What is your name and what city do you rep?
TAO SHU / raised in Sonoma, CA currently residing in Norfolk, VA.
Tell us about your latest releases, what inspired you to create them?
My latest track is Long Time featuring Intalek & Ty Pretty. When I first moved to Virginia, I discovered Intalek and Ty Pretty, both from Virginia Beach, and I had a vision for the track. Reached out, they were both hella cool, and they both eventually blessed me with a verse, although it was a couple years in the making! Busy schedules. I felt like we were all in similar places in our musical career and the song was kind of a vibe about that.
What is unique about you and your music?
I try and cut to the core of things with my lyrics, and show different perspectives that are uncommon, and be honest about things that arent spoken about often, plus my voice has a unique texture and I can rap and sing and everything in between…
What shaped your music?
I listened to a broad range of shit when I was young like Dr Dre and Jurassic 5 to Offspring and Greenday, haha. Plus my dad loved classic rock and always put me on to that. My mom always bumped classical. They played Bob Marley for me when my mom was pregnant with me. I have had so many inspirations and I always enjoy kind of curating all of that into my own flavor of creativity.
When did you realize you were going to make music professionally?
I just was always into singing and rhythm and was always into writing and literature, someone probably told me I had a nice voice and I liked the compliments so i kept doing it, its one of the few things that I ever stuck with.
What type of music do you listen to?
mostly rap but also literally everything from classical to countree to old 90s or early 2000s pop rock that takes me back, haha.
What inspires you to write music?
my pain, my optimism, my hope, my hopelessness, my faith
What do you do when you don’t do music (creative or otherwise) and that you are passionate about?
I work in the music industry doing other stuff, plus i got a family. two daughters.
Happiness to you is…
Being rich and living within short distance to my friends, being of value to my community and humanity.
What do you wish you were told when you first started making music that you think would help artists just starting out?
Be realistic, you prob wont get discovered out of the blue by Usher, only say shit in your lyrics that you are cool with the whole world hearing and holding you accountable for, and having a song or album is only 5% of what is required of you.
Tell us about your upcoming projects…
Currently getting to work on some things with $lopesy, my boy from Sonoma who is a dope producer.Also tryin to get on some of these grime/drill beats I been listening to lately.
Where do we find you music / music projects?
https://youtu.be/LLMx-qaTDwg
instagram.com/waytruthrtwitter.com/waytruthrfacebook.com/waytruthr
Any last words for the readers?
Follow the path with heart!
1stDayFresh.com 