Teen rapper is also a DJ
Preston Worth performs on stage. Photos submitted
By Tom Victoria
Preston Worth is taking music to another level. The award-winning rapper and radio DJ connects with listeners through his art.
The musician known as R.E.D. Worth It explained his style.
"I would describe it as something different entirely because I listen to all types of music," he said. "I make rap music, but I incorporate all sorts of different elements because I'm a fan of just everything. When I was real young, I used to listen to people like Eminem, Tupac, still do. People like that are still huge influences on me and my style. But I've incorporated different rock type elements like Linkin Park and Nirvana, people like that. And there's bit developments, too, where people like Prince and Michael Jackson have inspired me because of how revolutionary their sounds are. I wouldn't say that my sound is comparable to them because their greatness and their sound is on a whole different scale. But I would say that you can definitely hear elements of everything coming into one big melting pot within my sound because I try to keep the music as authentic to me as possible and what I listen to and what I like. When I'm making these songs, I want people to connect with them on a whole other level."
Preston's latest release is a single called Time to Think It Over.
"That's a song where I'm talking about things that I go through in my life and things that I was thinking about," he said. "The title Time to Think It Over comes from the song that I sampled because I actually sampled a song by Foreigner (I Want to Know What Love Is). That hook goes like time to think it over. And I sampled that, put it into the chorus section. I was like, this is perfect for what I want to talk about because it's about my life. It's about deep thoughts. It first started off as a beat that I really liked. And from there I was just like, I need to just talk about myself. Things that I'm thinking about, things that I feel. And it just came out in that song."
As with Linkin Park, Preston, 19, of Tennessee doesn't restrict his tunes to strictly rap.
"That type of element that they put into their music with the singing and the rapping comes into play a lot with my music," he said. "I'll always say that I'm a rapper because a majority of it is rap. It's hip-hop. But there are a lot of elements in there that are definitely not rap and far away from hip-hop. If you listen to my song Bulletproof, the rap verses are rap. But the chorus section, I actually do kind of a Linkin Park thing where it's a scream/singing type thing. But it worked for the sound that I was going for in that song specifically. I wanted to have a really powerful chorus because of the story that I was telling, which is a mix of things that I really have seen from people and things that I thought up myself. I like to put a lot of story-based elements into my music."
Preston's musical moniker evolved over time.
"I originally went by RealRED until I was 14, but a more popular artist had the name prior," he said. "I wanted to keep the Red as it was a big part of my branding, and I wanted a name that would set me apart. I chose R.E.D Worth It for a few reasons. The first being that it was partly inspired by The Notorious B.I.G. I liked how he had an acronym in his name and wanted something of my own. I chose to have R be Real to keep that part in my branding. E stands for Extraordinary to represent the music being something new and different. The D standing for Determined because I've worked hard on my craft. The Worth It part of my rap name was a play on my last name Worth. It also helped with the branding because I host the Worth It Radio Show and my dad owned a record label called Worth It Records before I was born. Pretty much it all comes down to a marketable name with branding that relates to me."
Preston's music can start out as sounds or words.
"It is 50/50 for the most part because I do produce all my own music," he said. "Every sound in there, that's all me. Most of the time though, I like to have a lot of time to just think of ideas. So when I'm going for a walk or thinking of ideas, sometimes something hits me and I need to put that on paper. And sometimes these ideas that I put on paper, they sit as ideas for months on end before I actually make a beat that I think fits that topic. But sometimes, I'll make a beat, and I'm scatting over it to think of ideas. I might start singing a melody or whatever. That's how Bulletproof came out to be, because I made that beat. And when I got to the chorus section of the beat, I started singing this phrase: 'I'm bulletproof. Do you see?' And then I was like, that sounds really cool. How can I make a story on that? I started thinking about things that I've seen people go through. And I was like, we have the story. So in that time, the beat did come first and the story came after."
Preston won an award for his music at just 17.
"The 2024 Yo! ATL RAPS We Ready Award, which is a new artist award," he said. "I won that when I was 17 years old, and it was one of the coolest moments of my life because I met so many awesome people. And it was such an awesome experience performing in Atlanta. I definitely stood out, stuck out like a sore thumb being there when you're a white kid with red hair, especially being only 17 at the time, but still I went up on that stage and I killed that set. I just vibed with everyone. I had such a fun time, meeting people, talking. It's still a moment in my life I'll just never forget."
