EVER since Tyler Gibson, a.k.a. Teewhy, was a teenager he has been passionate about hip-hop and rap.
"I had always been into hip-hop ever since early high school. I got into it with a group of friends and we started experimenting and performing," the 29-year-old says. "It started with freestyling and messing around."
Those freestyle sessions with friends eventually turned into something more serious when they began experimenting with entry level mixing programs.
"I was really into computers and we started producing our own music," he says. "We would get together and work on music and record stuff."
For the last seven years Teewhy has been recording seriously, but many of his friends decided to move on to other things.
"I ended up producing a lot of my own stuff," he says. "I noticed that other people we were recording with were walking away and moving on but I kept going on with it."
On Thursday, April 19 Teewhy will perform at Main Street Live, a monthly hip-hop showcase held at the Electric Owl.
"The Vancouver hip-hop scene is definitely growing and getting a lot better," he says.
"There isn't a huge scene and there weren't a huge amount of outlet to performs. The main thing is to book shows and perform live."
Teewhy says many producers, underground rappers and hip-hop artists inspired him. He looked up to producer El Producto and also admired Eminem and Jay-Z but strives to be different.
"You can't help but be inspired when you hear them. I was inspired by their drive and what they were able to do with words than I was directly influenced by the music," Teewhy says. "I considered that what I was doing was completely different from what they were doing musically. I always tried to make a very original sound."
One of Teewhy's biggest projects to date was the release of first official album, Walter White, last spring. The album includes 11 original tracks such as "Walter White," "Giant" and "Shoulder Space."
"I really want to focus on doing as many live performances as I can," Teewhy says. "I haven't been doing as much lately as I would have liked to. You are nobody if you are not performing live."
Teewhy attended acting and television classes in Capilano College in 2002. He returned later on and enrolled in the school's Motion Picture Production program where he graduated in 2005.
"It was a really good networking," he says. "I went there for behind the camera stuff and I was able to meet a lot of really creative people who were into shooting stuff."
It was during Teewhy's time in film school that he met good friend Mark MacDonald, who would eventually direct and produce the music video for "Giant."
"We just had a lot of fun going out and shooting little videos," Teewhy says. "Mark wanted to have something to add to his demo reel and I wanted something that was really original."
One of the goals for Teewhy and his production team was to avoid making just another rap video.
"We wanted to avoid a lot of the rap video clichés," Teewhy says. "One of them is what we call rap hands which is everyone is waving their hands in front of the camera. I am guilty of that. It's just something you do when you start rapping. I've tried tying my hands behind my back when I perform."
"We felt that we had to make it stand apart from some of the others," he adds.
According to Teewhy, "Giant" is one more of his more meaningful songs and the song has been receiving positive reviews.
"Musically it wasn't really bass heavy, like a kick drums snare song. I've been getting a lot of good feedback from people who don't even like rap."
Since releasing the video on YouTube last December, Teewhy has begun working on new projects including a new album that he hopes to release later this year.
"YouTube has become an incredible outlet for getting your stuff out there," he says. "It's opened up a lot of doors for venues."
Aside from teaching himself to play some instruments, Teewhy has been shifting the focus of his music more towards the lyrics.
"I've eased off the production lately because I was doing it out of necessity and I tend to focus on lyrics," Teewhy says. "I try to a do a lot less samples and loops and incorporate more live music by bringing in original instruments."
Teewhy wants people to appreciate the words to his songs even if they don't like the song.
"I just try to sit down and write really clever and lyrically-dense notes," he says. "I am pretty good putting words together in interesting ways."
