God is good

God is good. Traveling back down memory lane this morning, I am thinking about all the people I’ve met through music.

God has kept me and put me around brothers who have supported me.

I have learned lots of great lessons through music.

I have built a lot of great communities through music.

I met Trevor Allen in 2019 on my first day of law school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. We quickly became friends.

Around that time, Trevor was shooting music videos for local Kansas City rap artists. Trevor played tennis at Lake Forest College in Chicago and was highly inspired by the videography of Jerry Productions, a Chicago-based music video director known for his videos with Lil Durk that have hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. Trevor asked me to join him on a few sets, and I eventually took on a production assistant-like role over time.

We shot dozens of videos for Kansas City rappers between 2020-2021, including D’LaFlare, ShellyWayne, CB, & more. This inspired my own journey into media and music. I founded Duff Radio in 2020 by creating a Soundcloud account featuring DJ mixes and a YouTube channel with vlogs and interviews with local musicians I’d come to enjoy, like STBtheDON, Mighty Casual, L’S810, Jace Camden, Gittyman, Wyd Benny, CA$H CAM, Dmad, iPursue, & many more. I began taking photographs and shooting music videos for these artists as well.

I started producing music and learning how to audio engineer around this time, too. Trevor helped me download FL Studio, and I taught myself how to make beats and record vocals. I enrolled in L’S810’s Intro to Pro Tools class at his studio, Emerald Dreams Lab, in Overland Park, Kansas. I worked closely with L’S810 and another Kansas City artist named Mark the Shepherd, who was particularly influential by guiding me through my first experience with dimethyltryptamine. This profound experience was highly enlightening to me during this time and gave me the confidence I needed to move from Kansas City to Hardin, Montana in December 2021. And so began my career as a journalist and writer, which I am continuing to this day.

Ty McDuffey

January 29, 2024

Gila National Forest, 7 miles north of Silver City, New Mexico