TT the Artist ’06 (General Fine Arts) could never be put in a box. With filmmaker, creative director, performer, community artist, and designer on her résumé, TT, also known as Tedra Wilson, has never been content to pursue one single artform. “To sustain myself as an artist, I try to take on different projects,” she said.

Music is one of her greatest loves. “I started rapping and doing hip hop in high school,” she said, describing her sound as a blend of “hip hop, pop, club, and electronic digital music.”
In a collaboration with songwriter and producer Diplo, TT’s vocals were featured on a single released under Diplo’s Mad Decent record label. She’s also opened for such acts as electronic music performer Dan Deacon and indie pop duo Phantogram.

“Performance can’t be beat because there’s an energy that you capture with the audience,” she said.

In addition to her music and performance career, TT served as a regular host on Keeping It Real TV, a late-night Baltimore entertainment show, and co-produced the Baltimore-based radio show, Off tha Edge Radio. She also found time to launch a T-shirt line called Artist Tees. In 2011, she received the Creative Alliance of Baltimore’s Camm Fellowship, which she used to work on an upcoming documentary called Dark City: Beneath the Beat, which highlights the culture surrounding Baltimore club music.

Giving back is just as important to TT as her career growth. She runs ArtistLand Productions, an organization that offers art workshops and events for young people and artists. “I needed to create a platform for my community arts initiatives and find a way to help others who are advocates for the arts,” she said.

This year, TT is teaching film at the Baltimore Design School. She’s also been commissioned to do a number of wall art projects, including one for Def Jam recording artist Chrisette Michele.

TT is quick to credit MICA with helping her to become comfortable expressing her creativity in myriad ways.

“Because I dive into so many different forms of art, I’m so versatile, and I owe my versatility to being a student at MICA,” she said. “At MICA I learned how to be an interdisciplinary artist. Those skills have translated into my adult life.”