Tre. Charles

Tre. Charles will take the stage this weekend in front of The Brown Sugar Collab for a two-hour set. Longtime residents may be familiar with the indie-soul guitarist and singer already. He’s played around town for years, but he’s turned his music into a full-time career. Charles recently dropped his first single, “Stressin’,” which he says was inspired by what it feels like for him to be a young Black man in America and the isolation he felt during the pandemic.

(Fun fact, he even submitted a video to NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert contest last year.)

Like it has for most people who perform for a living, the last year’s been tough on Charles. But he’s happy to be back in front of crowds now.

“I personally feed off the energy of the crowd and the reception, and it’s kind of hard to convey that emotion through a screen sometimes,” Charles said.

And emotions are vital to Charles’ songwriting. Over the last year, there have been plenty to work through.

“I want to let people know what I’m feeling and what I was feeling when I was writing it, and I try to evoke that emotion and help people feel their feels,” he said. “Whether it makes you mad, happy or sad, I want to help you feel it.”

He hopes people want to feel those emotions -- and soak up some sun — with him Saturday.

“If you want to come out and support, I would appreciate it, and support all the artists that are going to be out throughout the month, because everybody kind of wants to perform for everybody and get their music back out there,” Charles said. - NPR (WFAE)

It’s always exciting when a fully formed new talent seems to appear out of nowhere, and that’s how it felt when Tre. Charles’s debut single landed in our inbox.

Charles, a 29-year-old indie-soul musician in Durham, is currently preparing his first EP, from which “Stressin.” is the title track and lead single.

The production is impeccably understated, consisting mainly of guitar scrimshaw, hissing electronic hi-hats, and the occasional upwelling bass. Yet it feels rich and full, thanks to the halos of harmony shining from Charles’s voice, which is naturalistic even when subtly extended with reverbs and delays.

Though Charles shrewdly keeps his moody, implacable melody uncluttered, he also decorates it with imaginative details—a bit of backmasked guitar here, a pitched-down syllable there—that stand out all the more sharply for their judicious placement.

His singing, slow as oil yet light as air, suffuses the arrangement with an atmosphere of weary resilience, as if Charles is casually carrying the weight of the world.

This is apt, as “Stressin.” is a meditation on the perils and pressures of being young and Black in America. It’s also a poised debut of deceptive simplicity, disarming delicacy, and transfixing clarity that comes highly recommended to fans of Frank Ocean, James Blake, and the local 21st-century-soul exemplar XOXOK. It speaks volumes about Charles’s vocal talent that the wordless hook of “Stressin.” is the stickiest part, and we can’t wait to hear the EP. - Brian Howe

Lately I have taken to night walks. Slow solemn steps through darkness I wander, dressed in black, emerging in street light and disappearing again into the shadow we call night. Always I am joined by the company of music. Headphones on, ambivalence tuned up, I make my way through the side streets of my sleepy neighborhood listening to a debut song by a new local artist. His name is Tre Charles. His song, “Stressin”, debuts on 4/26.

A soft melodic intro matches the pace of my strides as I ease into my ambling. The percussion enters and my feet fall into rhythm. Within a beat we are joined by a dulcet emotive voice. With a lyrical delivery focused on assonance, I allow myself to be carried by the sound of a resonant voice whose inflections tell me everything I need to know. There is sorrow here, longing, isolation, the tone of despair.

True to the genre of R&B, Tre’s debut song holds within it a meditative soul and emotive flow. Self-described as an embodiment of his “personal and social struggles,” this song is contemplative, emotional, and delivered by a voice embracing of its own vulnerability. It certainly pairs well with soul-searching shadowy night walks.

Listen to the song and check out its accompanying music video, now live across platforms. -

Tre. Charles is a driven, charismatic, and thoughtful artist who connects with his audience through music that’s both warm and deeply personal. His debut single ‘Stressin.,’ which drops on April 26, embodies the personal and social struggles that he has faced throughout his life as a young black man in America, along with capturing the isolation that most of us have experienced during the current pandemic. I sat down with Tre. last week—metaphorically I suppose, since it was over Zoom—and talked about the meaning behind this track, some of the stress he’s experienced over the last year, racism in America, and more. I encourage you to read on and get to know more about this talented musician, and definitely check out his new single + music video!







