Tyler Fontaine is an emerging artist from the DMV who just dropped a solid 6-track EP titled “Do Not Disturb”. He displays his raw talent and ability to be versatile throughout the project. The arsenal of different flows he brings to the table and capability to stretch his vocals gives him an insane advantage. No matter what style of beat he decides to hop on there’s always a guarantee that he’ll turn it into something special. For just starting to take the craft seriously he has already proven that he can compete with a number of artists. If he keeps up with consistently dropping high-quality work he’s bound to take off sooner than later. The up and coming artist took his time to answer some questions about himself and the new EP. Read up below.
Who are you and where are you from?
I go by Tyler Fontaine. My government name is Julius Roosevelt Terrell and I’m from right outside of Washington, D.C, Bowie, Maryland.
How’d you get the name Tyler Fontaine?
One day I was looking in the mirror it was the day before I went into the studio for the first time. I was thinking what my name would be. I knew I didn’t want it to be like a cartoon character. I liked how Travis Scott’s name isn’t his real name and Tyler The Creator was one of my inspirations, not even musically just on a pushing boundaries perspective. So, I chose that as my first name. And Fontaine I got from a R&B name generator. The full name was like Dario Fontaine.
What was your life like growing up in the DMV?
It was cool. There’s a lot of culture there, I was lucky enough to see both sides. I had friends from the trenches like south east Edgewood and then I had friends from Bethesda, which is very wealthy. I went to public school because I got kicked out of private school, so I felt like I experienced all of the DMV from Go Go’s in Largo to house parties in Betheseda. Overall it was good. I had a pretty normal childhood got in trouble like most kids. Def gave my mom a couple heart attacks but all in all I love D.C and PG County. That place raised me and I’m more than grateful.
Talk about your first day at the studio and why you decided to start making music.
I was some shit. At this point it was my friend Brandon, one of my other friends another rapper from the DMV Big Cam, and me. We had been talking about making music for a while. We would skip class go into my friend Charles car and just crank to music because school was awful. Not the people just school in general. During those sessions I would freestyle and shit. Brandon would always tell me I could do it. He would tell me I had bars, that my flows were creative and different. So, I went to the studio with him and Cam thinking I was going to lay down a hit. It was awful. 3 hours. Spent an hour looking for a beat. Once I got in the studio I was so smacked I was speaking gibberish. I sounded like a drunk Lil Wayne. After that I had like a mini meltdown. At that time, I was playing lacrosse and I was committed to play at the Virginia military institute. I just didn’t love the game anymore and I thought music could replace it. I was crushed when I didn’t come out with shit. A couple days went by and me and Brandon were just talking about why I had decided to do it in the first place. It wasn’t to get popular or anything. It was because I knew deep down I could be not just good but great. The freestyles and shit I would write, I would perform in the bathroom I knew if I could get it how I wanted to sound I would have something. As far as for why I started making music. Honestly to get bitches and because I heard people I thought I was better than. On top of that my best friend was encouraging me to do it but even before that I was huge into poetry. I wrote a 60-page story in 6th grade about my class it was some Diary of a Wimpy Kid type shit and every week was a new 7-10-page chapter. I had some clout for 2 months. Low-key I think little things like that made me want to be a rapper. Knowing there are people listening to what you have to say, and you can influence them or help them get through something. That’s special.
It sounds like you’ve always been driven creatively. Would you say that failure in the studio pushed you to take the music more seriously or was it a combination of everything else going on?
It did. During that session Cam and my other friend Sam Pain. Made a hit called Upt baby. This was after I had miserably failed. I wanted to get on the track but Cam wouldn’t tell me no, so the engineer basically said I’d make it bad. We’re cool now his name is Nell he’s actually one of Shy Glizzy’s producers. He produced “PLAY” which is a bonus song that’ll be out when “Do Not Disturb” hits all platforms this week. I played sports all my life in the same high school basketball league “WCAC” as Victor Oladipo and Markell Fultz. I played JV but that’s by far the best high school basketball League in the country, so JV had some bump. I played in the most competitive area for lacrosse so competing has always been in my mentality. I just saw that as a gut check. As my pops says attitude determines altitude, I knew how I bounced back from that would make or break how far I would take this shit. Along the road there have been way worse hiccups than not being able to have ideas for a song in one studio session.
Let’s get into “Do Not Disturb”, your most recent project. What was the mindset you had while creating it and how did everything come together?
Only one of the songs was recorded at home which was “!TIME” and that had a lot to do with why it was first on the EP. I made that song two days before I moved to Queens, New York for school. At that point I had dropped a music video for a song I did with my friend and fellow artist, Nuge. It was doing well but people still saw me as a kid taking this shit as a hobby you know? I had that mentality on the studio. “Hands down I’m the man now. Got a bitch with a tan. Even got some fans now”, that just captures how I was feeling talking my shit letting you know I’m coming. The rest of the EP I recorded in Queens and I had a vision. When I would go into studios in New York the vibes were just different I wanted to rap about flexing, “VLONE FITTED” type shit. At the same time I wanted that hard up beat feel. I wanted this shit to wake people up. Throughout the project I give you a look Into me for real. “OooWee” is a song that mentions Bowie, Maryland my home. Even though it’s a fun song if you listen you’ll hear some treats. That’s why I put my brother Cee Dinero on here too, the only feature. You’ve never heard his name. Why? He’s my brother and the vibes from that song would’ve never happened if he wasn’t there. He pulled something out of me and we got a hit on “HiKey”, my favorite song on the whole thing to be honest.
I can tell you really take pride in the people around you as well as yourself. What was the process choosing the beats for the project?
Super organic. A lot of producers have been showing me love on the low. On “MAKE ME SING” I hit up AR personally for that one and it worked out. BabyJayOnDaBeat is a young nigga from D.C you’ll be hearing a lot about I think. Mad talented producers from DC were just playing me beats. As soon I heard “!TIME” my face squinted, I was like bet and got right in the studio. MuggMixin is the homie. He’s probably sent me 30+ beats but “HiKey” and “OoWee” were my favorite. We have a tape coming for sure and I got one with Pvxxp beats. He produced go hard he’s super wavy. It was kind of hard to pick too because I recorded a lot, I basically have a tape with essentially all singing recorded. That was really close to being put out instead of “Do Not Disturb”.
Did you have the same kind of approach on your first project, “Ty To Infinity”? If not, how did they differ.
“Ty To Infinity” was more an accumulation of my favorite songs at that time. I was on fire like it felt like everything I made was good enough for me to put on a project. I felt like I was obligated to show my growth even though at that time I didn’t have any marketing plan or anything to get it heard. I just dropped that for the 30 or so people who were listening to me on a consistent basis. Felt like they deserved to see my growth. It was a mix; no thought went into a theme or anything. “Ty to Infinity 2” will be way better and just more versatile.
What do you have on the way now that “Do Not Disturb” is out?
“Ty to infinity 2” be on the lookout for that. Visuals for “GO HARD!” and at least one more song off the EP. I have a couple features on the way with some guys from the DMV who are doing their thing right now. Yung Jordan from DC and 1990Bishop from Virginia, I’m excited about those.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell the fans before we wrap up?
Be open minded when you listen to me and I want to thank everybody who has taken the time to listen to me. It means a lot. It’s almost like medication for me, to have a release knowing people resonate and vibe to it. Much more to come. Peace and love.