“If you like it, you like it; if you don’t, you don’t. Simple as that. I’ve got nothing but love for everyone.”
That’s the vibe that Tionbre “Tea” Austin ’26—stage name “Tainted”—has been bringing to his music since his earliest releases in 2024, producing some of the Circle’s hottest hits. Since arriving at Groton School in 2022, Tea’s love for music has only deepened. He began producing in March 2024, building a strong online presence and amassing nearly 2,000 streams for one of his hits, “K Kups.”
Tea’s sound is mellow and gritty, with repeated melodic motifs that terrace over a well-defined beat. His rap flows easily. While Tea mainly listens to underground rappers, he also draws inspiration from YEET, Benny X, and Lil Tecca. Another artists’ space that Tea enjoys is “Beats by Nya,” a Discord server for music producers where he finds loops, beats, and collaboration. He has been teaching himself how to use new music production tools such as a Scarlett Solo Audio Interface, and an Audio Technica AT 2020 (a microphone set), and a MIDI keyboard.
One of the strongest aspects of Tea’s music is his lyrics. Some songs he writes the lyrics beforehand, some he freestyles, and some are a mix. When asking Tea what he believes makes his music unique, he shared: “It’s the instrumental production. I find a lot of mainstream music too simple in the way that they sound, it almost sounds like they do music for the money…I listen to underground music [so] that I can hear people that like work, their production. I can hear that uniqueness.”
In early 2025, he followed up his Christmas special, “A Tainted Christmas,” with a new single, “Wait for Me,” that teased his upcoming album. “Wait for Me” is a standout piece, boasting a new instrumental style and artistic look. In this single, Tea embraces vocal layering and reverberation effects, and he doesn’t shy away from bold and emotional lyrics.
Despite his relentless passion for producing, he remains grounded in his perspective that he “never, ever wanted to be a rapper” and stresses that it is just a hobby and a “getaway.” This is because, as soon as people learn he is interested in producing, they generally tend to connect his entire personality to music. He believes that a lot of negative stigma and expectations are attached to a Black man trying to be a rapper at a young age—ideas of which he doesn’t agree with.
Additionally, he believes it is important that students are allowed to nurture passions without the expectation of being “the best”; Tea wishes to inspire the exploration of passion and remove the pressure and expectations that come with many Groton-related past-times. His music doesn’t have a specific intended audience; however, he hopes that it speaks to younger students and teens, showing them that if you have a passion for music, then you also have the potential to create.
As we learn more about the man behind the music, Groton students have been left with one burning question: when will the next album drop? Tea has exclusively shared the projected release date: April 18th, 2025.
Although Tea’s most unique qualities as an artist are his incredible freestyling talent and natural inclination towards creating beats, the primary driver of his success is an outstanding work ethic. A great quote that captures Tea’s spirit is from Pelé—one of the strongest, most accomplished sportsmen in the world—who once said “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”