By RAZAK DIALLO

Courtesy of Té Legend/The Trap Factory
Donté “Té Legend” Fletcher has spent nearly a decade turning artistic dreams into reality.
“I love watching other people win,” Fletcher said.
Since 2016, the 34-year-old musical engineer and producer has worked with dozens of artists in the DMV area through his production house in South Hyattsville’s Arts District — The Trap Factory Studio, named after the rap subgenre characterized by hard-hitting beats featuring heavy bass and synthesized 808-style drums.
For Fletcher, time in the studio is more than just making music — it’s building bridges through audio engineering, production, visuals and personalized artist support.
Growing up in Silver Spring, Fletcher said that he became curious about music early on. His mother’s love of go-go music and his father’s Trinidadian affection for calypso music introduced him to a diverse musical palette. But it was in high school, when Fletcher moved to Atlanta and joined the marching band, that his exploration truly began.
“I would just play by ear — learn by ear,” Fletcher said. “But then when I got to Atlanta, the band teacher, Mr. Lane, he forced me to get deeper in that [stuff], take it more serious.”
After graduating high school and earning a degree in audio engineering from Husson University, Fletcher returned to the DMV, briefly interning at GTown Studios, a production house in the District, before moving to New York to intern at The Cutting Room Studios. He worked around artists like Chance the Rapper, Lana Del Ray and Ryan Leslie. Most of his tasks were less than ideal — cleaning bathrooms, washing dishes and getting food — but Fletcher said he made the most of the opportunity.
“You gotta do a bunch of things you might not want to do,” Fletcher said. “For me, I don’t really care. At the end of the day, I’m trying to get this knowledge, and I know I’m going to do what I need to do when it’s my time.”
In New York, Fletcher received advice from a studio manager that would define how he would operate his studio: The studio industry isn’t just about music; it’s about hospitality.
Today, Fletcher makes sure to have snacks on hand, provide drinks, grab coffee and attentively listen to the ideas of the artist, consistently placing them first.
Fletcher asks questions like “Are you comfortable?” and “What’s going to make this session the best?”

Photo credit: Razak Diallo
“You’re the superstar here,” Fletcher says.
Fletcher moved back to Maryland, and an accidental wrong turn brought him and his college roommate, tattoo artist Erick Satchell, to the office space in what is now the SoHy Arts building that would lay the foundation for The Trap Factory. Satchell would give his clients tattoos on one side, and Fletcher would record music on the other.
“We were the first [art business] in this building,” Fletcher said. “It’s crazy to see how much everything has grown.”
When you enter Fletcher’s main studio, you’re greeted by a visual history of his work. The wood panel of the recording booth door features signatures from artists and collaborators spanning the first five years of the business. The main space includes an audio interface, loudspeakers, synthpads, keyboards and a couch.
By now, Fletcher has worked with hundreds of artists, including DMV musicians like Innanent James, Travy Nostra, NAPPYNAPPA, and elementary school teacher and viral influencer Mr. Prather.
“As I go, I just learn each artist — everybody’s different,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher and Prather played basketball together in college. As Fletcher saw the work Prather was doing for kids through the Prather Foundation, an organization that supports youth in the District, he wanted to support these efforts any way he could — which turned out to be through music. Fletcher worked on Prather’s 2024 album “Move With Mr. Prather, Vol. 2.”
Prather came with song lyrics, and Fletcher would work with him on beats that either Fletcher had previously made or ones they would make together from scratch, incorporating musical elements reminiscent of grade-school nursery rhymes.
This commitment to creating an artist-friendly environment, central to Fletcher’s approach, is demonstrated in his work with longtime collaborator Chris Allen, an artist and producer based in Southeast D.C.
Allen and Fletcher were working on music and found a sample from a song they liked. Fletcher quickly chopped the sample up, making a beat that Allen could write to. They recorded the song within three hours, even producing a video afterward.
“The man is the most unfazed creative I ever met,” Allen said.
Allen has worked with Fletcher since 2017, and the pair spent a lot of time together, with Fletcher teaching him how to produce. He eventually came to Fletcher for help on his 2020 self-produced track, “Block Star.”
Allen wanted the track to sound like a party with a Latin melody. Fletcher took the track and ideas from Allen, incorporated more trap elements, and mixed the song to fill out the sound.
“He brought it to life sonically,” Allen said. “He’s like, ‘Man, I can trap it out for you,’ and he honestly trapped it out and made it rock a lot crazier.”
Odd Mojo has been working with Fletcher since 2019 after being connected through another producer, Reggie Volume. At one point, Mojo could not afford to book a session at the factory. But Fletcher reduced the cost of the session to accommodate her circumstances.
“He said, ‘Man, don’t even worry about that, I want to help you get the music out,’” Mojo recalled in a Life & Times interview.
Mojo attributes the longevity of their professional relationship to Fletcher’s hospitality. Fletcher has assisted Mojo in learning more about audio engineering and producing, letting her use his equipment and shadow him.
“He wants to know how the artist is feeling, how they’re doing, and how can he help,” she said.
Sometimes, Fletcher’s goal of helping artists can get derailed. In 2022, a hard drive failure led to the loss of 97,000 files and dozens of client projects. Despite going as far as contacting a forensic scientist to crack the drive, he couldn’t recover the data.
“I can’t do nothing but stand on it,” Fletcher said.
For some projects, Fletcher was tasked with recapturing the essence of the track, reconstructing beats from scratch, pulling elements from projects on older hard drives, and re-recording some tracks. Others had to be left behind, and Fletcher shifted focus to reaffirming relationships with some clients and upgrading equipment.
Allen was around the studio when the data loss occurred and emphasized Fletcher’s work ethic and optimism when faced with such a struggle.
“He’s not always thrown in the easiest situations, but creatively, it doesn’t really knock him off what he does,” Allen said.
Fletcher works tirelessly to ensure that anyone who reserves the studio space and his time creates something they can be proud of.
“I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing; my time will come when it’s supposed to come,” he said. “In the meantime, I root for the next person!”
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Razak Diallo is an undergraduate journalism major at the University of Maryland.