This year, the opening act for the Tigerfest concert, which featured mainstream hip-hop artists Young Thug and Tory Lanez, was none other than Original Student-Artist (OSA) rapper, To3tagga! Antory Cooper, who is known to his peers as Tory, is a senior business marketing major from Dallas,Texas.
Courtesy Photo
Antory “To3Tagga” Cooper is kills his opening perfomance during Tigerfest.
Although raised in Dallas, Tagga was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. When he became a junior in high school, he moved from Texas back to Shreveport where he finished his high school. He atteneded the Southern University in Shreveport where he attained an associate’s degree in music technology before attending Grambling State.
Since enrolling at GSU, he has performed at numerous on-campus as well as off-campus events.
He has opened for many events, including opening for Wale and Elle Varner during the Spring Fest of 2013.
He opened for the first GSU Natural Sistah’s hair show Spring 2014 and was also the opening act for this semester’s hair show.
At age 11, Tagga decided he wanted to rap after seeing a freestyle battle at a local skating rink. Naturally gifted in the arts, he put down the sketch book, and picked up the pen.
“One day I was sitting at the computer and saw a picture with a dead body with a tag on the toe. At that time I played sports and I just killed everything I did,” says Tagga in regards to how his stage name came to be.
The 24 year-old rapper, released his first album entitled 24 on October 24, 2015. The 10 song project was released on the rappers birthday.
“Everything I do has deep meaning, I incorporate flows and styles of this generation to get positive messages across.”
Tagga says his biggest influences come from Bob Marley, the Marley sons, and other reggae artists. He incorporates the positive vibrations of reggae into his unique style of hip-hop music.
Although he has not set a release date for his next project Project X, he has released his first single “Mojo” which can be found on Soundcloud.
His project will feature other OSAs like Fraze Siareno, PawPz of the Collective, Mirage Tha Flowtuh, Joe Money and AuxChords.
Follow To3tagga on Instagram @masterfinuego and @to3tagga and find his music on Soundcloud @to3tagga.