At the ripe age of 23, Chicago native 3Tre is looking to inspire people through his music. His motto is simple: ‘Live your life.’ 3Tre, born Ricky O’Neal, Jr., knows a thing or two about people wanting you to do what they want. He graduated from the University of Illinois with a business degree, and had a choice of going into the working world or the music industry. He chose the latter. “I want my music to speak to people to do what they want to do for themselves,” he says. 3Tre became intrigued by hip-hop at 13 and started rapping. His first experiences professionally were through a church group, and from there he got into engineering and production. His musical inspirations include Eminem, T.I., Rihanna, Phil Collins, The-Dream, Nirvana and Spot, an underground New York rapper. He describes his sound as “pop hip-hop.” “It has a message but it’s catchy,” he says. “People can listen to it and not say he’s preaching, and you can listen to it when you’re going through something.”
As of right now, 3Tre is an independent artist, and his closest affiliation is his writing production team MHA. 3Tre’s current mixtape, “The Calm Before the Storm” is available on Datpiff, YouTube and his website 3treallday.com. On March 30th, he released “Underdog Overqualified” which is what he calls “a completely original body of work.”
