Valee Taylor, known mononymously as Valee, is an American rapper known for his mixtape1988 which got him signed to Kanye West's record labelGOOD Music. He released GOOD Job, You Found Me on March 2, 2018. The first song he released was with Ty Money.
Early life
Valee Taylor grew up on Chicago's South Side, living in the Robert Taylor Homes and moving repeatedly once they were demolished. Valee has said his mother exposed him to musicians such as Erykah Badu, Sade, Jill Scott all at an early age. To this day, he still references the artists showed to him at a young age as heavily influential on his current music. Taylor was well trained as an auto mechanic and made money by working on people's automobiles from his mothers garage. Throughout his schooling, he had repeated issues with anger and his outbursts led to him being kicked out of numerous schools. The rapper cites Cash Money, and Project Pat as early hip hop influences. Taylor says he decided to make music on a whim while living in the South Side of Chicago. He says he was on his way to purchase a video game system, but on the way decided to go to Guitar Center instead. He purchased the necessary equipment to start making beats and shortly after he began rapping over them
Music
Valee's early work includes collaborations with producers such as Rio Mac and Chase the Money. Between 2015 and 2017, Valee would go on to release five independent projects; 12:12, 1:11, 2:22, 12:12Again and 1988. Valee’s first official commercial project was, GOOD Job, You Found Me EP, which was released in March 2018, and was executive produced by Kanye West. This EP received minimal attention from the mainstream, however Pitchforkreviewed the project and gave It a score of 7.4/10. In 2019, he released a surprise EP, Runnin Rich, which included features from G Herbo, King Louie, and Vic Mensa. The cover art is a picture of the rapper's pet dog, whom he was publicly condemned for dying red. Valee responded to the critics explaining he used "edible vegan dye" in order to color the pet's fur. He also released tracks with Big Baby DRAM, Mat Ox, and Lil Yachty. More recently he appeared on new YG album 4REAL 4 REAL. Valee is currently managed by Andrew Barber, founder of notable Chicago Hip-Hop Blog: Fake Shore Drive.
