Written by: Lawrence Burney
Photography: Amira Green
YG Teck’s music arrives at a perfect generational intersection. Born in the early 90s and just old enough to have consciously encountered artists like Jadakiss, Lloyd Banks, and others, his early youth was soundtracked by East Coast street music that put an equal amount of emphasis on displaying lyrical skill as it did being able to tell a compelling story. By the time his teenage years rolled around and Baltimore’s primary music of choice shifted to Southern artists like Jeezy, Boosie, and Gucci, he was able to engage with the necessity of having irresistibly hard-hitting production and innovative, cathartic rap styles. Both of these sides of the coin are present in the West Baltimore native’s music, which, over the past three years, has swept through the city with more consistent force than any of his peers. “Long as I can remember, I was rapping,” Teck, who stands about 5’7 and dons long, double-twisted locs tells me over the phone in late November. “I always felt like I was gon be that big rapper. That was always one of my childhood dreams because my favorite artist when I was young was Wayne. I used to walk around and act like that nigga. I was caught by the flashiness and the lifestyle.” The glitz associated with Wayne and the rest of the Cash Money Records family is what pulled a young Teck in, but the dedication to outwork his competition is proving to be the biggest takeaway that he got from Dwayne Michael Carter, JR..
Teck’s childhood car rides with his mother were soundtracked by early JAY-Z and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Those moments are what he believes helped make him into the artist he is now. “I can’t rap bullshit ‘cause I grew up on music with a message to it,” he says. And that thinking was backed up by even the earliest peaks into his artistry. Before he had any of his own music out, YG Teck was someone who would regularly pop up on local rap docs and YouTube channels like Baltimore Real Talk or Real Music DVD. Whenever his native Park Heights area was being explored, he could be seen—still rocking his long dreads and signature Baltimore top row of gold teeth—in studio sessions, somewhere around the way, or serving as a featured artist on tracks from guys in his neighborhood. And even then, when he’d get a short verse off or give a soundbite to the camera, there was a sense that he had a solid grasp on how to articulate the cause-and-effect of what was happening around him—not just blindly narrating it for the sole purpose of beating his chest.
One of the first signs of his potential to be special came in 2015 on a track titled “Questions” on his debut, 17-track No Excusez mixtape that featured the late G-Rock (a.k.a. 2 Clocks), a rapper from West Baltimore’s Edmondson Village who many credit with being the key predecessor to the Lor Scoota and Young Moose-led street rap scene that started to take shape in 2014. Over a bed of looped angelic cries, G-Rock spit a nearly three minute-long verse that saw him go inward to talk about how he often questioned God about the situations he found himself in. With no hook to follow, Teck, with his light, fiery voice, came right in to reflect on his own path and establish his code of ethics: “I need 100 mil, fuck 100 stacks. Tap dance to get rich? I ain’t with none of that / Trying not to make the same mistakes twice, doing wrong to make right.” Though at the time it didn’t really seem like a passing of the torch, with G-Rock being killed just before the song could come out, Teck still recognizes it as one of the more pivotal moments in his career. “Clocks was just different. He was the first artist I bumped into in the streets,” he says with proud laughs while retracing how the collaboration came to be. “He had pulled up around the way one time and he told me he had this hard ass beat. So he played it for me and I was like, ‘Damn this bitch hard!’ He end up doing it and he sent it to me and was like’ Jump on it then.’” With palpable excitement, Teck said he was shocked, but did his best to follow. When he sent his own verse back, G-Rock was so pleased that he let him keep the song. Teck hasn’t turned back since. And now, with a few years under his belt, he is positioning himself to be the city’s foremost orator on matters that typically get skimmed over or embellished for mainstream consumption, much like G-Rock was in the early parts of the 2010’s.
A real breakout moment came at the end of 2017 when Teck was a guest on local online station DTLR Radio with host Jay Hill. Setting the tone with an assured, “They gon have to let me in after this one,” Teck spent four and a half minutes relentlessly presenting a miniature autobiography that spanned from his lifelong desire to rise to the top to attempting to keep his close friends out of legal trouble—even going for a full minute after the beat ended.
Prior to the freestyle’s release, he’d released two tapes (No Excusez and Eyes Won’t Close earlier in 2017), but the majority of his widespread local support came directly after the in-studio footage was uploaded to YouTube. It eventually accrued over a million views, began getting regular radio play on 92Q (previously unheard of for a freestyle in Baltimore), got an official music video, and was included on two of his tapes that followed. “That’s the thing about me: I’m one of the few artists that the city can tell you my story because it happened right in front they eyes,” Teck says when thinking about the traction the freestyle established for his career. “I’m not that nigga that popped up outta nowhere like, ‘Where you from?’ The city really know me. A nigga will be like ‘I used to see him outside’ or ‘I used to hoop with yo’ or they was over the jail with me. That DTLR shit is something they seen happen. They seen the numbers go up.” On the phone, Teck reveals that he actually never wanted the freestyle to drop because he thought that he’d done better before and has a pet peeve for releasing material that isn’t a clear improvement on past work. Apparently, fans didn’t agree with that gut feeling.