“I want to go as far as I can go. I would love to be a legend one day like all these other guys. That is definitely a goal of mine. It's a very long reach to say I want to be a legend because there's a reason why people like that get to where they're at, and I respect that. But at the same time, I think I would be happy if I just get a lot of success with and create a fan base that will continue to listen to me.”
Preston, who started making music in his pre-teen years, won't set limits on his music career.
"I want to go as far as I can go," he said. "I would love to be a legend one day like all these other guys. That is definitely a goal of mine. It's a very long reach to say I want to be a legend because there's a reason why people like that get to where they're at, and I respect that. But at the same time, I think I would be happy if I just get a lot of success with and create a fan base that will continue to listen to me. If I create that, I think I would still be satisfied. A lot of people that I listen to aren't superstars, but they're people that I still look up to because they made really good music. And in some ways, they have made an impact on their community."
Preston knows there are sacrifices to make if fame is achieved.
"You hear these horror stories of celebrities who can't even go out to get a coffee without being harassed by a hundred different people," he said. "That would be an issue. But I also think that I could make that sacrifice since I know that this is something that I want to do. I feel like if you're getting into music and you are actively engaging with people on social media as well as performing and everything, you have to be prepared for something like that to happen. Now that's also something that is often unlikely because only a handful of people get to experience that since they're famous for a reason. But if that were to happen to me, that's a sacrifice that I think I could manage at least."
The King of Pop was the first musician to impact Preston as a youth.
"It is Michael Jackson," he said. "When I was really, really, little, my nana, she had this Michael Jackson DVD that she would always play. It was filled with all of his music videos. I would sit there and I would watch it with her, not even really understanding what was going on exactly. But I knew that the music was just really good. I could tell that it was something special even when I was 3, 4 or 5. And from that point on, I learned different artists and I got into different things. The next big artist after that was Eminem. When I listened to Eminem and got into hip-hop, I discovered a whole range of music that inspired the crap out of me when I was a kid."
Preston gravitated toward music because it connects with people.
"I started off with music because it just grabbed me," he said. "It was something so special about it because of how you could express how you felt and how you could do so much with sound. Music does make a difference. Music tells us a lot about people. I like the fact that maybe someday there's going to be somebody out there who can connect with one of my songs and they can say that it changed their life in some way, because you hear all these stories about people that literally have been saved by music. I would love for someone to experience that with songs that I make."
Preston preferred rap as the way to express himself.
"One thing that rap is really good about is the fact that it is very poetic," he said. "All music stems from poetry, but rap, you have a lot more words that you can use since you have 16 bars to use as opposed to other genres. I like the fact that it was so personal. A lot of rappers have this thing about being true to yourself and how you have to write your own music. That appealed to me because I felt like I could be as authentic as possible. I felt like that's the one that resonated with me. And also my dad, he's always been super into hip-hop. I was around all of these rappers growing up, a lot of local people. I saw how they did it. I saw them go on stage and I was like, I want to do that. I loved how rappers performed on stage because there's just something about being up there by yourself and holding that microphone and just doing your thing that was like, wow, that is what I want to do."
Preston wants to find his audience.
"I knew that the type of music that I was making — still am making — might take some time to get into because it is so different," he said. "Since I experiment a lot, there's a lot of songs that are definitely appealing. And if you're just a casual listener, I make songs that a lot of people can play and enjoy. I also think finding a fan base that will really connect with it on the level that I would like is something that I've thought about. It is a little daunting to think how do I grab people and how do I get them to really feel the music in the way that I intend for them to? Or even better yet, how do I get them to feel the music in their own way? There's some times where I'll make a song that might be about something completely different, but someone will approach me and they'll tell me that they interpreted that song in a much different way. I'm not going to tell them that they interpreted the song wrong because they interpreted how they should have because how they felt when they listened to it. That changed the way that I view writing in general because at that point I was like, I can make these songs and I'm still going to put everything I can into it, but people are going to feel it in one way or another. And I love that."
Preston seeks opportunities to perform live.
"I performed in a few different states," he said. "I performed in Georgia, performed here in Tennessee, been in Maryland, been in Virginia. I've definitely been around. I've definitely traveled a bit. I've done a show in Indiana, too. That was a really fun show. But every time that someone approaches me and asks me to perform somewhere, because of scheduling, I may not always be able to do it. But I will always do my best to do it. And nine times out of 10, it's a yes. I will always try to make sacrifices in order to do the show because that is what I want to do with my life."
