For One8tea, music is more than entertainment. It is testimony, therapy, advocacy and a bridge to people who may feel unseen.
Known off stage as Teah Bailey, One8tea has become one of Atlantic Canada’s most distinctive voices in hip-hop. His music carries the rhythm and honesty of lived experience, addressing struggle, faith, identity, recovery and hope with a directness that reaches far beyond traditional gospel or rap audiences.
Raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, One8tea’s journey has not been easy. His early life was marked by hardship, including homelessness and addiction. Yet, rather than allowing those experiences to define the rest of his life, he chose a path of recovery and transformation. In 2010, he entered Teen Challenge, a faith-based rehabilitation programme. After completing the programme in 2011, he founded One8tea Ministries, turning his personal breakthrough into a mission of service for others.
Today, One8tea Ministries supports young people and communities across Canada through concerts, workshops and conversations centred on faith, bullying, addiction awareness, teen suicide prevention and personal growth. His work stands at the intersection of music and outreach, using hip-hop not merely as a platform for performance but as a way to start difficult conversations.
One8tea understands that many young people do not respond to traditional messages of encouragement. They may be carrying pain, rejection, trauma or questions that are difficult to express. Through authentic storytelling, he creates space for people to confront those realities without shame.
His message is clear: a person’s past does not have to become their future.
That message has resonated strongly throughout his music career. One8tea has released multiple independent albums, each reflecting a different stage of his artistic and spiritual growth. His 2016 album Reverence received the Covenant Award for Rap Album of the Year in 2017, while his later projects continued to earn recognition across Canada’s Christian and independent music communities.
In 2021, One8tea made history when he won MusicNB’s Song of the Year award for I Guess It’s Complicated, becoming the first Black artist to receive a MusicNB award. The song speaks to the realities of living as a Black man in a predominantly white community, capturing the everyday calculations, fears and pressures that can come with simply moving through public spaces.
The recognition was significant not only for One8tea personally, but also for representation within New Brunswick’s music scene. It opened an important conversation about whose stories are celebrated, whose voices are heard and what it means for artists from underrepresented communities to receive recognition on major platforms.
His momentum continued in 2022 when he won the East Coast Music Award for Rap/Hip-Hop Recording of the Year. He also received national recognition through the Gospel Music Association of Canada, including awards for Rap Song of the Year and Rap Artist of the Year. In 2023, he was again named Rap Artist of the Year, confirming his position as one of Canada’s leading faith-driven hip-hop artists.
Yet, awards are only part of One8tea’s story.
What makes his work especially powerful is his willingness to remain connected to people who are still in the middle of their own struggles. His songs do not present life as simple or painless. Instead, they offer a message of perseverance: healing is possible, identity can be rebuilt and hope can be found even after devastating experiences.
His recent music continues to reflect this conviction. Through projects such as Royalty and Broken Pottery, One8tea explores themes of restoration, faith and purpose. The title Broken Pottery is particularly fitting for an artist whose career reflects the belief that brokenness does not eliminate value. Sometimes, the deepest cracks become part of the story that gives a life meaning.
For young people, recovering individuals, faith communities and listeners searching for something real, One8tea represents more than an artist. He represents possibility.
His journey is a reminder that transformation is not about pretending the past never happened. It is about choosing to use that past to build a better future for others.
Through music, ministry and community engagement, One8tea continues to prove that even the hardest chapters of life can become the beginning of a powerful new story.
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