On The Move presents: Grandson

Grandson

The musical “movement”

On the first notes you could probably think it’s just another angry kid trying desperately to draw attention. But you couldn’t be more wrong. Grandson’s music is definitely angry, but for the right reasons and it’s bigger than him. Believe us, you will soon find yourself completely dove into the artist’s very much engaged universe…

The 25 year-old Canadian artist Jordan Benjamin, known as grandson, started taking interest in music when he was 13 years-old. He started learning on an acoustic guitar and wrote songs about girls from his high school. At home he listened to a lot of genres, from hip-hop to jazz, which helped create his own unique soundscape. It’s only at the age of 20 that he started experimenting music production and dropped out of university to move to Los Angeles with the dream of pursuing a musical career. He then found himself a community of artists to work and perform with and things slowly started to take off.

In September 2016, he released his first song «Bills», blending a menacing electronic guitar riff with trapinfluenced beats, which now cumulates about 2 million streams. Obviously, the meaning behind the song is big and the message is clear. Grandson talks about financial inequality and how it affects people’s values or well-being. From there it got more political and he released a few other singles including «Kiss Bang», «War», «Overdose» and the powerful «Thoughts & Prayers», a stinging indictment of politicians after the school shooting in Florida.

In 2018 he got himself a record deal with label Fueled by Ramen, home of twenty one pilots, Paramore and Panic! At The Disco among others, and released the huge success «Blood/Water» as well as a debut EP «A Modern Tragedy, Vol.1». Grandson’s music is unapologetic and aims at provoking people’s beliefs and opinions as well as sparking a new flame of revolution to challenge the highly polarized political landscape in which we live.

«The objective is to create a community and foster a safe space for that catharsis to occur. It’s about people being aware that amidst everything that’s going on, it’s okay to be not okay. I feel like there’s so much being put on everyone coming together right now, and I think that, that’s really important. But first, let’s have a space to be angry, let’s have a space to yell and to hold people accountable and to be f***ing mad.»

«A Modern Tragedy, Vol.2» appeared in February 2019 and goes deeper in societal issues as love, addiction and disillusion. His clever fusion of rock, trap, alternative and many other genres allows him to weaponize music against the painful reality of our world and it’s immensely cathartic.

Listen if you are a fan of:

Involved artists that see art as a weapon as well as a means of education.

One song to listen to:

«Blood/Water» to sing at the top of your lungs and get everything that’s been bothering you about our greedy society off your chest.

WordS by LUDIVINE DESUMEUR PHOTO: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED