Rees

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Tyrice “Rees” Thompson, was born in Phoenix, Arizona where he attended South Mountain High School and excelled at athletics. He went on to attend Arizona State University on a football Scholarship, where he would play football with life long friend and fellow South Mountain graduate Deandre “Big Baby” Johnson. It was during his time at Arizona State, Rees first had an inclination to write music. He would enjoy to freestyle with friends and rap at parties. He would develop a friend ship with Nate “Nasty” Kimbrough, a wide receiver from the Los Angeles area, and they would write songs together. They found that they shared a similar vision and formed the group the “Black Notes”.

In 2004, the group wrote a song called “The A State Shuffle”. It was the first track the pair ever recorded, and upon playing it for the team and friends, its popularity really grew. The group would submit the song to the local radio station Power 98.3 for their local spotlight show, and the song received the most votes that evening. It would receive more airplay and eventually go on to became a local hit. The momentum created by the song allowed them to open up for artists such as Mike Jones and Juelz Santana. As more people heard the song, the group continued to receive praise from local news and radio. Arizona State officials even requested performances on many occasions, including award shows, fundraisers, pep rallies and the 2007 Hawaii Bowl official banquet.

The resulting buzz enabled Rees and the Black Notes to continue to perform. A string of performances were scheduled, and Rees began to tour around Arizona creating a buzz and developing a fan base of his own. Upon his graduation in 2008 however, due to athletic obligation, Rees began investing more time into his football career and was signed as a free agent to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He would spend time with Tampa Bay and then later the Indianapolis Colts, where he finished his career, and began to look into other opportunities.

A year later, Rees decided to focus on music again, however this time he wanted to put more conscious effort into his music and lyrics. Rees became an introspective artist, providing thought provoking lyricism and passion behind his voice. He would go on becoming an integral part of creating the musical group “Galaxxy”, where he linked up with Nate Kimbrough, now known as Nate Jetson and Big Baby once again. Galaxxy consisted of rappers Dame Luke, Nate Jetson, and Rees in addition to singers NuDae and Cherry Brown. A full band orchestrated by Big Baby called “The G Heads” accompanied the group during live performances.

Galaxxy and The G-Heads would go on to win a number of competitions, as well as open for Fat Joe and Sean Kingston. Here Rees would continue to hone his abilities as a songwriter and further develop as an artist. Because of the success of Galaxxy, many members of the group were presented with career opportunities, disband as Cherry Brown was hired to perform as a live singer for a show production in China, and NuDae would go on to sign a solo artist development deal with his uncle, Babyface’s record label. Rees is currently developing a clothing line on the side, entitled “Truly”, which embodies his belief that we are all “Truly Blessed.”