We were lucky to catch up with Deandre Young recently and have shared our conversation below.
DeAndre , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
Around 10 years old I saw how cool it was to be a rapper. Coming home everyday and watching 106 & Park and MTV Jams, made me want to grow up and be a rapper so that I can get my own music video on there one day. It’s a bummer that neither one of those shows is still around but it’s what got the thought proccess started. I didn’t start taking it seriously though until my senior year of high school in 2016. My best friend Mike started showing me the beats he was making and during that summer I would go to his parents house and we’d record songs in his sister’s old room almost everyday. I remember one song that Mike and I made called Hold On Tight got around 2,500 plays on Soundcloud and since then I truly felt like I could do something in this field if I really wanted to.
DeAndre , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
What’s going on my name is DeAndre Young also known as AllStarDre and I make music. I’ve been making music for 8 years and I can truly say it’s been a blessing thus far. Coming from San Antonio, Tx it’s been great going around the city and sharing my music with others and very motivational at the same time. My overall goal is to bring notice to San Antonio and change the narrative around here. I see other cities in Texas like Dallas, Houston, and Austin have successful artists come from their city and I want to be apart of the change here in SA. I truly think artist such as Metta Mane, Jay Melotonin, E.A Linco, Jus.Lan3 and myself are the ones who can do it. Hell, MilesPerHour is from Corpus Christi but he has a similar mission as well. I believe in us for real and want us and this city to be taken seriously when it comes to music.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I love when someone genuinely enjoys what I do, there is nothing more rewarding than someone who sees your creative vision and appreciates it for what it is. Artist put a lot of time and effort into what they do and for the most part, get turned a blind eye to their final work. But that moment when a consumer takes time out their day to pay attention to you and enjoys the product that you put in front of them. Oh my goodness what a feeling that is! A breath of relief is released when that happens to me because it feels like I’m being seen. I’m not coming up with these ideas, spending hours on a verse and editing these videos for nothing.
How did you build your audience on social media?
My following isn’t the craziest but over the year I’ve had a gang of people follow me and support me based off of how I treated them in person. I’ve come to learn that everyone wants someone to listen to them and in person I try and do that. Ask them about themselves and they’re interest and if they are a creative like myself the connection is already immediate, based off the fact we get what each other is going through. My father taught me that first impression is everything. So I treat everyone respectfully, tell them about myself as well and based off the interactions slowly my following started to grow. Where I struggle is going out of my way to do that every outing because as an introvert you do get fatigued.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allstardre_
- Twitter: https://x.com/AllStarDre_
- Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/@AllStarDre1
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/dreuplay2much
Image Credits
James Castilleja