News - Former No Limit rapper Tre-8 dead after car accident Saturday night

A New Orleans-based rapper known to his fans as Tre-8 died after a car accident in Algiers Saturday night, his mother confirmed today.

Aubrey Edwards Walter McCallon, known as Tre-8, in a picture taken for "Where They At: New Orleans Hip-Hop and Bounce in Words and Pictures, " an exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

Tam McCallon Fischer said Tre-8, whose real name was Walter McCallon, 37, died in a hospital after the accident on Tullis and Woodland drives. His daughter, two nieces, a nephew and the mother of his children were in the car with him at the time, and are all in the hospital, Fischer said.

McCallon attended L.B. Landry and O. Perry Walker high schools on the West Bank. He played in both schools' marching bands, experimenting with snare, tenor drum, French horn and trumpet, but found his real musical calling in hip-hop.


In his early teens, McCallon became a backup dancer for Bennett, the rapper and producer known as Ice Mike, who produced early New Orleans hip-hop artists including Bust Down and Joe Blakk. At Bennett's home studio, he learned engineering and production skills that led him to work producing tracks for the West Bank indie label Slaughterhouse Records while still in high school.

McCallon recorded his first songs as a teenage rapper alongside Tim Smooth as a member of the group Westbank Coalition in 1993. At 16, he became one of the first artists signed to Master P's newly minted No Limit records label. His debut (and only release) for No Limit, "Ghetto Stories," came out in 1995, characterized by his signature raspy vocals and exaggerated horror-movie and gangsta themes cut with a dark sense of humor.

After his departure from No Limit, he continued to produce other artists and record his own material for local independent outfits like South Coast Music Group and his own imprints, Smoke 1 Records and Purple Haze Prodctions.

In March 2011, he released "Black & Purple" with the group Dem Haze Boyz, his first album since 2008's "Most Underrated."

This story was reported and written by Katie Urbaszewski and Alison Fensterstock.