We were lucky to catch up with Joshua Fitzgerald recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Joshua thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

I wish I would have started a lot sooner because I could’ve polished my craft a lot sooner as oppose to the position Im in now. I feel more polished now as opposed to me coming up in the game back in 2016. It’s always good to have that head start and it would’ve put me in the position to work with the artist in the DMV area who were just starting out at the time.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Joshua I go by Teezo Tarantino. Most of my friends and family call me Teezo and so does most of my supporters. I am a rapper, self taught recording, mixing and mastering engineer. I came into the industry in 2016 with my first single No Hook Gang (Now deleted lol). I was always fascinated with music even at a young age. I used to have PSP’s filled with songs and would memorize the lyrics from most of the songs I would listen to at the time. What got me to get into making my own music was a few of my friends egged me on but I wasn’t trying to see the picture. One day my friend Melly Black had this beat and was like “You need to stop playing and hop on this” So I wrote 16 bars and it went up from there. I got into the engineering side because I saw a few of my favorite artist kind of engineering themselves and it made me want to learn. The problem that I save for my clients with my engineering work is to make sure that whatever the artist hears in their heads it gets translated accurately to the computer and turned into the purist art form possible. What sets me apart from others is that I take my craft seriously. Seriously enough to take my craft in different creative directions that leads me to think outside the box. I am most proud of my work ethic. In order to beat me you have to out work me and that’s impossible because everything is already ready for whenever the time comes. I know that my supporters are 100% behind me every step of the way. I want future listeners of my music to know that you can expect nothing but quality when it comes from my projects from here on out. Back when I first started I didn’t know any better and we were just throwing things at the wall hoping it’ll stick. This time around with my newer projects Im looking for cohesion. I want future clients of my engineering work to understand that I want to help you better your craft and take the necessary steps to be the best artist you can possibly be. Quality over everything is my motto.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

What society can do to help better support is artist is streaming their songs. Yes YouTube helps and plays a big part in breaking artist but most artist have to grind to get to YouTube partner and that can take awhile and cause some to quit. Streaming songs that you like from a new upcoming artist goes a long way. Buying merch whenever that drops or coming out to shows also helps an artist. As artist we have a lot of things against us especially streaming services like Spotify who pay us a fraction of penny when everything cost us a lot of money to create this art that we deliver to the fans/supporters. Please please please show out for your favorite up and coming artist.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Resources I wish I knew before was how to mix. When I started mixing what hindered me from liking my music early on was the mixing. I thought it was bad and I didn’t take nothing I did back then seriously. Now that my skills have gotten better I enjoy listening back to the music I make soon as it leaves pro tools. Another resource I wish I knew was how to write better. Back then I was just flowing with melodies to a beat but now my lyrics have evolved into something I can be proud of.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://drum.io/teezotarantino
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teezomontana/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeezoTarantino/
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/TeezoTarantino
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuazTwrXG__p21NnksKatLA

Image Credits
All Images and pics are captured by me Teezo Tarantino