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Photography by: @AdamBayacal
Delivering beats with a bass guitar twist, Terrence Spectacle brings his lyrics to life as a hip-hop artist.
For seven years, Spectacle has been hitting the Dallas/Fort Worth area with his music. His most recent EP is “One Summer Night."
"One Summer Night is probably my biggest accomplishment to this day,” Spectacle said.
Preceding his recent accomplishment, Spectacle moved to Dallas at 14 from Detroit due to his mother losing her job to a recession. Since Spectacle had family in the state, his mother decided it was time for them to move closer to relatives.
Once Spectacle came to Texas, his spoken word poetry, by recommendation, eventually turned into rap. Inspired by Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, Charles Hamilton, Drake, J. Cole, Lil Wayne and Jay-Z, Spectacle knew it was time to become a rap artist.
“It was like a golden era that was passing a torch to a new era of artists in hip-hop around the time I started,” Spectacle said. “For me it was just saying ‘it’s go time, let’s get into it.’”
Photography by: @AdamBayacal
At Ranchview High School in Irving, his music was discovered by the entire school when his self-produced music video was played in all the homeroom classes at the same time.
“I walked out of the class and everybody was walking around singing the lyrics to the song, like joking around,” Spectacle said. “I was sort of a nerd. The older I got, the less of a nerd I really was. In my eyes I was still the kid getting shoved into lockers, but apparently that wasn’t my high school persona as people would like to tell me.”
Spectacle didn’t let that stop him. His first performance was at Zenna (formerly The Diversity Lounge) in downtown Dallas as a spoken word artist. But his hip-hop debut was at Bone Daddy’s in Lewisville. After playing four gigs at Bone Daddy’s, Spectacle traveled to San Antonio to open for Big Sean.
“That was pretty badass,” Spectacle said. I had school the next day that night too.”
During his early days, Spectacle was part of a collective of rappers.
A collective meant that the group had a moniker which brought them to do a collaboration, however the artists still produced music individually.
Photography by: @AdamBayacal
“It’s a self-contained group of artists, not like a band but it kind of gave the appeal of a band,” Spectacle said. The 7-8 rapper collab didn’t last long since Spectacle does not work with anyone except the graphic designer. Post-collective, Spectacle joined an independent record label known as “Iris.”
“I was running with them from the time I left college in 2012 till just last year,” he said.
When asked where his music comes from, Spectacle had to steal a quote from the late Michael Jackson.
“I can’t even take credit for my lyrics, they come from God,” Spectacle said, quoting Jackson. “Something happens, I’m in a mode, I’m in a mood and stuff hits me and I make a song out of it. I would say there’s source material, whenever I feel like I have to add a mood or connotation to a song or just paint it, that’s where I pull from my real life sources. Sometimes I just catch a melody and I think that’s what God is. God will give me a melody and I’ll just pull stuff from what I feel and then that makes the words. Or sometimes I’ll just be in the shower and say something really catchy and make a whole song out of it.”
Photography by: @AdamBayacal
As a performer, Spectacle on stage is not much different than he is off stage.
“My artistry is like the superego form of regular Terrence,” Spectacle said. “When I’m on stage, whether or not my car is going to get towed outside the venue, that doesn’t matter. What I ate earlier doesn’t matter. I could be sweating head to toe. Things outside the performance don’t matter and I think that is the highest form of performance a person can feel when you’re on a stage and nothing else matters than delivering your message and moving an audience.”
Besides having One Summer Night be his greatest accomplishment yet, there are other projects and opportunities Spectacle has deemed to be great accomplishments in his career.
“The first song I ever sold was the previous single (before Lone Dirt Road), which actually came out two years ago now entitled “Night Owl,” he said. “One of my biggest feats is putting out this record, the Big Sean show was a huge thing. My first time performing at South By Southwest (SXSW), True Orange gave me the opportunity to go on tour with them.”
Photography by: @AdamBayacal
Fans of Spectacle and his work can catch him trying to touch his audience and inspire those who are his age and younger. If you want to keep up with Spectacle you can go to his personal website, follow him on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Check out “One Summer Night” and his other work on Apple Music, Spotify, Soundcloud and Tidal.
Website: www.terrencespectacle.com
Twitter: @TSpectacle
Instagram: @terrencespectacle
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/terrencespectacle