The Birth
WordPlay T. Jay’s musical career began at the age of 15 in the halls of Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.

His first recording was singing the hook on “Club Banger” for the group Da Ink, in his sophomore year, and he quickly progressed to taking an interest in production and making his own records.

After Da Ink disbanded, T. Jay (no WordPlay added to his name yet) recorded his first-ever single — “Haterade” — which he distributed by hand to friends and family, building an initial fan base.

Around 2004, T. Jay began seriously writing and delving into production. Shortly after, his single “The South” found its way to the airwaves for his first radio play, ultimately winning the “Hottest in the Rock” contest on Little Rock station Hot 96.5.

The vote motivated T. Jay to pursue his music even harder, and he took a shot when it was announced Def Jam records was coming to town to take demos. Underage and with his entry fee paid by a drug dealer, T. Jay stood in line all night to pass his track on. When he finally reached the front of the line, he handed his CD to Russell Simmons, who asked if it was copyrighted. Being honest, T. Jay said no, so he was sent away. This event motived T. Jay to found On The Map Music Group in 2005.

The roadblock did not affect T. Jay, as he continued to chase his dream. He released his first full album, Hustler’s Ambition, in 2007. This album, which was not commercially available, gave him a chance to hone his production skills and master Fruity Loops, the industry-standard production software. In 2008, T. Jay dropped It Was Written — a boon to On The Map as the first commercial album available digitally.

The Come Up

Following It Was Written, T. Jay took his performances on the road. He moved to Fayetteville, Ark., and began performing original works in the local music scene while attending the University of Arkansas. He also became a college radio DJ, co-hosting “The Concrete Schoolyard” with DJ E-Yo on KXUA 88.3.

On air from 2008-2010, T. Jay practiced and perfected his production skills, especially with flipping samples, which he learned even more about with numerous trips to New York City.

Around that time, T. Jay’s grandfather died. Since his grandfather always took his music seriously, T. Jay felt he could not rest on his talents anymore. The tragedy that ultimately lit a fire under T. Jay and led him to release his biggest track yet — “Breakfast and Biggie”, produced by his brother, Proffit, — in 2010. The track is a single off his first mixtape called Nothin’ Less.

T. Jay started playing his track on the radio, and during a trip to Florida, he met other DJs at an event and passed it on to them. They started playing it, and soon, “Breakfast and Biggie” had catapulted to airplay in larger markets, like Los Angeles, Oakland, Charlotte, Chicago, and New York City. T. Jay also uploaded the track and video to MTV’s music platform “Your MTV”, where it went even more viral and got looks from Sway and Ja Rule, on an episode of MTV RapFix Live.

The track was featured on the show, which was known to launch some small artists’ careers, and MTV wanted T. Jay to be interviewed for it. However, after working too many hours and being stressed, T. Jay woke up too late to respond to the email and be on while the video played.  That disappointment led to a conviction to never allow stress to get in his way.

The Journey

The success of “Breakfast and Biggie” pushed T. Jay to release the 17-track mixtape Nothin’ Less and drop out of school to pursue his passion full-time.

T. Jay moved to New York City for a couple of weeks but realized he did not need to be there, so he began to travel around the country to figure out where he belonged. After stints in Virginia, Atlanta, Austin, and Little Rock, T. Jay ultimately landed in Baton Rouge, La. At that point, he had stopped performing, but he was still on the grind, releasing the album 72701 Stories in 2013.

This was the darkest point in T. Jay’s career, as he felt he was a failure since he had not become big in the game yet. That powerful despair is reflected in 72701 Stories, which could be billed as a bounce-back album after people started saying they could hear T. Jay’s progression and that he was getting better as an artist.

From the momentum of that positivity, T. Jay released another album a year later — The Cycle — and he rebranded himself as a maker of “Music for the Underdog.”

The change came after a meeting with Ari Herstand, best-selling author, and Los Angeles musician, who implored T. Jay to better monetize his business and unify his brand. “Music for the Underdog” became T. Jay’s tagline, as he was making music for those who feel counted out and want more out of life.

It was also during this time T. Jay’s name got the addition of “WordPlay.” After traveling for so long, T. Jay made a stop back at KXUA, and his co-host DJ E-Yo started calling the rapper “Vagabond T. Jay”. That word rang a bell in T. Jay, and he thought about what he does most in his lyrics, and the answer was wordplay.

The Resurgence

Now rebranded and refocused, T. Jay hit the venues again and started doing shows. Having made some contacts with venue promoters, he routinely received calls to open for larger acts in Arkansas. Most notably, T. Jay has opened for Pep Lava of the Hieroglyphics, MGK, and Wax.

Getting back in his groove, T. Jay decided to move to the Seattle area to chase opportunity to carve out his own lane. T. Jay chose the area because of its indie music roots where small artists can thrive.

After moving, his motivation kicked into overdrive and he began planning his biggest project, a three-album series based on work-related themes.

The first album in the series — Job Application — was released in 2016 and includes his first feature, including Futuristic on “Bubble.” The song increased his visibility, not garnering a ton of commercial appeal but bringing in a solid amount of royalties. For T. Jay, it felt like the work over the past three years after the Ari Herstand consultation was finally starting to pay off.  During this time T. Jay reached out to D Rock, a videographer and film maker, who works with entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk.  His single, “Someone Else’s Dream” was featured on DailyVee 005 and later placed on a DailyVee Spotify playlist garnering regular attention for the song.

After “Bubble,” T. Jay started dishing out weekly releases, building up to the second album in the series — Orientation Day. The track “Tony Robbins” was the star of that album, his second-biggest track to date that helped solidify On The Map’s income.

Around this time, T. Jay founded the “No Rhyme or Reason Podcast” with co-host and collaborator Icarus Gray.  The podcast focuses on Hip-Hop culture from the lens of black nerds.  T. Jay also began posting the podcast as video clips on YouTube to grow the brand and attract listeners.

It further pushed T. Jay to start “Music Advice by WordPlay T. Jay” on YouTube, as he was looking to establish another source of growth. Using YouTube’s search algorithm to his advantage, T. Jay began making videos with key words he thought people would search for. He planned to release the videos as a full course for sale, but ultimately decided they would make a larger impact if he released them for free. The 25-video coursed ended up becoming a weekly topical video on music marketing, production, planning, and more.

One year after starting it, the channel gained a following, enough that T. Jay was bringing in 200-330 subscribers per month and starting to generate revenue from YouTube.  Footage from the channel was also featured in an independent music documentary called, “InstaBand” in 2020.

In 2019, T. Jay also wrote a book, “Fake Blues: Creating in the Face of Anxiety,” which delves into how T. Jay has dealt with his anxiety over the years, his insecurity about putting out music and how to work through those mental issues.

Money from those projects was invested back into T. Jay’s music, and he continued to release monthly tracks as part of the build-up to his final album in the work-related series — Overtime — released in June 2020 and chronicling the focus on his hustle and patience while working on his ultimate dream — to work on his music full-time.

WordPlay T. Jay’s 9th studio album, terry explores the stories that shaped the person he is today. He shares stories about trauma, domestic abuse, divorce, and the ways he coped through it all. Utilizing rich samples of live instrumentation, loops, and drum patterns, T. Jay shows off his ability to produce with digital and live instrumentation while mixing in nostalgic storytelling.