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Andre Vann was born in Boston, Massachusetts on September 25, 1985. As a young man, music shaped Andre Vann’s life. Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, and Whitney Houston were amongst his mother’s favorites. Andre was known for performing to Michael Jackson riffs at family gatherings.
To this day, he admits the ‘oldies’ his mother listened to had a profound effect on the way he viewed life.
In his final year of high school in 2002, Biggie and Tupac were rap’s martyrs and artists like Jay-Z, The Clipse, Fabolous, and Ludacris dominated the scene. The first six months as a freshman, Andre lived in the Shell Road area of Hampton and attended the district’s school, Hampton High. Soon after, he moved back to Boston where he went by the new name New Era and made his name battling classmates at West Roxbury High School.
“That is where it all began for me. People I never met would come up to me like ‘yo, you that kid New Era?’ The reputation just started buzzing from there…â€he name New Era fit the rap prodigy who first purchased Nas’ Illmatic album at the age of 14, almost a full decade after it’s original debut. This alias also came from the fact that Andre had hundreds of New Era fitted caps in his wardrobe.
After high school, his second education was the rap industry. Closely analyzing the game, New Era drew closer to the booming mixtape scene.
Mr. Vann’s skills caught the attention of a real estate investor looking to further his interest in rap music. This connection lead him to signing with Make-A-Millionaire Entertainment, an independent rap label in Boston. During his tenure at the label, Mr. Vann did collaborations with Papoose, Dipset, J.R., Writer & Hell Rell, Paul Cain, Graph, 112 and Murder Mook, just to name a few. In addition to his collaborations, Mr. Vann furthered his career appearing on volumes 4 and 5 of the street acclaimed Cheddar DVD and also guest starring on various DJ Kurupt’s mix CDs.
Great motivation came from Mr. Vann’s biological father July of 2007, after which he made a career decision to move back to Virginia to finish his debut album. Since his arrival, Mr. Vann has established working relationships with numerous Virginia based hip-hop artists such as Skillz, Fam-Lay, and Malice of The Clipse.
He has studied his audience and mastered his musical craft.
With the backing of Music Works and other major artists, Mr. Vann is aggressively preparing for the global release of his debut album and subsequent dominance on the urban and pop music charts. He has collaborated with major artists, financed his own media campaign complete with a broadcast quality music video, amassed a catalog of over 300 songs, and that’s just the beginning.
Music isn't his only passion, Mr. Vann worked with the Jackson and Diddy families in promoting his clothing line Candy Fresh. Diddy's Wife Kim Porter said “His clothes are the best thing out right now!”You can see both families sporting Candy Fresh at Nickolodeon's Kids' Choice Awards 2009. Candy Fresh is just one of three clothing lines by Mr. Vann that are to come out in Fall 2010; the others are Trillionaire and Sh'e. Clothing and music aren't the only things Mr. Vann has in stored for 2010; also in late 2010 expect to see a trailer for “Horoscope”, a movie produced by Mr. Vann and the release of a vitamin water product. Expect to see a lot from Mr. Vann in 2010.