How did you get your stage name? What have reactions to it been?
My stage name is simply a play off my last name, which starts with a silent T (Tzeel). People butcher it all the time. They ask me how to say it, and I constantly say, "It's a silent t." So one day, when I had just begun rapping and needed a stage name, I had been contemplating what to call myself. I met someone that day who asked the infamous question, and I gave the same answer and had a lightbulb moment, where I realized Silent T would be a dope stage name. People seem to like it and people that know me think it's clever, although there are some people that have known me for YEARS and will ask why my rap name is what it is...and then they'll come back to me months later and say "Oh my God! Your rap name is Silent T because of your last name!" and I just shake my head.
What made you decide to become a rapper?
It just kind of happened. I had messed around writing the occasional punchline, and whenever I would hear a good one in a song I'd think "Damn that was good! I know I can do something like that." In 2010, my brother told me about this contest where you had to write a verse to finish a T-Pain song. I think T-Pain left one verse blank and you just wrote something, recorded it, and posted it to the contest site. I had no idea what the hell I was doing, but I figured I'd try it out. It wasn't my finest verse, but it was solid and I enjoyed the process. I figured I would try to keep writing since I had just hurt my shoulder in fall baseball and had some extra time on my hands. I was hooked. Still had no idea what the hell I was doing, but I started figuring it out slowly but surely and before long, I was ripping up beats left and right. I focused only on lyrics and punchlines to begin with and expanded the repertoire with time as I learned what was more marketable.
What’s the first rap song you ever heard? Describe the moment.
The first rap songs I remember hearing are "Can't Deny It" by Fabolous and “Livin It Up” by Ja Rule. I would ride the bus to school and Paul was my bus driver. I don't know what subsequently happened to Paul, but he would listen to the hip hop station. Both of those tracks came on, and the instrumentals were unlike anything I had ever heard previously to that point. That classic Rick Rock and Irv Gotti production was in full force. I loved it. I was in 3rd or 4th grade. From that moment on, I started listening to the rap station when I came home from school every day. There was no shaking it from that point on. I was addicted to it.
How did “Remember My Name” come together?
"Remember My Name" is an interesting story. I had just met J-Mac a couple weeks prior and we met up to chop it up and talk about music in the Triangle area. He sent over some tracks my way for me to peep. I heard the instrumental and it didn't leave my head for three days. One of my boys heard it, and he was like "yo you HAVE to get that shit NOW. I don't care how much I gotta give you to help cover the cost for that track." I started writing to it. The concept came immediately - it sounds like stadium music, so that was exactly the direction I took. Wrote my parts, and just needed a hook. I decided to enlist my friend Twitchy Eye to help inspire me, and within about 20 minutes, I had composed and arranged the hook. J-Mac suggested Crystal as the singer, and she came to the studio one day and just killed it.
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