Styles: Jansport J, we are glad to have you here on Raptalk.net. Why don’t you give everybody a quick introduction?

Jansport J: I’m Jansport J from Covina, CA. The name came from around 2005 or 2006. My boy was doing a mixtape and he jumped on a Little Brother beat and said this one is for Jansport J right here – because I was always rocking my backpack. That’s a little nickname that he came up with and it just stuck.

Styles: How long have you been a music producer?

Jansport J: I’ve been messing around with production since 2002. I got serious about it in 2005. I’d say it’s been around 3 years that I’ve been seriously working on my craft.

Styles: How did you go about learning? Did someone teach you?

Jansport J: Honestly, it all goes back to about 1997. I first got the Timberland album – the one with him and Magoo. When I heard that album, I knew that whatever he was doing was exactly what I wanted to do. Music was always in my head and I’ve always kind of heard it differently – as far as how drums would hit and snares and hi-hats. In 2002 my best friend happened to pirate a version of Fruity Loops – I think it was version 2 or 3. I jumped on there and was determined to figure out how to do it myself. I knew with that program that you could make some kind of beats, so I would sit there for hours at his house and mess around with it. I focused on getting the hang of it and around 2005 is when I started to go all out with it.

Styles: Describe your style of sound for all of us.

Jansport J: I have a real soulful sound. I listen to all different types of music like classic rock. I am a big fan of The Doors and The Beatles. Growing up my family had a lot of barbeques so they were always playing The Wave jazz radio station or the oldies radio station. I heard all of these old songs, so when it came time to make beats that’s kind of what I fell back on. I get inspiration from listening to a lot of old stuff – Stevie Wonder, The Dramatics – a whole bunch of older cats. I go through a lot of records like that. I’ll go home and steal CD’s that my mom has. I try to find the scarce stuff that people don’t come across too much. Even if I do have something that has been sampled a lot, it’s always fun for me to flip it in a different way so that people can’t even tell that you are using a record that everybody has used before. It’s all about trying to flip music in different ways. However it is in my head is now I am trying to make it come out.

Styles: You just recently released the Carry-On Experience album for free download on our site. Tell us about the concept behind that album.

Jansport J: It seems like in Hip-Hop a lot of times people talk about having the luxuries in life – and there is nothing wrong with that. What kind of irks me is when people rap about it and they don’t really have it. I had a conversation with the people who were doing the album with me, and we wished that people out there would rhyme from their present day situations, like being a college student with no money at all. Why not pass a different message to these people trying to come up and speak from your everyday experience? The concept of the album is that a lot of times in life we are told that baggage is a negative thing but whenever you are getting ready to be successful and take flight, you have to remember who you are and where you have come from. Your baggage is a representation of who you are and the obstacles that you’ve overcome. With this album, it’s like taking that baggage as your carry-on luggage – rhyming from the present and with God’s help we are all going to be able to make it. Everyone on the album is speaking from their own situations. You’ve got love songs on there. Prophet who had the title track, “The Carry On Experience”, hits so hard because everything he says is true. When he says, “You are sitting in a stock room praying this could happen”, he was writing that verse at the stock room at Nordstroms where he works at.  All of these cats are basing their words off of truth.

Styles: Baggage has such a negative connotation to it, but is it necessarily such a bad thing?

Jansport J: No, not at all. That’s what we are trying to get across with this album. Baggage is who you are in your present day. Everybody has their own kind of baggage. Growing up, I was from a middle class family and then around 13 my dad left the household and we weren’t doing so well financially. We were living in a one bedroom apartment just barely getting by. My mom worked at a cafeteria in a hospital – and that’s how we were eating. Just kind of looking back at that – it kind of molded me in to who I am today. It made me humble and molded my work ethic. No matter what your baggage is, you can use it as something positive in your life. Baggage is a bad thing while it’s happening to you but you’ve got to have a bigger perspective and use it as fuel for what you are trying to do in life.

Styles: Are you in to mainstream sounds at all with your music?

Jansport J: I am just all about good music. I don’t play in to the mainstream vs. underground thing right now. I have somewhat of an underground following which is love but I don’t want to limit myself in my appeal. I feel like you can take a message that is resonating with the underground and have it appeal to the masses as well – as long as you stay true to what you do. My goal with my sound and my music is to have the vibe with the underground people right now but honestly I am trying to reach the masses with a message. If I am blessed enough to be on a mainstream level, then that’s a beautiful route to go. A lot of producers don’t get stuck in the underground or mainstream sectors. I think that’s something that rap artists have to deal with a lot. 9^th Wonder can do a beat for Jay-Z and then turn around and work with Murs. I don’t think that producers are confined to it as much as rap artists are. I really like to keep my options open and make good music.

Styles: As a producer, do you have any complaints with Hip-Hop?

Jansport J: My only complaint with Hip-Hop is that the balance is gone. A lot of people came out saying that Hip-Hop was dead but I don’t really feed in to that. People like to point at the Soulja Boys and the music coming out of the South but to me that isn’t true at all. During the Golden Era of rap you still had dudes like Luke, 69 Boys and other similar rappers out – and that made Hip-Hop beautiful to me because there was a balance. I remember growing up with my older sister in the early 90’s and she would be playing the radio and MTV all day. Back then you would catch an NWA video, right after that an EPMD video, then you might get a 69 Boys video – there was such a wide range. Right now it seems like there is a huge emphasis on the party aspect of Hip-Hop, which we need, but there is no balance there. It would be the same issue if we had just Common or Talib just running the scene and there was nothing else. The balance that is missing is the only complaint that I have.

Styles: What’s next from Jansport J?

Jansport J: Coming up we have a compilation that I am contributing a couple of beats to. It’s going to be pretty major and it’s involving a lot of the L.A. cats that are coming up on the scene. The title of the album is called Curly Cuffs and Nautica Jackets. It has a whole throw-back presence. The homie Polyester reached out to me – he’s one of the Executive Producers on the album. The concept of the album came about with him and some of his homies talking about High School and all of the different trends in the 90’s that they had. I have a beat on there that has a crazy 90’s feel to it. El Prez is on the album and Pacific Division is going to hop on it too – and a bunch of other L.A. cats.    

Comments (2)

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Cool Cat, Great Music
written by Johnnie Frescp, October 24, 2008

Wassup Jansport J,

Great interview, the music is dope. Your going to make it far bro!!!
-Johnnie. F

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written by LB Fitted, October 27, 2008

my nigga jansport! proud of you boy, keep it up, u da truth fam!

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