About

Sacramento's Andre F. Tillman Jr aka Dre-T is a hip-hop performing artist, record producer, poet, and educator. He has independently produced and released 5 complete music projects. Dre-T is also a member of Sacramento Area Youth Speaks (SAYS), a project of the CRESS Center at the UC Davis School of Education that creates opportunities for youth to discover and hone their poetry, writing, and performance skills.
At the age of 9, Dre-T was inspired by his older cousin, Emil Jones, to write his own lyrics and compose his own music. Emil taught him how to play popular melodies on his keyboard and how to write lyrics. Through Emil, Dre-T learned the basic formula of how to write a hip hop song, (3 16-note verses with 2 8-note hooks) and he continued to write lyrics through his school years. He placed 2nd in his first poetry competition in the 7th grade at Natomas Middle School. In the young artist’s freshman year in high school, Dre-T became great friends with songwriter/producer Dominique Logan who showed Dre-T that making a record without a record deal was possible. Every chance that Dre-T had, he would spend hours, nights, and even weeks in Dominique’s home studio, soaking up every bit of information like a sponge. Andre recorded his first song and produced his first beat with the help of Dominique. From that point on, Dre-T built his own home studio and produced his own records at home. His popularity as an MC grew rapidly throughout his high school years as he passed out mixtapes and gave outstanding hip-hop performances.
The 18 year old hip-hop artist became a poetry slam finalist at the 2nd annual SAYS Slam Finals on May 7, 2010. He advanced from the finals and was one of five poets to represent the youth of Sacramento at Brave New Voices 2010 13th Annual International Youth Poetry Slam Festival, which is sponsored by Youth Speaks Inc, Russel Simmons, Stan Lathan, HBO, and more. His poetry team ranked in the top 10 out of 50+ teams in the country. Dre-T has opened up for Mayor Kevin Johnson at the For Arts' Sake Grand Finale at California State University of Sacramento. He has also organized his own album release party for his latest project, “Done Right Every-Time", with live performances on September 11, 2010 (Dre-T's Birthday).

Today, Dre-T continues to write and produce music. He is a student at American River College and works for UC Davis with Sacramento Area Youth Speaks as a Poet-Mentor Educator.
To listen to Dre-T's music, please visit www.dre-t.com