GeNreal
Nicholas Trahan (stage name GeNreal) is a hip-hop artist from Bethlehem, New Hampshire. He is a self-taught musician whose dense lyrics accompany self-produced jazzy, psychedelic boom-bap hip hop beats. He has been rapping and sample-based producing since the age of six. Nicholas knows the challenge of being “the only one interested in something” in a small town; with help from Music to Life, he established Connecting Rural Entertainment Art Technology and Education (C.R.E.A.T.E), a program for at-risk youth in rural areas of New England. CREATE offers tangible steps to learn about and create music that Nicholas never had access to. Music to Life helped Nicholas write grants, articulate his ideas, make connections, and make his own business. By October 2020, Nicholas had three confirmed collaborators, one funding source confirmed, and two additional funding sources in progress. In 2020, a difficult year for most musicians, Nicholas says that “Music to Life was the only gig that didn’t fall through.”