Photo by: Breonny Lee
BY Taylor Adams Cogan
It’s easy to feel inspired in Dallas, whether it’s by the stunning skyline that makes us feel at home, the trees of the Trinity Forest that make us feel small, or the creative energy pulsing through the streets of Deep Ellum. What makes it truly special, though, is its people. And for Tommy Raps, that first person to light the spark was one teacher at David W. Carter High School.
Born and raised in South Oak Cliff, Tommy dove into books as a kid – reading the Harry Potter books as soon as they dropped, making his way through Moby Dick in third grade. The power of words pulled him in, and he would join the literary society in high school.
“Then, my English teacher started a poetry club, and it inspired me a lot. It was an event, but deeper than that,” he says of the after-school group organized by teacher Darius Ajai Frasure.
It wasn’t just a club—it became a community. That led him to going to Diverse Lounge, which used to involve 200 kids packed into Katila Humphreys Theater, drinking hot chocolate and performing poetry.
“I wanted to be as deeply embedded as possible. I was in a safe group of people who taught me all of these avenues and challenged me to combine all of that. That’s a large part of my sound.”
Since then, Tommy Raps has accomplished a lot, even if under a different name. For 12 years, you knew him as rapper So-So Topic, until he took the Three Links stage in January 2023 and reintroduced himself.
Before that night, though, he was pouring what he knew back into the younger generation, which led him to work with Big Thought, going school to school teaching groups of kids music.
“We were teaching emotional literacy with youth. They needed a safe space to keep them out of trouble and to express themselves. You can get the most revolutionary kids you can imagine,” he says. “They’re bold, unfiltered, and brilliant. Seeing them create in those spaces reminded me of why I started in the first place.”
Mentorship became a bridge back to the stage for Tommy. “I was lucky enough to be raised in these types of crowds. So when I was on stage, it was, ‘How can I do something to make the older group happy but inspire the youth? It all leads up to this point.’”
Tommy Raps shares snippets of history in his Instagram stories – they’ve gone particularly viral during Black History Month. For him, it’s about making history feel accessible and fresh.
“Originally [when I started doing this], I was aware that there was Black History Month, and that everybody does their own rendition,” Tommy shared with KXT in early 2024. “As much as I was learning, I wasn’t retaining it very well. So I was like, what if there was an easy summarized way to learn about someone in under a minute? How much can I teach in under a minute? How much range could I get? How many different people can we squish into one history month? It just so happens it’s really easy to find a lot of notable people in the Black community.”
Tommy has toured nationally, released an EP, and even landed a role in the film Once Again for the Very First Time.
“I wanted to be that poet guy in movies,” he says. “I wanted to show that the art form could live in spaces where people might not expect it.”
The songwriter, producer, and now actor lives in New York City. But in his mind, Deep Ellum will always feel like home.
“When I first started getting into the scene, I saw where poetry had a place in the nightlife among all the other musical bubbling things. I thought, ‘What if I can do some deep storytelling stuff, then make people dance, then throw in a poem to make them think, then make them dance some?’” he says.
Deep Ellum gave Tommy that space to experiment. It’s where he could test his creativity in front of intimate, eager audiences and learn what moved them most.
“Deep Ellum charges me up,” he says. “It gets me going.”
