The Jacka At The Top Pt. 2: Full Interview Audio (20:03)

Words: nando
Published: January 21, 2010

The year 2009 was undoubtedly the biggest for The Jacka. As an independent artist, he rose up to top tier status as one of the main representatives of the bay area music scene.

In the final installment of this two part in-depth interview with The Jacka, he discusses his new official solo albums for 2010. The Jack also gives creative advice to MC's everywhere, talks about passing the torch on to new artists, future side projects and duo albums, and also gets into Mob Figaz business.

Read part one of this exclusive interview.

PART 2 OF 2

Baycentrik: So now that the long awaited Tear Gas has been out for half a year, whats next? In terms of official solo album, a follow up for Tear Gas, will we see that in 2010?

The Jacka: Yeah you will. I got an album coming out called Murder Weapon, I got two solos. Another album called The Dunya. The Dunya means the wicked world, caught up ways. When your Muslum, the Dunya is what we live in. We living in the Dunya, everything around you is wicked and evil, and the war is the personal war within yourself. You gotta fight to be righteous, and be right in God's eyes. So this album is a real serious album. All my albums are serious, but The Dunya is something that's teaching people Islam and it ain't got no jingles on it at all. It's straight real music for real people. I'm not disrespecting women on there. The dudes on there, if I am, it's so you can learn something, not to do it. So if you hear me say something about a girl on there, it ain't nothing to do with disrespect, it's something that's teaching them a lesson. The beats are extra ill and the conversation on the album is just ridiculous.

We got that coming out, but Murder Weapon is more street. The other album is street too

"I gotta just keep dropping different things, every album that drops is somebody's first time hearing it...Everything I'm doing, I'm only doing it to win people's hearts."

though, but this is just to show them that we still coming. I gotta just keep dropping different things, every album that drops is somebody's first time hearing it. So I can't just drop Dunya and have people thinking I'm that way, and then I drop Murder Weapon and have people think that I'm that way. I gotta keep dropping and dropping and dropping so they realize okay this guy got many a style and hella shit to talk about. It's all quality, dope music, something that I love. Everything I'm doing, I'm only doing it to win people's hearts. I'm not doing it just to have something out to impress my friends or nothing like that or to be bragging that I got something in stores. It's actually something I'm really getting behind and really proud of. That's any time I drop a solo album or anything that I'm working on.


Baycentrik: Let's get into those side projects coming out, you got a lot of third party albums coming out. Broad Daylight is in stores. You got an album with Laroo, Never Be The Same. What is the schedule looking like for this year in terms of group albums and Jacka albums on other labels?

The Jacka: Well I got a lot of stuff, I got Devilz Rejects, that's part two. That's ready to come out. Everything that's coming out is making us go higher and higher with the bar, how the sound of music is. It's so much shit that's so dope I don't think that people are actually ready for what I got coming out. We got The GoBots 2 coming out with me and Lee Majors. Now this album is like exactly how we wanted to do part one. When we realized that we didn't have what we need to do part one how we wanted to do it, we had to invite a third party and we had to involve Nick Peace and Million Dollar Dream in that so they could drop it and put it out. So part two is all the shit that we wanted to do the first time, it's hella tight. It made Lee step his game all the way up. The beat game is ridiculous cause there's a lot of old school 80s beats and samples. It's ill man, it's called the B-Boy Era. It's actually two albums getting ready to be out, The GoBots 2, and the GoBots 2.5. They come out on the same day. It's all real ill shit on there. People gonna be real proud.

In 2010, people gonna be real proud cause there's a lot of music that I like to do and sometimes it just gets overlooked. Before it used to get overlooked, now people are listening and they in on it. I just can't wait for it to get out there. We just have so much shit out there that it's undeniable that we make good music. I just want it to be undeniable and I don't want people to think that it's a fluke. I just want them to know that everything we doing, it came from years of training. It didn't come from overnight success or nothing like that. It really came from me getting in there and having to shadow box and get my skills to par. We got those projects coming out. Me and Laroo project, that's super dope. The beat game is dope, it's a real ill album. It's something on there everybody gonna like. I just make sure that everybody is on the same page I'm on and that's to just be as dope as you can.  Nothing extra, just be as dope as you can period, don't say the first thing that come to your head. Use your head, you got a big brain in there, there's millions of things circling around in your brain.

