1Up Tee Has a Message For the Young Folks in His New Video Single
Detroit’s 1Up Tee makes music with a message, providing life lessons for navigating our social media-poisoned world. Daring the audience to look below the surface, Tee shares “Young N****s,” a powerful new single and music video.
Blessed with a beat by Von Classic, “Young N****s” harkens back to 80s R&B, with smooth Fender Rhodes piano to go with thumping Michigan-style 808s–it’s an instrumental that illustrates a potential bridge for the generational divide that inspired the song. Tee sends a message to the moral police who judge without fully understanding the circumstances that make young Black men do what they do: “They don’t know you tryna get back from your brother passing/They don’t know if you don’t slide, your brother gonna look at you backwards/They don’t know…the sh*t we go through on a daily basis/They only know from Instagram and what the pages sayin’,” spits 1Up Tee. Directed by Laka of renowned Chicago collective No More Heroes, the video finds Tee performing in Chicago’s Water Tower Plaza, putting the focus on his profound lyrics.
“Young N****s” is the latest step in the Westside Detroit rapper’s impressive rise in recent months. Inspired by local rappers by Babyface Ray and Payroll Giovanni, Tee started rapping when he was a teenager, writing about the things he observed in his hometown, and eventually teaming up with close friend D Hen 1UP to release the mixtape Y.N.A. in 2022. 1Up Tee capitalized on his hometown momentum with the single “Accountability,” released in 2022, framed as a conversation between two sides of himself–one side lamenting his lack of success so far, and the other side telling him to shape up and get to work. Late last year, Tee’s profile began to cross out of the Great Lakes region and make waves nationwide: the catalyst was “Good Karma (Freestyle),” an examination about why bad things happen to real ones, which became a viral On The Radar performance and generated over 4 million on-demand streams. He kept the karma going with January’s “Lose Lose,” which earned attention from Pitchfork, racking up over 1.8 million streams in its first six weeks.
With influential tastemakers like Pitchfork, On The Radar, and Spotify’s Fresh Finds in his corner, along with strong co-signs from from Meek Mill, athletes like Damian Lillard and Marshawn Lynch, and fellow Detroiters including Babyface Ray, Dej Loaf, and BabyTron, 1Up Tee is ready to become the next rapper from the Motor City to become a breakout star. Stay tuned for much more.
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