• Hot!

    J-Zone – The 730 Interview

    J-Zone

    When I call J-Zone, he’s in the middle of doing the dishes. I’ve got lesson plans and papers that need grades. But Fish N Grits dropped, a new J-Zone album, and that’s more important than both. J-Zone has never been the type of artist to just crank out an album of twelve songs, three skits, and some corny artwork and call it a day. To understand a J-Zone album is to fully grasp the many layered steps in the creative process. Rest assured that no detail is left to random chance, from the intricately-selected and placed audio clips down to the compression on the snare.

    Fish N Grits finds J-Zone continuing his redefinition. Gone are the odes to dumping your girl before Valentine’s Day to avoid copping a gift or keeping a boombox on the passenger seat, replaced with aging in hip-hop culture, hipsters, and race. With his signature chops as well as live drums, a new skill Zone has recently honed, the music is just as dope, especially because it’s about where he’s at now and not a reproduction of what he’s already given us in celebrated underground classics like Pimps Don’t Pay Taxes and Sick of Bein Rich. Over the course of two hours, J-Zone details his musical evolution, family life, his new groups The Du-Rites and Superblack, and much more. The dishes can wait.

    Your new album Fish N Grits is out and you’ve been doing it yourself, like most of your work throughout your career. What’s the process been like for you this time and how has the process changed over the years? (more…)

  • Hot!

    Vanderslice – The ProfileWild Interview

    Producer extraordinaire Vanderslice, has been releasing some head-nodding beats for over a minute now. From his early work to Access Immortal to his recent compilation Everything’s Awesome or his album with AWAR, The Winning Team, one thing has remained consistent – dude sets the bar high for himself and the artists he works with, and the word “filler” just doesn’t exist. The same holds true when talking to Vanderslice, taking time out of a lazy Sunday afternoon to wax poetic on a plethora of topics, from the worst ways he’s been asked for a free beat, building a cohesive album with AWAR, not wanting Troy Ave on The Winning Team, what a studio session with Freddie Gibbs is like, why the MPC Renaissance reigns supreme, and why he’s not the type of producer that bangs out eight beats a day. It’s worth listening to the end to hear Vanderslice’s thoughts on the one and only J-Zone as well.

    On his new album The Winning Team with AWAR:

    (more…)

  • Hot! Video

    J-Zone – Gadget Ho

    J-Zone’s first music video. The dude who’s sick of bein’ rich is apparently also sick of not havin’ music videos! Off his new album The Peter Pan Syndrome.

  • Hot!

    J-Zone In the Studio Making Beats

    The pimp is back! J-Zone dropped a ridiculously dope book and the idea that he may be dropping some new beats definitely has us amped!