Hello, my name is Devonte Pearson.

I go by T.S The Solution.

I'm a hip-hop artist, audio engineer, lead engineer, at Panoramic Dreams Recording.

Musical influences, most of it comes from introspective artists that try to paint this picture of how they go through life, internally and present it to us in a consumable manner.

The music didn't expose the problem it solved the problem for me.

And I think that's what conscious rap does for me.

For sure.

It solves the problem.

I grew up mostly in Kent, Washington.

I was born in Long Beach, California.

Parents moved up to Washington when I was fairly young.

There wasn't stability around like family-wise.

Didn't really take school too seriously.

My older cousin Calvin, I wanted to do everything he did, whether it was good or bad.

The good side was the music, but it was also a gang culture that he was involved in too.

Good and bad, that's like my role model.

That man means a lot to me for sure.

I was in Moses Lake when I was 17, 18 years old, and I was there for a Job Corps.

It gave me stability.

It gave me structure, something I needed as a kid I didn't know I needed at the time.

I got to learn how to use tools and a trade under my belt.

It just taught us a way of life that what?

It took us a lot longer to figure out.

But from there, that's where I met my wife and go out to the West Side.

We lived in Renton and she she found out she was pregnant with twins!

Like colony?

That's one of your spelling words?

C, O, L, O, N, Y Remember when we used to work on these?

When we're at home doing school.

You can choose which page Yeah baby, I just want you to knock out one page per day Thats disgusting What does it say?

Flies can taste with their feet That's gross.

I didn't know that we came to Spokane because I wanted to take the audio engineering program at Spokane Falls Community College.

I got involved with doing shows while I was at school.

There's this one venue in town that everybody said, You have to do this one.

This is the best venue in town.

And it was called the Bartlett.

They present in multiple opportunities to me.

They put me on stage so they got us involved in the community a ton.

Currently, we're on the board of Sparks Central dealing with the youth and getting them involved in creative activities.

We did a mixtape camp with the kids, taught on Garage Band, beat production and got to see how involved kids are and how serious they take production.

Most of it has been music based, wanting to teach everything that we know of.

We've held creative writing workshops.

My wife and I, we don't work the 9 to 5 hours.

We work all day in and then we make time for family time.

They have a chore that they usually do at home if we're at home.

But if we're here, they still have chores like the kids.

Help me with the building.

They take care of the building with me.

It's one thing for me to tell you to chase your dreams and follow your dreams.

And for me to sit there and not do it is like.

Kids are smart.

They.

They understand.

Like, something doesn't make sense here.

So in order for me to sit there and tell them to chase their dreams, I have to chase mine and they have to see it.

Mentorship is can change the dynamic for lives so, so much.

When I think of my cousin, I think of mentorship.

I think of man, if I didn't have somebody so close to me, I don't know how I would have gotten so far.

It's hard to put in words but I love what I do.

I know the importance of it.

I know this is the type of stuff that makes the world go round.

I know this can change somebody's life because you make something out of nothing.

Completely nothing.

And it's like, Wow.

At the end of it all, we can have an album or we can have a song.

I've watched hip hop.

Rap music change so many people's lives for the better.

Let's create something out of nothing and just change the world.