Don't just write the first thing down cause it rhymes. Try to make your whole lines rhyme with whole lines. Make your rhyme pattern and your wordplay ill. Do everything you can to make it ill, because a lot of rappers make the last word rhyme. They'll say, 'I come from the city of dope, couldn't be saved by John the Pope.' Everybody likes to say that rhyme right there, it's an old Too Short rhyme, but let that man have his glory with his own rhymes. That was a dope rhyme for him, but nowadays you can't just say dope and Pope. You gotta make every word rhyme. You gotta make the whole sentence rhyme with the next sentence. It's a whole 'nother ballgame when it comes to rap nowadays, and it ain't from back in the days. You can take time, sometimes you ain't gonna rhyme perfectly. But if you not, make sure what you saying is finna be hella dope the next time, if it ain't finna be written out perfectly scriptured. Make sure everything that's coming out your mouth is hella dope, or the way you saying it is hella dope. If you ain't really got the rhyme pattern or the rhyme scheme or the wordplay. Make sure sure how you saying it is hella dope.

I been on people line lately, I really ain't gonna just accept anything. I used to just do a song with a nigga, let him get on my shit cause he was a real nigga in the streets who

"Somebody gotta be the leader sometime...a lot of niggas never been led, and you have to have been led, to know how to lead."

happened to rap. Okay he can rap a little bit but he way more gangster, way more mainy than he is rappin. He really ain't that good of a rapper but he's so ill, so much of a real nigga I let him on anyway. I would do shit like that, but now you gotta be ill all the way across the board. I'm making everybody step they shit up. In 2010 you gotta step it up, you gotta be better than me! You wanna get on my song or anything with me, you gotta damn near be better than me. [laughs]

Baycentrik: It's not just about rhyming the two words, but make sure that second line actually makes sense with the one before it.

The Jacka: You feel me?

Baycentrik: A lot of times the first line out the person's mouth has nothing to do with the last one. Like okay you talking about a million things in your verse!

The Jacka: I look around everywhere we go and I'm damn near one of the oldest niggas in the room! Nowadays everybody is 21, 22,  and I got at least about 5 years on em. So it's crazy man. Somebody gotta be the leader sometime. But if don't nobody wanna accept that position because a lot of niggas never been led, and you have to have been led, to know how to lead. I been all the way around, I been led, I've followed, and I did it all just so I can learn. I stayed in my place and I did what I was supposed to do, so I can have the place that I got today. People respect me, so only thing I gotta do is make sure I keep them happy with the music that I'm making, and as far as the artists go I just gotta show them the right things. I find myself around a lot of 18, 19 year old niggas that rap. When you get my age, say a nigga  is 26, 28 years old and he been rapping but just now trying to get his shit out there. That's a little late, when it's a nigga that's 18, 19, doing the same exact thing you doing. It's mainy, but it ain't hopeless. But if you older than these guys, you gotta be way doper than them. If you not way doper than them, they gotta at least respect you enough to take your opinion serious or take your music serious. There a lot of young cats out there who hungry and really want it. They gonna play they position, but it is what it is. My whole thing is I just want them to lead them in the direction to know that everything you do has to be dope period. We can't accept nothing else.

Baycentrik: Yeah the 17 and 18 year olds got nothing but time on their side to improve. They got that advantage.

The Jacka: Exactly.  The dudes that 28, 29 man you better be so fuckin ill, that your age don't matter. In the music industry, say you ain't got your own label and you ain't got your own situation rollin, but you actually about to be 30 years old or something. I don't think it's really that easy to get on. I think that's gonna be kinda hard to do. It's so many youngsters out there that's doing it. To me it don't matter, if you actually dope. But in the industry it matters because a lot of times, image is what sells a mothafucka. If you an older nigga and got gray hair [laughs] yellow ass teeth, you done went hard, you an alcoholic for 8 years it all takes a toll on you And there's a young fresh nigga or female right here looking hungry and they got time to develop. When you already done been through the ringer, I think that really makes a difference. So the whole thing is, just focus on keeping the bar high. If you go to the east coast, they don't give a fuck how old you is. They just care how dope you are, and that gets you on. But on the west coast, out here in the industry how it is, your age has a lot to do with it. If you young and you hella tight, you got a better advantage of getting on over everybody. There will be a dude dope as you but he 30 years old, but you 21 caliber artist, 21 year old is probably gonna make it faster than the 30 year old will. It's fucked up but it's just how it is.

Baycentrik: That's why you gotta start up early!

