Santa Cruz, CA-hailing singer-songwriter, rapper and filmmaker Oliver Tree has died. He was 32.
The artist born Oliver Tree Nickell was involved in a tragic collision of two helicopters over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, yesterday (June 14), which killed all six passengers.
According to the local fire department [via Associated Press], one of the helicopters crashed on the parking lot of a car dealership where several electric vehicles were parked, causing a fire that was subsequently extinguished. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
While the remainder of the bodies have yet to be identified, the Argentinian streaming channel Blender has claimed that content creator Gaspar Prim Diaz (a.k.a. Gaspi) was also in one of the helicopters.
Tree had performed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on June 4, and had shared a video of himself playing soccer in a Brazilian neighbourhood on Saturday (June 13). At the end of May, he'd kicked off what he'd called the "World's First World Tour" — which was due to come to Toronto in August — behind most recent record Love You Madly Hate You Badly in Mexico.
Tree originally launched his recording solo career mononymously as "Tree" in 2010, producing dubstep for a short time and self-releasing an album called Splitting Branches in early 2013. The musician's first performance experience came from singing and playing guitar in a ska band called Irony before appearing on festival bills with his solo project.
He signed to London's R&S Records for the release of his debut EP Demons in August 2013, later going on hiatus to study music technology at the California Institute of the Arts. Tree returned to music in March 2016 with an appearance on Getter's song "Forget It," making his TV debut that November on Last Call with Carson Daly.
The artist signed to Atlantic Records for his 2018 EP Alien Boy, then went on to release full-length debut Ugly Is Beautiful — featuring Platinum and Gold-certified singles "Alien Boy," "Hurt," "Miracle Man" and "Let Me Down" — in July 2020 after numerous delays.
In 2022, Tree released sophomore follow-up Cowboy Tears, followed by 2023's Alone in a Crowd. He left Atlantic Records to release his latest LP independently in April of this year.
