It was about this time last year when Kareem Jackson, better known around these parts as Tef Poe, had acquired VIP passes to LouFest, and was forced to hand them off as he woefully scrubbed dishes in the back of a local restaurant, hoping that one day he’d be on that stage.
So you could say that his name included on this year’s LouFest lineup is a dream come true.
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Since he was just 16 years old, Tef Poe has been a frequent face in the St. Louis hip-hop scene. Back in those days, he recalls his extremely religious father dropping him off at venues he was too young to attend. Raised in a house where only gospel music was played, he aspired to rhyme like his idols Nas and Tupac, to follow in the footsteps of his elder brother, Black Spade.
Tef’s appearance on the HBO show “Next Episode” was the first time he had ever stepped onto the stage. And he bombed it, he thought. But refusing to let his dreams despair, he headed to the studio alongside his big bro, and not long after, he had produced three solo mixtapes—“Glory 2 God,” The Redeemer” and “Money Never Sleeps.”
“I tell people all the time that I represent the truest element of possibility,” he says. “If you focus and believe in yourself, you can pull it off, and that’s what I represent—someone who didn’t give up.”
Then came the War Machine project. Inspired by Tef’s fascination with sci-fi, the release of War Machine revealed the battle rapper’s edge, laden with aggressive beats and vivid lyrics.
“It was really angled toward being heard,” he says. “People wouldn’t start listening to me until I started yelling.”
Since then, he has released a second installment of War Machine (plus two more albums—Power Over Everything and The Hero Killer), launched OverDose Entertainment with a hand from his management team, opened for big names in the game like Lupe Fiasco, Talib Kweli, Big Boi and CeeLo Green.
After bouncing around from San Diego to New York to Tennessee, he has returned to his Midwest turf. And Tef’s bellicose voice has come to represent the city that raised him.
“I’m all about being the underdog and I think St. Louis is an underdog city,” he says. “The story of St. Louis is that we have so many musical greats that came from here. I am really blessed to be able to make a living off my city, because a lot of musicians can’t do that.”
When he isn’t in the studio or on stage, Tef can be found blogging about race issues, justice and poverty for the Riverfront Times. Not long ago, he was recruited to be an official performer for the worldwide human rights campaign Amnesty International after jumping on the Reginald Clemons case.
Could Tef Poe be the next Nelly or Chingy? Their styles are completely different, he says, but after recently landing a distribution deal with Universal Music Group and Bungalo Records (which has been responsible for successful releases from Patti Labelle and Latoya Jackson), he could be St. Louis’ next claim to fame.
“This is a good chance to show fans on a nationwide level what fans in St. Louis already know,” Poe says.
The deal assures that his future records will be available at major retailers throughout the U.S. Though his first national debut hasn’t been titled yet, it is slated to come out in February. In the meantime, he’s working on Cheer for the Villain, to be released this fall.
Like Nelly, he has branded himself as a rapper from the Midwest, borrowing styles from the East Coast, West Coast and The South. And when Tef Poe becomes the next big name in hip-hop, he’ll still be a St. Louisan at heart.
“If I wake up one day and can go anywhere in the world and there are people there who know my records, if I grow to the point where I live forever, that’s the influence I hope to have one day,” he says.
Catch Tef Poe on the BMI Stage at LouFest Sunday at 3:30 p.m. For the full lineup, visit LouFest.com.