Preston has taken some heat for being a Southern boy doing rap.
"A lot of times, people do judge me for so many different reasons," he said. "A lot of people in the rap community would look at me and they think, okay, he's a white redhead kid, so I stand out everywhere I go. I go to a country spot that I'm invited to perform at, and they look at me weird because I'm a white kid rapping. So there's nowhere that I exactly fit in. It's not even just old-timers that are looking at me weird. But at the same time, I think that when they take time to hear the stuff that I'm saying, a lot of them actually take back their opinions. I've heard some people that were like, man, when I heard that there was a rapper coming in here, I thought it was going to be this and that. But I heard you doing it and you were saying things that I related to. That's the thing about my music that I love is that it does connect with a lot of people and there's a lot of old-timers that can connect with it. Because I like to tell real life stories. The stories that I'm rapping about are things that people have really experienced or they're things that you can experience."
Preston finds it easier to express himself through music than spoken word.
"Music is therapy," he said. "It is a coping mechanism. When I'm writing music, I know that the whole world is able to listen to it and see it. But I like the fact that it takes your weaknesses and it turns them into strengths. That is exactly why music is as powerful to me as it is because I can talk about the things about myself that I'm maybe not a fan of, but I'm going to take that and I'm going to turn it into something positive. I know that when I'm on stage and I'm just expressing myself to all these people, I see the look on their face and I can tell that they're enjoying it, they're relating to it, they're feeling it. And in that moment, that's all that matters."
Preston draws on real life and fiction for inspiration.
"If I just come up with a story, I'll rap about it," he said. "But at the same time, it all comes down to real life. The only times that it's not is sometimes I like to do horror-based tracks, which in that time I'm obviously not myself. It's more like I'm rapping through a character because it's different styles that I'm experimenting with. But that is something that's every once in a blue moon that I do something like that. So I would say for the most part it is all real life."
Preston has been a DJ since he was a kid.
"I've done so when I was young," he said. "I want to say around 11. My dad, he had his radio station called the Worth It Radio show that he did for a long time. And it was through Michael Wright's Big Shot Radio. When I got to the age where I was really getting to music, I just got into it and my dad was like, hey, can we make this happen? He talked to Michael Wright about it. I have my spot now on Big Shot Radio where every Thursday you can hear me talk about things in the hip-hop community and play some songs. I love doing it. It's definitely awesome for me because I get to have a time to just talk about stuff and also share some music of my own, my friends and some classic hip-hop tracks."
“I try not to get too controversial because I'm a very positive person. But if there's something that I just feel strongly about that I have to speak on, I'll speak about it."
Preston adds some discussion to the show.
"I have segments in my show where I just talk," he said. "Sometimes, you just heard this song and now we're going to this. But on every show, I like to have a longer talking section where I speak on things that are happening in life. I try to make it music-based, but if there's something that's happening in the world that I think it's important for me to speak on or if I have an opinion. I try not to get too controversial because I'm a very positive person. But if there's something that I just feel strongly about that I have to speak on, I'll speak about it."
Listeners wanting to hear Preston's show, which airs Thursday nights from 11 p.m. to midnight Eastern Daylight Time, can stream Big Shot Radio.
"We have something on iHeartRadio," he said. "It's on Audacy. They used to have their own website domain, but we've been branching out everywhere."
Preston also has done some acting.
"I've done things outside of music," he said. "I've been in short film projects. I would say that I'm an artist before I would be an actor. But I wouldn't turn down the opportunity to progress within the acting business. I would love to do bigger projects and do what people like Will Smith or Ice Cube do where they have songs that we all know and love, but also have huge roles in movies."
A former classmate lured Preston to acting.
"I've always been interested in acting and I felt like if given the role, I would love to take it," he said. "In high school, I knew this guy Ian Turner. Recently, he shot this short film called All for a Girl. He was looking for actors and he hit me up one day and was like, hey, I have a role that I think you might be good at. Would you like to do it? I gladly accepted it. That's pretty much how everything happened. I would love to start doing more work with him because he definitely does his thing. It's really awesome to see how it all comes together."
Anyone dating Preston wouldn't have to fret about being mentioned by name in a song.
"If there's something about that relationship that causes me to write, it's gonna get written," he said. "I don't know any other way to put it. But I don't think I would name-drop the girl or anything like that. I don't think that I would straight up disrespect her like that, but I would definitely have lyrics that would allude to something like that happening."
