JACKBOY

JACKBOY

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Jackboy is the heir to the throne of Florida’s eclectic hip-hop scene, and in 2020 he’s proven exactly why he hold’s that esteemed title. He’s dropped two full-length projects, the self-titled album Jackboy and his most recent tape, Living History, both of which have created serious waves in the music industry. Through his diverse range of talent and his never-ending hunger for development, Jackboy has been able to arise as one of the major acts coming out of South Florida, and there is no stop in sight for him.

Q: One of the more notable aspects of your career is how much growth you’ve shown between records, where does the motivation for that development come from?

A: It’s just when I make a song, when I see a songs gotten like a good review, I’m always like “I gotta top that, I gotta top that, I gotta top that.” But, while me trying to do that, we not knowing I’m making a lot of good songs that’s up to par with that song just by trying to top it. But until I get a song like “Alright y’all finally topped it”. Till then it’s like, what a new sound I can bring to it, what’s a new bar I can think of, what’s a new thing I can add.

Q: How do you see the state of hip-hop in Florida right now?

I feel like it’s real good right now. I feel like we got a lot of Florida artists at the front of a lot of things going on in hip-hop right now. We kinda getting looked at more right now. I feel like it’s flowing, things change, but you know, it’s just new lanes, new ideas and new ways to make music. But, I feel like it’s going right now.

Q: Where do you see your career trajectory in the next 5 years?

A: I don’t really wanna say where I see myself cause like, 3 years ago I didn’t see myself where I am right now. So, I don’t wanna put no limit to it. I just know I’m gonna be successful in the next 5 years. I don’t know where I’m gonna see myself, but I know it’s gonna be something real, real big.

Q: So what’s your biggest goal for the next 5 years? I’ll switch up the question. What do you hope to accomplish?

A: My biggest goal, I wanna like at least get a couple Platinums in there, but it’s not really about the music. My biggest goal is just to use the music platform and just create other things. Like open businesses….have more than one thing going on. Just be successful in every hustle I have going on, from the music. That’s really like my biggest goals, I have a lot of other things going on.

Q: What’s been the most difficult part of quarantine for you personally?

A: Actually quarantine hasn’t been too difficult cause I kinda used the quarantine to my advantage. But, as far as the working part, I probably could have done a little more networking, as far as interviews and stuff like that, that might be the hardest part.

Q: When you say interviews, do you like doing interviews? Do you not like doing interviews?

A: Yeah, I like doing interviews, but I like being in person, things like that. Every interview now is just over the phone, Zoom, stuff like that, it’s like, aight quarantine kinda messed that up. You know you can just feel a person more better out and understand what a person’s trying to say just in person, just getting a whole vibe.

Q: How does your own experiences with law enforcement shape your perception of what’s going on in the country right now?

A: It just got me looking like “Dang they finally tryin’ to understand something about it!”. Like, it’s finally being brought to light. But I still feel like theres a lot of stuff that’s being overlooked and I feel like a lot of celebrities that real-deal speak on the situation, they’re just speaking on it like for the moment thing. It’s not real-deal, cause some of them ain’t really go through it and even the ones that went through it, they didn’t really go through it cause it’s like you “you were a millionaire going through it!”. You ain’t go through what all of us went through.

Q: I feel like some artists speak on it for good publicity, not to actually elicit real change.

A: Yeah, good publicity. They just do it, know what I’m sayin’, cause it’s the cool thing going on at the moment and people just, it’s just politics. They just do it for that. But I feel like, even if you got arrested as a millionaire or whatever, if you did time, you had the whole world vouching for you. You can’t really speak on jail or anything like that cause it’s kids out here with zero dollars, with nobody vouching for them. Not even their families.

Q: How does the state of the world in regards to police violence affect your perception of what’s allegedly going on with Kodak in prison?

A: Yeah, see that’s another thing it’s like, I already know like all that. It’s going to have you frustrated, but I went to prison too and I went through the same thing he went through. That’s why I say, like a lot of artists speak on it, but they went to county jail or something and they are trying to be the voice for that. It’s like, “No you can’t be the voice for that cause you ain’t go through that.” But it’s like, what he going through, I already kinda figured it was going to kinda be that because it’s gonna feel like a lot of jealousy, all that. But he’s pretty tough though I think everything will be good. But, I feel like it should be spoken on more how these celebrities tryin’ to just find one that’s just like, “Alright, this a random person, and it’s blowing right now, we’re gonna speak on this”, it’s like hold on—this man was just doing features with y’all, y’all should speak this and not just overlook it. But that’s just how it goes.

Q: It kinda feels like Florida artists have a particularly abusive relationship with the law, like most Florida artists I know have had serious troubles with the police; do you think it’s something specific about Florida?

A: Yeah, definitely something specific about Florida. Probably cause a lot of people out here just do whatever pretty much and the police just hate that influence that you have on someone else. They hate that. They [the police] don’t want you to get too much power, or anything to influence. Or even if you’re doing something good for the community, like tryin’ to give back. They really don’t want you out there cause they know, “Alright, everybody likin’ him”—they don’t want it like that. They want you far away, “go make money somewhere else.” When you’re down here—Florida Police—if you do anything, they’ll tend to try attack you and provoke you to do even more things.

Q: How have the world-wide protests made you feel personally?

