Who is Lil Tecca?

Lil Tecca is back with another single titled "Need Me." The song samples Brandy and Monica's classic "The Boy Is Mine." Despite being in the rap game for nearly five years, Tecca is only twenty years old. The New York rapper rose to fame quickly and has capitalized on his success with three projects and an array of singles. Known for his heavily auto-tuned and melodic sound, Tecca has one of the most unique sounds in New York. He has also created a signature image for himself, as when he blew up, he was still sporting braces and glasses. Much of this is because he was only sixteen years old at the time. Here's a look at the life and career of Lil Tecca.

Lil Tecca was born in Queens, New York, in 2002. At an early age, he wanted to play in the NBA but soon found his love for music. At just nine years old, Tecca began rapping with his friends over an Xbox microphone while playing video games. Tecca and his friends would make diss tracks of each other while on the game. Two tracks were released on SoundCloud but have since been taken down.

In middle school, Tecca fully embraced a musical career and decided to let his basketball dreams go. His first track, "Tectri," was released in 2017 and was a collaboration with his friend Lil Gummybear. The music video for the song is still available on YouTube. Despite still being in high school, it would only take two more years for Tecca to break out in the mainstream. His overnight success came in 2019 with his hit song "Ransom."

Tecca released "Ransom" to Cole Bennett's YouTube channel Lyrical Lemonade on May 22, 2019. At the time of its release, Tecca was only sixteen years old. The song took off and became a mainstream hit. "Ransom" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 list. It also has amassed over one billion streams on Spotify and 400 million views on Youtube. Following "Ransom," Tecca would capitalize on his overnight success with his debut mixtape, We Love You Tecca.

We Love You Tecca was released on August 30, 2019. Along with the single version of "Ransom," the mixtape also featured a remix with Juice WRLD. This was a major cosign for Lil Tecca, as Juice WRLD was among the hottest young artists. The mixtape also featured two more singles that reached the Billboard Hot 100 charts. "Love Me" peaked at No. 97, and "Did It Again" peaked at No. 64. We Love You Tecca debuted at No. 4 on the US Billboard Hot 200 and sold 68,000 copies in its first week. The mixtape has since been certified Platinum and showed that Tecca had staying power beyond "Ransom."

The following year, Tecca released his debut album Virgo World. While the album did not have any hits with as much success as "Ransom," it proved a significant step in Tecca's development as an artist. A testament to this is the features included on the album. Virgo World has guest features from Lil Durk, Polo G, NAV, Skrillex, and Lil Uzi Vert. The album sold 35,000 copies in its first week.

In addition to Virgo World, Tecca continued to put out singles throughout 2020 and 2021. The single "Show Me Up" circulated online as a leak before Tecca officially released it. He then released the single "Never Left," which peaked at No. 54 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Never Left" would become the lead single for Tecca's next project, We Love You Tecca 2.

Tecca released the sequel to his mixtape, We Love You Tecca 2, just a day after his nineteenth birthday. Like Virgo World, the album has a star-studded feature list, including Gunna, Iann Dior, Chief Keef, Trippie Redd, NAV, and Lil Yachty. The album debuted at number ten on the US Billboard Hot 200 and sold 30,000 copies in its first week.

Following We Love You Tecca 2, Lil Tecca announced a headline tour named "Tecca Loves You Tour." Tecca brought along Tana, Bktherula, and Yxngchris for the tour. Tecca continued to put out singles throughout 2022, including "Blessing" and "Treesha." As of 2023, Tecca is continuing to put out singles and make music at a very consistent pace.

Earlier in the year, he was featured on a single titled "Poppin" by Rich Amiri. His first solo single was the aforementioned "Need Me," which was released just this month along with a music video. The video for the song has amassed 700,000 views on YouTube in just two days. While many fans wrote off Lil Tecca as a one-hit wonder after "Ransom" was released, he has proved that he has true staying power in Hip-Hop and continues to be one of the most promising acts in the game.

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