Preston takes care of his most valuable commodity: his voice.
"I do drink a lot of water whenever I perform," he said. "I make sure to have room temperature water. If I know that I'm gonna be performing, I won't record the previous day to save my voice for the show."
Preston pointed out rappers have a more difficult time than other types of singers working in breaks during a performance.
"I wouldn't really be able to alternate because people would definitely be like, you just handed somebody else a microphone," he said. "Now they're performing. There are certain things that you can do if you have a hype man on stage with you. There might be some times where if the hype man says a line, you're able to catch breath there. I've performed live with my friend Matty Ice 1990 before, and if he's rapping his part, I'm able to have a sip of water and punch in whenever. So there's sometimes where I could have a break or I might have some times where I'm just speaking to the audience. But for the most part, I am having to be up there. It's what I do."
Preston knows the value of utilizing social media to promote his music.
"I have a love-hate relationship with social media, as do a lot of people, because there's a negative aspect to it," he said. "When people have the opportunity to not be confronted when they say something negative or just to be anonymous in general, they'll say whatever. Trolls are everywhere. But for the most part, though, it is an amazing marketing tool since there's so many people that you can reach on social media and it is a huge part of our lives now. It is big for me because I've recently been doing a lot more different marketing techniques for myself that have been working. I'll post on TikTok, I'll post on YouTube and I'll post on Instagram. I try to make one post a day on all platforms to reach people and try to get a certain number of followers every day. It is definitely something that is a big part of my life."
Preston is an award-winning rapper.
Preston said it takes only one viral post to reach a much larger audience.
"My biggest video that I've had on Instagram is a song called The Clock 2, which is something that is actually really personal to me,” he said. “One thing that is really cool about stuff like that is having that one video that blows up could make or break your entire career. I keep on posting every day in hopes that it definitely could happen. And I've definitely gotten a lot of really cool opportunities from being on social media."
Preston also favors social media for helping eliminate the need to rely on record labels, which were critical to musicians before the Internet.
"Record labels mean a whole different thing now than they did back then," he said. "There's no point in really signing with a small label anymore because now you're giving away money. Signing with a label was important back then because that would be the only way to get your music on the shelf. But now, it's literally just a marketing thing. Unless you're signing with someone that's already made and can take you someplace, you're just giving money away. That's something I like to tell a lot of my friends in the industry because sometimes I'll see them sign with labels that aren't going to do anything for them. And it's like, great, you just gave away money to these people pretty much so that they can do what you can do for yourself."
Preston stays motivated to make music.
"My thing really is that I love it so much that there really isn't a whole lot of times where I'm not in the mood for making music, because music became pretty much my life," he said. "I would say how I stay motivated for the most part is that I don't lose the motivation for it, really."
“Get out there, show people this is who I am. Don't be afraid to express yourself. If I never posted on social media, if I never put myself out there, I would have never performed anywhere.”
Preston dispensed advice to aspiring musicians.
"It's good to be critical about yourself and to be a perfectionist, but don't be too hard on yourself when you're first starting off," he said. "But also expect that it's not going to be perfect. If you have not a whole lot of musical experience, your first song isn't going to be amazing. That's one thing that you have to prepare for is that it takes time and effort to build that skill. Because music in itself is a skill that you have to acquire. And let's say you are a really good musician, but you really don't have any music out. My advice would just be to do it as soon as you can to start uploading songs and be active on social media. Get out there, show people this is who I am. Don't be afraid to express yourself. If I never posted on social media, if I never put myself out there, I would have never performed anywhere. I would have probably been too scared to even release anything. That's another thing. Don't be afraid of what anybody says, because there's gonna be a whole lot of people that don't like you. Sometimes it seems like more people dislike you than like you, but that's simply not true. You'll find your audience eventually. You'll find people that can connect with you."
Preston also discouraged musicians from starting a bad habit some musicians have acquired through the years.
"One thing that I see a lot of artists do when they're performing nowadays is a lot of them instead of performing, they're doing lip-syncing," he said. "That's so weird to me. Don't do that. When you perform live, perform over the beat. Make sure you're actually saying something. Make it different than the actual studio release because there's so much fun that you can have right in yourself."
Preston said DJs should not just play any song.
"If you're a radio DJ, make sure you're playing good music," he said. "Play music that can connect with an audience. Make sure that you're doing it for authentic reasons."
Preston's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@R.E.DWorthIt/videos
Preston's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realredmusic/