Tony Ultra

Jeremy "JTunes" Smith, better known by his stage name, Tony Ultra, is a 22-year old, multi-faceted musical recording artist. Born in Florida on November 26th, 1993, Ultra is the son of Cynthia and Russell Smith. His father is a former native of Brooklyn, New York, and  and his mother was raised in Central Florida. Tony's interest in performing began at an early age. His inspirations would spawn from VHS and cassette tapes laying around his house with classic music and videos on them. Being around a lot of good music allowed Tony to draw inspirations from artists such as James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Al Green, and anything else he could find laying around the house. Going to church with his grandmother introduced him to gospel music, which played a major role in his bright and jazzy style of production.

     Tony's first moments playing music started when he was attending pre-school. A preschool teacher showed him how to play Mary Had a Little Lamb on a little keyboard and he grasped the concept an ran with it. He later found himself recreating songs that he heard; shocking his mother as she would walk past his room and hear familiar classics being played by her five year old. 

     His first time delving into art and appreciating what it meant to him started in a performing arts elementary school that recruited him to attend their program. There he learned how to play violin, sculpt clay, paint, sing, and learn several styles of dance; such as jazz, tap, ballet and Hip-Hop. This early introduction to music and performance allowed Ultra to fit right in at his grandmothers church. He started out playing the drums and eventually ended up playing guitar, bass, and keyboard.

     Throughout middle school Ultra took Band, where he learned how to structure and arrange music. He also learned about theory and scales and he learned to apply what he learned to his playing. This sparked Tony's interest in making beats and producing his own music.

     In high school he began to develop a relationship with Hip-Hop music. Growing up with R&B, Soul and Gospel made him not so likely to enjoy hip hop, but learning that life isn't always easy, he looked to the pain and grittiness of hip hop to get him through.

     Being Influenced in 2008 to start taking rapping seriously came from text message-rap battles with a homie from out of town. Sometimes Ultra would be so pleased with certain lines from the battles that he would save them. Eventually, those short lines and ideas became song to record over his beats that he had been making.

     Through his music Tony Ultra tells his story as well as the stories of others. In one of his previous works he says, "Pay attention... with every lyric, Im painting' a picture...". These stories are stories of real things, and they are stories of unreal things, but either way he takes his listeners on a jo.urney with him to chase dreams, and face obstacles. He turning his desire to fulfill his soul purpose into art, and he shares these pieces of art with the world in hopes that others will desire to do the same