to run the youth stage. They gave me the opportunity to book artists and occupy that stage for that time. That was a big thing for me.

Kaylee: If you had to choose one meal to eat for the rest of your life, what would you choose?

Bree: I’m pretty simple, and I can’t cook, so I pretty much I just eat whatever’s there. I would have to say shrimp alfredo and a Greek salad on the side. With feta cheese.

You can find BreeTheRapper’s music on by searching “BreeTheRapper” on Soundcloud, Spotify, iTunes, Tidal, YouTube or anywhere else you find music.