What started out as a joke is now a professional aspiration for Tulita musician Julian McPherson.
The 14-year-old released his first album at the end of October, only a year after he started rapping for laughs.
The 12 tracks on Legacy are rife with collaborations between Julian and other young musicians.
Photo courtesy of Judy McPherson.
Coming from a community of 500 people, McPherson said it can be difficult to grow as an artist.
To compensate for the small population, he said he looks to apps like Fiverr and Soundcloud for partnerships.
“We can both collab and then we both equally get more fans and more exposure,” he said.
McPherson, who goes by the stage name Lil Macc, said most of the youth in Tulita are already streaming his songs.
“You just bump into them and they’d have my music downloaded or saved or they'd be listening to it,” he said.
He even got to dance along to his music being played at a recent Halloween event.
For those listening to his tunes, McPherson hopes his songs can “make people feel better.”
“I like that I can make music for people who are going through phases like depression or anxiety,” he said.
Judy McPherson, Julian’s mother, said her son has been “an entertainer” from a young age.
She said he has always made music and music videos with his nieces and nephews “and tons of that kind of stuff.”
“It’s been like this all of his 14 years.”
As evidence, Judy points to a home-video of two-year-old Julian dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller uploaded to YouTube over a decade ago.
While there is no set formula to his art, Julian said generally, “I look for a beat, and then write lyrics and try and get that flow all good, and then just sing to it and then it’s good to go.”
He begun putting his Legacy album together in June.
As far as the origins of the Lil Macc stage name, Julian said he noticed other rappers using “lil” in their artist names.
“I wanted to use my last name, but lil Mc didn’t have the flow I desired so I added the ‘A’ and Lil Macc just flowed better.”
As he continues to work on his music, Julian hopes to grow as an artist and earn a degree of fame.
“I want people to know I’m next up in the rap game,” he said.