Ty Brasel Almost Quit Rapping Before Releasing ‘Young T’

Ty Brasel is a man on a mission to create the absolute best music he possibly can that makes himself, the fans, and most importantly, God, happy. His newest record, Young T, is a testament to hard work, labored writing, and an earnestness to please God through music.

Last year, Ty released his heavily praised 1994 Until EP. That small batch of songs served as a notice to show how talented Brasel is. Now, with a full 11-track album, that excellence is magnified through a diverse trek of sounds. However, this project did not come easy and it even involved Ty ghosting on the world a little bit.

“I never stopped working on music,” he said of his time since the last release. “I write every day, but I got to a point where I was considering leaving music and pursuing something else because of how challenging it is to be an independent artist. That’s why I made ‘4 Ppl Still Listening’.”

“That’s kinda the drive that keeps me going.”

2017 has been chalk full of projects by Brasel’s peers as the new wave of Christian hip-hop is grabbing the ears of young people and those who appreciate great music. Despite strong records from nobigdyl., Mogli the Iceburg, Lawren, Oscar Urbina, Eric Heron, and a slew of others, Brasel doesn’t move based on what others around him are doing.

“I try and move based on what God is telling me to do and at the end of the day, I wanted to drop some music for the summer.”

The album was finished a week before it was announced and written and recorded the three months prior to that.

“I was working 12 hours a day writing and editing,” he said. “A lot of the stuff I wrote didn’t come easy. I had to dig deep to draw it out. It was a grueling process mentally and emotionally. I almost stopped making the project half way through because I was exhausted.”

He continued, “There was a lot of stuff going on in my life and coincidentally I disappeared from social media for a few months and it did a lot of good for me. I ended up really zoning in for those few months and worked really hard to make a complete project that doesn’t have any skip songs. It took a lot of work to accomplish what I did with this album.”

Brasel acknowledges that while versatility has always been evident in his music, this one, in particular, was carefully constructed.

“I was set on hitting every person’s taste I could possibly hit. I made the album with the intention to have one or two songs that can really stick out to a person who likes a certain style,” he explained. “When I was paying attention to the response of the album, every person had two or three different songs that were their favorite and all of them respected the whole album.”

One example of this is the song “Real Riches.” Ty throws it back to the 90s with some boom-bap rap which, aside from the older crowd and hip-hop heads, isn’t the most popular genre of rap right now. Regardless, he received praise for his work on the song because even though it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, the song from the beat to the lyrics was done with quality.

In fact, “Real Riches,” almost didn’t make the cut for the album. “It didn’t sound good. Something was wrong with the mix and it wasn’t smooth. I changed it up and made it flow better and once I added the second and third verse it got better.”

Sonically the album’s diversity was handled by a bunch of different producers. Some he’s worked with and others were new. He purposely didn’t sit down with one person to craft the sounds. He spent hours upon hours scrounging for beats online.

Ty said there were about 10 to 15 songs written for the album that didn’t even get recorded, while another five made it to wax but weren’t released. The songs aren’t a total loss because he was able to repurpose lyrics and themes and fit them into other tracks.

Even the interludes and skits serve importance for the record. The conversations were based on real convos between Ty, J Monty, Mo Jcksn, and Parris Chariz. All the conversations along with the song complete the story of Young T.

“The story is up to the listener to decide. The story is my story, but at the same time, it allows other people to put themselves in my story and make it about themselves,” he revealed. “A lot of the things I talk about are very relatable. The story revolves around the ups and downs of life and the grace of God and me trying to go higher in my relationship with God and reach my full potential.”

Until Brasel’s next project drops, he has a number of high profile features dropping along the flurry of ones released before his album. A few months ago, four songs featuring Ty dropped on the same day.

Yet to drop, are features with KB, Derek Minor, Street Hymns, Thi’sl.

He said everything you hear with his voice on it moving forward, was recorded previously.

“I’m not doing any more features and everybody needs to quit asking me,” he said jokingly but yet, meant every word.

The album is out now and is available to purchase on iTunes.

Read part one where Ty Brasel breaks down the Young T record here.

Justin Sarachik
Justin Sarachik
Justin is the Editor-in-Chief of Rapzilla.com. He has been a journalist for over a decade and has written or edited for Relevant, Christian Post, BREATHEcast, CCM, Broken Records Magazine, & more. He's written over 10,000 articles, done over 1,000 interviews, and is in post-production for documentaries on Danny "D-Boy" Rodriguez & Mario "Machete" Perez. He's the project manager of the upcoming video game Run the Court and of the media brand Crimefaces. Justin likes to work with indie artists to develop their brands & marketing strategies. Catch him interviewing artists on Survival of the Artist Podcast & creating videos on his social media channels.
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