March 29, 2024
By Yunah Elsner
Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, 22-year-old artist TRÆCY always had an affinity for music. After creating music under the name ‘PrettyBoy Tracy’ and dropping his single, “Crossfire,” last year, the independent rapper is reemerging into the music industry as TRÆCY. Growing up with divorced parents, TRÆCY frequently moved from Atlanta to Chicago, to different schools and neighborhoods. His love for music came naturally as he recalls his mother listening to Michael Jackson and his father’s love for Tupac. He began writing songs and raps when he was 11 years old and continued until he recorded his first song in high school.
Since high school, TRÆCY has collaborated with several artists to put out hip hop and R&B tracks mixed with hints of alt-pop-rock like “Make it Out” and “Girls” ft. Dream Ki. With relatable lyrics and sounds reflecting on his pain, TRÆCY’s upcoming projects are straying away from these themes and creating more uplifting tracks with allusions to sad tones.
YOUR NAME MAGAZINE spoke with TRÆCY on his early music career and upcoming projects for 2024:
YN: When you were growing up and writing music, where did a lot of that inspiration come from?
TRÆCY: When I was young, I was just writing music that I wanted to hear. In middle school, a bunch of my friends and I would write diss tracks to each other, and we’d meet up outside at recess and perform them to each other.
I started taking music more seriously my sophomore year of high school. I started to develop my own sound and started involving a lot of my own experiences in my music – like my feelings or my pain. I just draw from the environments I've been in or people who have been in my life that have affected my feelings in a certain way.
YN: How was performing on tour with NLE Choppa back in 2022? Tell me more about how that got set up.
TRÆCY: I got introduced to my DJ and artist now as well, DJ Tune Hendrixx, around that time. He got booked to DJ that whole tour with Lil Eazzyy, Scorey and NLE. I went on tour with my DJ, and I was able to perform in Cincinnati.
That experience was something that I hope I can experience again in my life, and I'm sure I will. It's a crazy feeling being on that stage with hundreds of thousands of fans. I've done quite a few performances before then that helped me prepare myself for the performance in Cincinnati.
I don’t necessarily like performing, but it's something that I've come to terms with as an artist. When I get on that stage I tend to just black out, do what I need to do and make sure the fans have a good time and a good show.
YN: Tell me about your upcoming project. It’s been almost a year since your last single, what’s next in your career?
TRÆCY: The new project I’m working on is going to be a two-part series. The first part is going to have five songs on it, and the second part will also have five songs. I can't necessarily say when it's going to be released, but I'm aiming for summertime for the first part. It's a fresh, new sound that I don't think the industry has a lot of, or any artists sounding like this right now.
I sat down with my producers for months to create this new production to stand out from the rest of the artists in the industry. I don't remember how long it's been since I released my last song, but it's been a while. I took a long time to dive deep into my mind and to improve my music with lyrics, production, melodies and everything.
I think when these projects do come out the listeners will be able to see the improvement and will respect that amount of time I took off just to create this great music that I'm going to be putting out in the future.
YN: Any words to your fans and current listeners?
TRÆCY: I know it's been a long time since I dropped music. It's been maybe a year since I dropped “Crossfire” and a couple of years since I dropped my last project. None of that time has been taken for granted. I promise every day I work on making my music better for myself and for my fans. I hope you guys do enjoy these projects because I worked so hard on them, my producers have worked so hard on them and I think it's going to be one for the record books.