By Robert Sneed
Register Reporter
On the campus of North Carolina A&T State University there are many students who rap and make Hip-Hop music, or at least try to. With all the aspiring artists of today, one in particular is currently experiencing “the come up.” His name is Nicholas Jeffers a.k.a B.R.A.$.$ — a junior at NC A&T Majoring in Journalism and Mass Communications. He was born in Duplin County, North Carolina which is closest to Wilmington, North Carolina. When he is not in class, he writes and records music.
Nick has been writing, recording, and producing his own music since he was 13 years old. He came up with his artist name when he was only 11 years old. The name B.R.A.$.$ means “Be Real and Stay Surreal”. This was a purposeful selection because he wanted his name to reflect his personality and his journey of growth as a person. Jeffers describes his style of hip-hop as contemporary rap. “To basically describe my style of rap with a modern day artist, consider the style of Chance the Rapper,” Jeffers said. Jeffers has also taken the initiative in his music by creating his own entertainment group as a platform to get his content to the masses.
His entertainment group is known as T.R.U Gang Entertainment. They have been active as an entertainment group since September 2014 and currently there are 8 artists. Just to name a few, there is Hydro, October, TNC, Suede and B.R.A.$.$ himself. Most of the rappers are from Duplin County. B.RA.$.$ has made a few tracks while being in college, and these tracks have been making some noise in the public sphere. The first track is called “Rise Up”. This track is high-energy and fast-paced coupled with quick verses from Hydro and B.R.A.$.$. T.R.U Gang teamed up with Fire-X Studios to create a video for their song “Rise Up” which currently has over 1,600 views on YouTube. T.R.U Gang also released a remix to the hit song “Panda” by Brooklyn artist Desiigner. This remix features verses from B.R.A.$.$ and TNC.
Along with the internet success, Jeffers and T.R.U Gang have wasted no time in making major moves. B.R.A.$.$ also has a few live performances under his belt. He has performed in Richmond, Boston and Atlanta for the Coast 2 Coast artist showcases, and he also performed for “Florida for the T.R.U Gang Florida Takeover” with TNC. Jeffers then mentioned that one of his songs “T.R.U ballin” has acquired some radio airtime on a radio station back in Duplin County.
Jeffers went on to hint about upcoming projects that will be released in the coming months. Jeffers plans to collaborate on a mixtape with artist Hydro entitled “TGE S#!t.” The production is still in the works, and there are plans for a release in mid-November. B.R.A.$.$ stated that artist TNC also has plans for releasing a mixtape in the coming months entitled “RNS.” Interested listeners can go to T.R.U Gang’s YouTube page and the Soundcloud account for each artist to check out the latest music from T.R.U Gang and it’s very own founder, B.R.A.$.$.