Although he’s sung and played the guitar throughout his life, Tre. began to pursue his musical ambitions and make songs around October of 2019 while facing stress from his job. He found that throughout his diverse career of odd jobs, some in leadership roles and some not, he wasn’t living up to his truth. He wanted to tap into his passion, which was his art. In many ways, this song seems to be a realization of his own aspirations: “I wrote this song a while back,” he told me, “and it represents my pressures from being in an industry that I don’t necessarily want to be in…I saw that I was fulfilling someone else’s dream versus my own.” Tre. also mentioned that around two years ago, he experienced somewhat of a divine intervention—after a car accident injury and his subsequent rehab. “After that, I realized exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to reshape what I was doing and putting my ability out there.” To this point, ‘Stressin.’ is a liberating track, both for Tre. to develop his sound and for listeners to celebrate his transformation. While the pandemic unfortunately put a halt on live performances, these obstacles don’t seem to get in the way of Tre.’s determination and passion for music.

Tre. currently lives in Durham, N.C., but he grew up in somewhat of a nomadic style along the east coast. His experiences in so many locations inform his astute perspective, especially in regards to the different forms of racism he has seen and endured. Though Tre. has lived in the Southeast recently, where racism and bigotry are often times more overt, he was raised in upstate New York and recalled how his hometown faced segregation and more discreet instances of racial injustice. Citing the recent trial over George Floyd’s murder, Tre. told me that a major layer of stress that went into this song is the sense of being “hopeful for change, but also knowing that not a lot has changed,” he said. “Small victories [like the Chauvin verdict] are victories, but it’s a jaded feeling because it’s more of a high-profile accountability.” Tre. emphasized that he captures a story with his music—both from personal experiences and on a larger scale—about the difficult experience of being black in America. For me, it’s telling of both his character and resilience.

‘Stressin.’ is a timely release for a number of reasons, but it’s also important to note that on a basic level, it’s simply a wonderful song. Tre. pairs his excellent guitar riffs with a strong foundation of drum loops; his vocals are luscious and soulful. Overall, it is music that anyone can appreciate, and its value only increases due to the stress that he addresses in his wordplay. Be sure to check out Tre. Charles’ website here, and most importantly, listen to his debut single out April 26! - Max Russ

"he has cultivated a sound which pays homage to his nomadic upbringing. With hints of avant-garde R&B, modern/indie rock, and southern soul" - Charlotte Concert Guide

"Trey Charles owned the Charlotte Star Room stage." -

"Tre. Charles has a smooth, unique, nuvo-soul style to our stage" - QC Life

Tre. Charles´ “Lately” ventures into the dark abyss of self-doubt and despair, grappling with the weight of modern-day social media culture and the shackles of obsessive rumination that can trap the mind in a never-ending spiral of hopelessness. The song encourages us to go outside and live real life with real people, face to face. - Fernando Nunez

Singer-songwriter Tre. Charles describes himself as a nomad. He’s got roots in Richmond; Durham, North Carolina; and New York City, and his music is equally as well-traveled, with influences in the soulful expressions of indie-folk, neo-soul, and alternative rock. Ahead of a slate of summer shows across the East Coast, I caught up with him to learn more about life on the road and his recent EP, Currently.


Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Your EP ‘Currently.’ has a wide range of musical influences, including Hozier and Lauryn Hill. Tell me a little bit about your musical frame of reference.

My musical frame of reference is anyone that has a soulful expression. So Lauryn Hill, D’Angelo — Richmond’s own. And then you think about somebody like Hozier who builds out big notes, but I also think about people like Kurt Cobain, who have very different [sounds]. But it's still a soulful expression, that visceral feeling of just trying to get it out. That's kind of what I gravitate toward.



Who's your favorite artist right now?


Right now, honestly, I've been bumping a lot of Dom Fike. His new project, Sunburn, I really dig that. And Cautious Clay. Cautious is coming out with a jazz album, and I'm pretty excited about it.


I want to talk about the EP’s relationship with time. ‘Currently’ is grounded in this specific emotional moment, through the title as well as this theme “lately,” but there's a really reflective edge to it, too.



Yeah. The reflective edge is talking about [my] realization of wanting to be present and very active in doing my art. I got into a car crash — it was January 2019, and it was a very pivotal moment in my life. I was doing a job that I didn't necessarily love, and it was the very last day of training. And it kind of forced me to be still. It was like, a divine intervention where the universe saying just, stop for a second and be here, focus on what you want to do.



