TEEFLII

TeeFlii's music begins in church, and in his family, church was an institution. Born Christian Joel Jones in South Central Los Angeles, he descends from American gospel royalty. His grandfather, Bishop Hartwell L. Jones, led from the pulpit. His mother, Jacqueline Jones, sang for Rev. James Cleveland, the King of Gospel. One grandmother, Madeline Thompson, led the legendary Clara Ward Singers; another, Judy Jones, sang the blues. His great-aunt, Estelle Brown of The Sweet Inspirations, sang behind Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin. TeeFlii and his brothers were raised inside that inheritance (stacked harmonies, call-and-response, Sunday service) performing before they could drive, one night in front of Barbra Streisand at the Democratic National Convention. Melody as testimony, rhythm as congregation: that ear is the root of everything he writes and produces.

The industry met him as a dancer first, through the krump scene of David LaChapelle's Rize and Chris Brown's videos, but music was the homecoming. He arrived complete: a gospel-trained voice, self-taught production and engineering, and a name for the sound he heard in his head. He called it FLii&B. AnNieRuO'TAY (2012), produced with The Futuristiks (now Mike & Keys) and 1500 or Nothin', announced the sound. Fireworks (2013), his full-length collaboration with DJ Mustard featuring Ty Dolla $ign, was Stereogum's Mixtape of the Week and Rolling Stone's #4 mixtape of the year. LA Weekly named him the best R&B singer in Los Angeles, and that August, Epic Records chairman L.A. Reid signed him through his own company, Excuse My Liquor. "This D" hit #35 at Rhythmic radio. "24 Hours" featuring 2 Chainz reached the Billboard Hot 100 and #21 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, 42 million streams and counting. The same season he co-wrote Kid Ink's "Show Me" featuring Chris Brown, #13 on the Hot 100 and 4x Platinum, then brought Brown onto "Blue Lipstick" for his debut album Starr (2015), alongside Snoop Dogg, E-40, Nipsey Hussle, DJ Quik, Dom Kennedy, and 2 Chainz.

What followed is one of the deepest independent runs on the West Coast: more than 114 recordings released through Excuse My Liquor, LLC, over 150 featured appearances verified with SoundExchange (records with The Game, Kurupt, YG, Problem, RJD2, Eric Bellinger, Jeremih) and a feature on "Keyz 2 the City 2" from Nipsey Hussle's Grammy-nominated, 2x Platinum Victory Lap, a brotherhood Billboard chronicled in his tribute after Nipsey's passing. The catalog kept compounding: the AnNieRuO'TAY series, Next Level with Jermaine Dupri (2018), TruFlii with Tru Carr (2023), I Love Stocker with Dom Kennedy (2023), Summer Nights in LA, and the 16-track Lamont (2025). Through it all he kept studying, at the elbow of DJ Quik, who appears on Starr's "Addicted," and under El DeBarge, whose gospel-born falsetto is the tradition his own voice extends. Two production partnerships run the length of the story: DJ Mustard, from "This D" to their 2024 reconciliation, and Mike & Keys, credited across "24 Hours," "Show Me," and "Keyz 2 the City 2." A decade in, the blueprint he drew is still the one the West Coast builds on.

Today the blueprint has a headquarters. In 2026, TeeFlii reformed Excuse My Liquor, LLC and entered a strategic partnership with Audio Lounge and Garden Frequencies (the studio and label-rights arms of the same Los Angeles ecosystem) to relaunch EML as the new center for R&B in Los Angeles: a label, a studio home, and a development house. Beyond the records, the partnership is building community programs in performing arts and music: the same pipeline that carried a church-raised singer from South Central to the Billboard charts, rebuilt for the next generation. And the long view completes the circle: using music to connect communities across the world: the fellowship he first learned in church, carried to a global stage.