Tyrique Brown

Tyrique Shahmir Brown (he/him) is a hip-hop musician based in Johnson City, Tennessee. Growing up listening to hip-hop greats, he wrote his first lyrics at age fourteen, and found his style “battle rapping” with his friends. “It’s really a true testament of your mental focus,” Tyrique says, “to come up with something off the top of your head, or to just look at someone and incorporate that” into the lyrics. As a teenager, Tyrique was also a member of the hip-hop collective Full Grind, where he learned how to collaborate with other musicians to pair his lyrics with the right beat.

Now, when creating new songs, Tyrique starts with a beat, often by a local producer, and develops the lyrics through a combination of writing and freestyling during his performances. When describing what makes for successful lyrics, Tyrique says, “people will listen to you, if you have something to talk about. I’ve noticed that people love when you can relate to things going on in their area, or the struggles that they’re going through.”

Tyrique is a mentor to many other rappers, including his younger brother. He shares his skill for everything from writing music, to engaging audiences during performances, to uploading and marketing music online. Tyrique is also a persistent advocate for the Tri-Cities hip-hop community, making connections with local venues and curating shows. “I pride myself on being one of the people to open the doors for my peers and others going forward,” he says.

Tyrique plans to use his Emerging Traditional Artists Program award, in collaboration with other musicians and producers, to open a designated studio space in Johnson City for hip-hop artists to record. “It’ll show that this area isn’t just rock music, or folk music, of county music—that we actually have a whole genre here, from R&B to hip-hop, that needs to be noticed.”