The Jacka: You gotta start up early! You gotta be serious about it, you can't just do it cause you heard a few people talk about it, you getting famous. You can't look at it like that,  you gotta look at it as a career and something you gonna be doing for the rest of your life cause you gonna give up everything for this! When I was 14 and I first started, I stopped going to school, I stopped doing hella shit because I believed so much in myself that I knew one of these days that it was gonna unfold. When we met C-Bo it was a blessing, like okay now I get a chance to do what I'm gonna do. I was like 16, 17 and I was ready to put the Mob Figaz album out. It was unbelievable, like man this is a dream come true. So that was my shot right there and I just tried to take full advantage of it, even though it was an independent shot, we still did real good. We took advantage of everything along the way, learned as much as I could learn and did everything I could do to own my own music today. I actually have real fans that we put in from the groundwork.

Baycentrik: Going into the thing you said earlier, you said you surround yourself with a lot of youngsters. Is there any key youngsters you're looking at as far as getting behind them and putting their stuff out. Is it time for Jacka to start presenting a new artist?

The Jacka: Yeah I'm doing that now. I'm in the process. Like I said, we go to 17 Hertz studios. What we got going over there is, I got certain dates that I'm there every week. I pick two days out of the week to work with other artists. A lot of the artists that go to 17 Hertz to record, they happen to be around that age. Everybody else that records there that's around my age, they already got a situation, Big Rich, Scoot from Dem Hoodstarz, Dilligentz, Mistah FAB, Clyde Carson, Ya Boy. So they all in situations. I take the two days out of the week to have the youngsters in.

So there's this one dude named Young Lox and he kinda dope. He from Oakland and he an ill rapper, he really got rhymes and wordplay. He's dope, somebody that we can stand behind and feel proud of. It's this other dude named Joe Blow. He get a lot of respect

"You gotta look at [rap] as a career and something you gonna be doing for the rest of your life cause you gonna give up everything for this!"

because he can actually rap good, he sounds good on tape but at the same time he's one of those dudes that he really got his shit together. When you see Joe Blow he got a nice car, nice chain around his neck, he really gets bitches, he really got money. Even though that's meaningless as far as rhymes go. But when a nigga actually really tight and knows that life for real and can explain it in a way where only you had to live it to know it, that's always dope. If that's the way they gonna be rapping. So Joe Blow is getting a lot of respect in the midwest and the south, all the little places that I been. We had a song called Shooters that had came out, he was on it, it was a street single. People liked him on that. We had another street single called Wit The Shit that was on The Street Album, and he was on that.

Baycentrik: I heard him on Drought Season 2, that's when I first heard him.

The Jacka: Oh yeah and the Drought Season 2, he's on that. A lot of people like Joe Blow. He's getting a lot of respect right now, so Joe Blow is probably gonna be the first artist that I put out. But he one of those kind of dudes that is a perfectionist. He get on one of those songs that we got, and he probably don't like what he did. He still growing as an artist, he getting better and better every time. He one of them dudes that don't know when he ready to go, but we working right now and he on a lot of stuff that's coming out. They gonna hear a lot of Joe Blow coming up.

My boy Fed-X from the Mob Figaz, he got a lot of stuff coming out. He really my favorite, he the one we really waiting on cause he got shit right now! He got a story, shit that he talks about in his music like none other that we have out here in the bay. We really waiting on him and Hus.

Baycentrik: I know Fed-X is working on his album right now.

The Jacka: Yeah Feddy working on his shit right now. His shit is hot! Unbelievable, he be in there just as much as me. He be in the studio every day just like me. We all go together, me and Feddy, Young Lox, Joe Blow, we all go to the studio at the same time every day. The songs that we just start working on, say we put a beat on, and it's a beat out of my beats. It might not be my song after we done with it, it might be Fed-X's song or Joe Blow's song. It depends on who needs it. Every song we do is probably gonna be Feddy's cause he the one working on his album so all the dope songs, we know that Feddy is gonna probably who end up with them cause his album about to come out. It ain't no holding on to songs! [laughs] If you got a dope one it's gonna have to go cause niggas albums about to come out, so we can't be holding back.

Baycentrik: Now that you bring up Fed and Hus, its no secret to started out with them as Mob Figaz and now you all established yourselves as solo artists. Are we gonna hear a new Mob Figaz album anytime soon with all you guys collectively on each song?

The Jacka: Yeah! We working on that right now as far as where we gonna be recording and doing it. My boy Hus just got released from house arrest, you know he went down in 2005. It's 2010 so they had to release him off to complete the rest of his time on the streets through a halfway house. When you do good in jail, they let you out sometimes 6 months, 8 months early and you can finish your sentence but you ain't really out.