FREE

Meet FREE | Songwriter/ Creative Director - The Tennessee Highlighter

Sep 3, 2025 ... We had the good fortune of connecting with FREE and we’ve shared our conversation below. Hi FREE, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally? I pursued a creative career because creativity has always been at the core of who I am. From a young age, I gravitated toward visual arts—drawing, designing, and even creating my first comic book back in the fourth grade. In high school, I had the opportunity to study under both a muralist and an automotive engineer/architect, which really expanded the way I thought about design and structure. At the same time, my love for anime, comics, and animation kept fueling my imagination and storytelling. What’s interesting is that I never initially saw myself as a songwriter, but writing and language arts were always my academic strengths. Over time, I discovered that I could merge that skill with my passion for storytelling, which opened a whole new creative lane for me. For the last 10 years, I’ve been learning how to let all of these influences—visual arts, design, writing, and music—come together in my creative work. So, pursuing a creative career wasn’t just a decision, it was a natural progression of who I’ve always been and the things that inspire me most.

FREE: Detroit, His Way - NORBU MAGAZINE

May 24, 2024 ... It’s more modest than tongue-in-cheek, but the “dark R&B” artist sounds invested in @freenotavailable sound brewing since 2015. Still a work-in-progress, but raw in its own right. The project weaves moody, sensual instrumentation with lyrics and melodies fitting right into early OVO Sounds. The concluding track, “PILGRIM,” is its finest example: a dirty mackin’ anthem that will make listeners chortle and shake their heads, but can’t deny singing its chorus. “My current pursuit of music is very focused on world-building.” In Conversation with Patu Ong Photography by Khalil Copeland