A: It actually made me feel like, “Damn alright”; I knew it wasn’t gonna stop, cause nothings gonna stop like that. But it was like, it’s being spoken about. Not everywhere where we need it being spoken about, or we not speaking on everything we need to, but at least the conversation started.

Q: Where do you want to see the conversation go from here?

A: I want to see it go more than just the celebrities, I wanna see it help everyone out in an aspect. Not just this one celebrity, and this one person or just this one person this and that, or you have to have a relationship with somebody to get helped out. Nah, I feel like everybody should just get helped out. That’s where the conversation should be going. Or even more so, even if we are talking about police and how they come. It’s like, you have the authority, you don’t have to force your authority on me or force it on me and be known. I feel like a lot of different conversations should be spoke upon. Even judges and court, how they sentence people with over-sentencing. All that.

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Q: How has your relationship changed with police now that you’ve gotten famous. Do you see a difference, now that you’re famous, from back in the day?

A: I definitely don’t see a difference. I kinda see more hatred cause now it’s like, “Oh shit, that’s that same one that told me to ‘suck my dick’? That broke ‘lil black kid got a Lamborghini now?”—It’s like—“Aw shit, we gotta arrest him!” It’s a little more hatred, but as far as the world, nah. Some people I see different but some people still don’t respect it cause it’s like “Damn, how he get that money?”—in their head it’s off rip. If you don’t know I’m a artist, you just think “Oh drug dealer”—whatever you’re thinking in your head. That’s what they thinking, so that’s the energy they giving me.

Q: Well, I assume you get recognized in Florida all the time…

A: Yeah definitely. I always get recognized in Florida. But you know it’s sometimes might you go in the bank and there might be whoever in there, somebody grandpa, and they don’t really know you. So now they looking at you like “How the fuck he got all this in his account?” It’s something extra; cause now you just gave out your money that you usually do, now you gotta sign this, talk to this person and it’s like damn, I never had to do none of this before.

Q: So what’s been the most stressful part about being successful now?

A: The most stressful part is actually like a blessing and a curse kinda, is being noticed. Cause being noticed, the more you’re noticed of course, the more your bag is coming cause you getting more and more known and people coming to you. But sometimes, it’s like damn, let me grab a drink right quick. But sometimes you just wanna chill, just vibe. Even if I’m recognized, like sometimes you just wanna walk by and be regular. But I don’t really trip too much about it cause it’s all blessings with it. That’s what I signed up for, that’s what I asked for, so it’s all blessings with it. It just makes you move smarter and more strategic.

Q: Is it a weird experience making party music for a world that is socially distancing for the near future?

A: Actually it isn’t making for them cause it’s like, sooner or later it’s gonna open back up and even though we might be social distancing—people are just dealing with their families, and like aight, it’s sad. I don’t gotta make sad music for y’all while we going through this. I can still make stuff that makes you happy and gets you turnt up. You can be in the house by yourself, you don’t need a whole club. I don’t need the club, I am the party.

Q: What’s the most personal song on Living In History and why?

A: The most personal song on Living History is “Pray to God.” Just by the things I’m saying in there. It’s like, closer to me. It’s more personal. It’s like, the other songs I’m rapping, I’m giving you the flow, I’m giving you whatever, but that one it’s like I’m letting you in a little bit on how I real deal feel. The music just hit more.

Q: How was your collaborative energy with Tee Grizzley?

A: I rock with Tee Grizzley, Tee Grizzley cool. The energy was up to par. We work pretty smooth together, and we got a couple more in the cut that we just holdin’ up on.

Q: Can you take me through the thought process behind the album cover for Living In History?

A: The thought process—really my designer is super GOATED, super GOATED—we just told him we wanted something different, and like pretty much speaking on what’s going on right now, through a picture. Like everything that’s happening right now, we want that through the picture and he pretty much brought that alive. He had like, the police, it shows that—it shows me in the middle, it shows the shackles on, and I like how he put the newspaper kinda style. I like Dior a lot, they have a newspaper style of clothing—it just all came together.

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Q: Musically, what is your dream collaboration?

A: My dream collaboration is Ed Sheeran.

Q: How do you think that record would sound between you too? Would you want it to be more like his record, or do you want him to make music more like your music?

A: Man, I want it to be more like his record. I got some songs, let him know.

Q: Do you like that type of music?

A: Yeah, I listen to Ed Sheeran, I listen to some Sam Smith. I listen to everything, I listen to Adele. I listen to some of Camila Cabello songs. But I feel like Adele just GOATED in that.

Q: Adele is the GOAT.

A: And then I feel like Ed Sheeran for the males, he just—he showin’ out right now. A collab like that, that’d be a next level collab.

Q: So you want to go more pop in the future?

A: Yeah. I’m still definitely gonna give this, I’m not gonna go more pop. I’m gonna get Jackboy. And that’s Jackboy —on this part of the song, he’s versatile, and on this part of the tape, you might hear me make a couple pop tracks, on this part you hear straight couple street, thugged out tracks, on this part you hear some real-life raps, reality raps—this part you might get drip. This all Jackboy in one, this how he feel like a love song should sound—if we talkin’ about a girl, like he should come on this Ed Sheeran type flow, but if we talkin’ about the streets we can’t rap like that. We gotta give it to them like the streets will understand it.

Q: What will be the first thing you do if this pandemic ever ends?

A: First thing I do, if this pandemic ever ends, I’ll give my enemy his bitch back. Cause I’ve had her with me the whole pandemic.

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