That’s so interesting — these moments in time really force you to reconsider how you've been spending the rest of it.


I had really damaged my knee. So I couldn't walk, I physically couldn't move. I had to sit still with my thoughts. And it kind of made me look inward. That’s when I started really playing guitar — I taught myself guitar and production. YouTube University was my friend. So it gave me a challenge that I enjoyed to be able to get the tools to express myself the way I wanted to express myself.


Your time in recovery was spent learning how to play music, learning how to play guitar. Had you played anything before that?





No, not really. I played some cowboy chords. Everybody thinks that they're John Mayer at some point. But no, I definitely wasn't anywhere near where I am now.





My next question was, “What was the writing process like?” I guess that kind of answers it.



Yeah. I mean, it was a compilation of things over time, like with the pandemic, and basically civil unrest and racism and bigotry and unknowingness. So it was just like, being stressed, stressing was the first one that came from that. And that was really just pretty self explanatory. I was just stressed out at the time, as a lot of people were and then from there, it kind of made me want to dive deeper into why I was stressed and like, try to not be stressed.


So I started doing more proactive steps toward mental health trying to figure out like, "Why am I going through this?" My girlfriend pushed me to do therapy, and then I started to learn different tools for that. And music really, again, came back in my life as far as like a therapeutic way of getting through situations.



That's such a such an important element of art — that transformative ability to help and nourish.



Right, exactly. It's a good processing tool for me, definitely. I could be feeling all these things, but then if I sing a song about feeling these things, it helps me get it out.



You're currently splitting your time between Richmond and Durham, right?



Kind of. I am a nomad. I'm always traveling up and down the East Coast, and I've been doing that since I am a nomad. I'm always traveling up and down the East Coast, and I've been doing that since I was a kid from my dad's job. Not necessarily knowing where we were going to be at, we kind of just bopped around a lot. That's the kind of lifestyle that I picked up.


I lived in Richmond back in 2017 — going through my service industry days, being a punk kid. So Richmond's always been a place that I feel like I really gravitated towards because it had more of the familiar roots of New York, to me. It's very engraved in the city, everything kind of courses through the city and has an ecosystem through the city. And similar to Durham, the Black music scene, especially how it thrives here and the Chitlin Circuit in general. That vein nourished these Black artists, and it kept evolving through the East Coast — which is why I think I love the East Coast so much.



You do describe yourself as a nomad, and you also describe your work as having nomadic roots. How does travel inform your music?



Basically just living these experiences and being able to process them. Because I’m not one who can just sit down and create a song out of nowhere. I have to have the experiences, and be inspired by that. And a big thing that inspires me is travel. New places and new people and new faces, that’s what I grew up on. So it's a home feeling for me.


I've talked about that before with other people: I gravitate toward communities more so than the actual place. The communities feel more like home than a location does, which inspires the writing too.



What comes to mind for me as well is the different genres that we talked about — traveling through these different influences that all have this core emotion.



I’m a very stoic person, I've been told. And I think it's easier for me to express emotions and have that vulnerability through music. So I think that's why I gravitate toward songs that have that emotional connection more so than bops — even though I love a good bop. But the emotional ones definitely get me going.


The videos for “Lately.” and “Stressin.” also seem preoccupied with place. The one for “Lately.” features a lot of cityscapes and navigating through them, and “Stressin.” is more grounded in natural imagery and existing in nature. Is that duality something that was on your mind?



Actually, it was more so just that “Stressin.” was a very isolated situation. And ironically, “Lately.” was too, but “Lately.” was post pandemic and in Brooklyn, while “Stressin.” was during the pandemic in Durham. So interestingly enough, the similarities between both of those are an expression of me wanting to express that out and not having the comfortability of wanting to do that around a big, massive audience.



You've got plenty of shows coming up. Do you want to tell us about them?



Aug. 2, I’m playing with the legendary Arrested Development at Ocean Front in Virginia Beach. It's a free show, it's going to start at 7 p.m.. And on Aug. 4, I'm going to be playing up in Charlottesville at The Garage, and then the next day I'm going to be playing at the Common House in Charlottesville.



I have a big festival coming up in October, down in the Carolinas. I'm gonna be playing with Superchunk and some other bigger names, so excited about that one as well. - Annie Parnell