About Me

One night, back in 2009, a friend and I recorded some freestyle raps in a barn, and I later uploaded them to SoundCloud under the name Treestyle, which is (probably obviously) a combination between the words Tree and Freestyle. Aside from the (also probably obvious) innuendo assumed from the word Tree, it also is a reference to my lifelong connection with nature. My parents had taken me camping for my first time before I was 1, and I grew up in a rural area running wild in the desert. I’ve always had a great appreciation for nature, and so the word also holds a deep symbolism to myself (as well as other members of Treestyle) in that regard. 

Anyways, from that night forward, Treestyle became a big part of my life. Over the years it evolved into a bit of an underground event in my local community, where every Friday night, MCs gathered around a microphone to freestyle their souls out for hours. Collectively, we had around 20+ participants, some regular, some occasional, before it eventually fizzled out for a bit. A year or two later, Twitch released it’s section, and myself and some of the more regular members from back then (TheMedisin, ProJeKt, C-Note) decided to try starting a Freestyle Friday stream. Viewers could come and request both beats and freestyle topics, and we’d rap about anything over any instrumental. We found what I consider to be pretty big success and we grew at a rate much faster than new streamers typically do. Eventually though, we decided we wanted to start working on an album, and we stopped streaming to use that time to work on it instead. We never ended up returning to streaming regularly after that, though we still work together on various projects when we have the time to collaborate.

What does all of this have to do with Treestyle Studios? Well, Treestyle, the music group, was how I found my love for creating. I think I’d always loved creating, but I’d never found a medium that could tame my ADHD. Freestyle rapping somehow just clicked with me, it was something I could just DO, and unlike most things that aren’t very fun when you start out and suck at them, freestyling was fun even when I was bad at it, and only got more fun as I got better. Having learned of my passion for creativity, my dream eventually came to be to operate a multimedia studio that made music, video games, film, and whatever else I fancied, and I wanted to call it Treestyle Studios, because Treestyle was where it all began. As I aged into my 30s though, reality started to set in. I could not possibly make a living by stretching myself out across all of these mediums. I needed money to live, and so did everyone else, and whatever energy we had left over after working our day jobs was not always willing to be spent on more work, even if we enjoyed it to some degree. Music and Video Game Development were the two areas I was most passionate about, and I accepted that I’d probably never be able to build a game while working overtime at my corporate job. Music on the other hand was more casual, I didn’t really care if I made money off of it, it was for me. So I kept with it and shelved the idea of video game development for awhile.

Fast forward to 2020. I turn 30. The world is in shambles. I’m working from home, no longer commuting 2 hours a day to an office, and I feel like I have so much more time and balance in my life. Then of course, the pandemic ends and things went back to “normal”, or at least tried to. I just couldn’t accept it though. I’d built up a decent chunk of savings at this point, and I decided it was time to take a risk. I dropped to part time at my existing job (a very special privilege afforded to me by my indispensable position at where I worked, they’d rather have me part time than not at all), and this allowed me to start pursuing my dream of video game development, which has led to me sitting here writing this today.

Well what about everyone else you ask? We still collaborate on projects, but nobody from Treestyle (the music group) is an “employee” at Treestyle Studios. Maybe some day, if I can ever afford to pay them. For now though, TheMedisin is still making music and has been helping make the soundtrack for our first game Lord O’ Pirates. ProJeKt has his own film business and does a lot of contract work in all sorts of niches, including helping us make our video game trailer. Currently the only two people working full time on Treestyle Studio projects are myself and Moth. Moth does most of our pixel art, and I do the programming, game design, sound design, social media marketing, probably other stuff.

So for all intents and purposes, we are a humble team of two, who collaborates a little here and there with some outside entities. Neither of us are being paid, we both support ourselves through other jobs, and we are just doing the best we can with what we have. So far though, it’s going pretty damn good!