Western North Carolina is not known for its world famous hip hop artists, but they are here and rocking. One hard working, up and coming rapper residing in Cullowhee is Avery “Ave-O” O’Connell.
Ave-O is a Myrtle Beach native who was originally pursuing an entrepreneurship degree from WCU. He withdrew from university in 2020 because he wanted to pursue his dreams as a hip hop artist without the stress of school.
“I never even really rapped before,” Ave-O said in an interview. “I always used to freestyle a little bit with my friends in high school just for fun. And I was always a little bit better than all of them so I knew I could always rap.”
Ave-O did not always want to pursue a career in rap. But once he collaborated with producer “Art-Show“, the results were too good to not capitalize on it.
“Then freshman year, my boy Art-Show (and I) were just messing around one day because we wanted to go to the studio and my birthday was coming up,” he said. “I wanted to make a song for my birthday and he offered to produce and record a song for my birthday. Ever since then I just started rapping and getting better everyday.”
His song titled, Everyday My Birthday came out in 2019 and was his first official song. His friends and WCU students wanted more music so Ave-O released other singles like Scalabrine and Like That Freestyle the same year. He followed this up with the release of his first EP titled Whatever You Want it to Be in 2020. All of the beats on Whatever You Want it to Be are free YouTube beats.
Ave-O has shaped himself into an artist by showing improvements in his rapping ability since he began two years ago. He also commented on how his most recent album Sauce and Soul, is his proudest piece of work and how it highlights his growth in his music over a short period of time.
“The album I released, you can’t listen to that album and just not appreciate how it’s an actual concept album that’s really quality for an artist that’s at my level,” Ave-O said.
Ave-O will remain in Cullowhee for the foreseeable future and continues to release music on Spotify and Apple Music to build his fan base. Ave-O does not have any performances planned soon but he is going to continue recording and releasing music.