“If I take off today or tomorrow, I’ma have everybody reaching because I been through it all.”
From that point forward, it’s felt like every couple of weeks in Baltimore are soundtracked by Teck’s music whether it be a freestyle, loose song, or project. In 2019 alone, he released three projects (Baggage Claim, Matter of Time, and collaborative tape with Young Moose, Excuse the Mud) and a string of viral freestyles that continued to build onto his legacy of resonant storytelling. In many ways, the freestyles have become what fans look most forward to. On social media, his followers beg him to drop full versions of snippets and assert that no one in the city depicts what life is like with the authenticity that he does. And just by observing his body movements while he raps, you can tell that he feels every word that he emits. Quite often, his jerks back and forth make him look like lines are literally jumping out of him. There aren’t many rappers that give the feeling that their words would be just as impactful without being backed by music, but Teck has that effect.
YG Teck’s divine gift is that he has the ability to motivate his listeners with the transferable energy to persist. No Excusez was the title of his first mixtape but it’s also a tagline that’s grown into a personal brand for him. In local apparel stores, he sells clothing under the name and in his work and approach, you get the sense that he has zero tolerance for bullshit and stagnation. Not unlike the late Nipsey Hussle, Teck’s appeal, beyond music, is that he comes off as a man of principle—someone who has vision and the wherewithal to see that vision through no matter what obstacles may be present. “I don’t feel like I always had it figured it out but I feel like I learn as I go. I kinda know what I want in life,” he reasons. “No Excusez is something that keep me motivated and something I live and die by. I feel like an excuse is the only thing between a success and a failure. Most people that fail, they find other people to blame for their failures and always point the finger. A nigga with no excuses, they just take that shit on the chin and blame they self.” That way of seeing the world is echoed in just about every song that he’s released in recent memory.
On 2017’s self-explanatory “No Complaining,” over beautiful sax play, he advocates for circulating money through the Black community, being cautious of predatory record labels, and investing in real estate (at the end of 2019, he rejoiced on Instagram about successfully flipping his first house). On 2018’s “Fuck the Rules” from his The Hardway EP, Teck talk-raps about widespread hardships going on in his neighborhood, stressing to people that want help to leave him alone because he has his own issues to worry about. Then, on the recent “Wishing on a Star” (which has one of the more cinematically gripping videos the city has seen), he masterfully narrates what hopelessness feels like—mentioning that a special low was having to borrow his girlfriend’s car when he didn’t have one. It’s these instances that lend weight to Teck suggesting rules to live by; he’s not yelling down from a mountain top. He makes it a point to share that he has—or still is—experiencing things that have helped him realize that some semblance structure and discipline are essential to a productive life. And sharing those not-so-glossy moments have helped bring him closer to fans he thought he’d never have.
“I don’t really know what else to talk about, so if I don't talk about my life, my catalog ain’t gon be long at all,” Teck explains. “Most of the muhfuckas relating to this shit, I ain’t even know was living like me. You’d be surprised how muhfuckas who acting like they ballin’ walk up to me like ‘Damn shordy.’ I just look at it like, my lifestyle might connect to people in a way they scared to speak on.”
The ability to relate to others is also what brought Teck and Young Moose together for their joint Excuse The Mud mixtape, the strongest Baltimore rap project of 2019. A completely unexpected move for anyone who follows the street scene, the two did something that many fans would have liked to see happen between the late Lor Scoota and Moose: joining the strongest voices from East and West Baltimore in hopes of a legendary outcome. But there’s a chance that that combination would have never amounted to what Excuse The Mud did in substance because neither would have had the lived experiences that made this tape such a rewarding experience. In the years since Lor Scoota was killed, Young Moose has gone through public struggles with the Baltimore City Police Department, seen artists who came after him reap the benefits of the groundwork he put in, and as a result, has had to regroup artistically. All of that can be heard on Excuse The Mud, which is arguably the strongest Moose has sounded since 2015. On it, he and Teck trade stories about the yearning to make it big (“36”), pay respects to big homies from their neighborhoods who showed them how to move (“Role Model”), and went bar-for-bar to talk their shit in top tier fashion on “Trespassing.” When I ask about the two’s chemistry, Teck says they wrapped it in just over a week, which is wild to think when considering how much they sound like a duo that’s been rapping together for years.
Looking back on the tape, what sticks out the most is the feeling that its quality and Moose’s return to prominence would have to be connected to Teck’s rub-off effect. For someone who consistently pushes himself to be top-notch and to take full responsibility for any of his deficiencies, YG Teck is proving to not only be someone who can inspire the steadily growing audience that listens to and spreads his music, but to peers who have all the tools they need, but could use some help being steered in the right direction. And those qualities becoming clearer to the public is what frames him as an artist who needs to be treasured right now and as time goes on. “I feel like the city need that one artist who been through every stage,” Teck says before we end our conversation. “If I take off today or tomorrow, I’ma have everybody reaching because I been through it all.”