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July 30 | 05:29 AM
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A-Jaxx
A-Jaxx is a trailblazer by default thanks to his residential address. Unlike those starting out in other American metropolises, rap hopefuls from Pittsburgh don’t have great footsteps to follow in. With the exception of Wiz Khalifa, who’s still relatively new to the game, this eastern US city has never produced a lyrical rap star which leaves an emcee like A-Jaxx to forge the path on his own.
Considering Toronto, Canada to be his second home it seems as though this young artist is choosing to go from one bad scene to the next; however it has been said that, “without struggle there can be no success.”
DXnext recently met up with A-Jaxx to speak about his Hip Hop game. During the conversation, he also talks a lot about his peers of past and present.
Introducing A-Jaxx: “I’m a 23 year old emcee from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’ve been rapping since I was 13. I actually wanted to be an R&B singer first but I figured I’d have more fun with rappin.’”
Starting Point: “I was in eighth grade and my English teacher, Mrs. Byers, said at the beginning of the year we had to write a paper on what we wanted to do for the rest of our lives. I said I wanted to rap. After the weekend, we turned our papers in and she’s like, 'I see here that you want to be a rapper. Do you have anything that you can rap for us?' I was like, 'It’s got cuss words in it Ms. B.' She locked the doors and was like, 'Well stand up and do your little rap.' I was all nervous and she said, 'Look, you can either do this or you can fail the paper!' So, after she closed the door I stood up and did the rap and that was it ever since then.”
Sound and style: “I’ve got and east coast rhyme style. I was born and bred on the east coast. I use to live in Queens, so I got the heavy east coast influence but really soulful production."
Past Forward: “A lot of brothas sayin’ they’re bringin’ Hip Hop back, but I just want Hip Hop to progress forward but maintain its roots; I feel that I can symbolize that while not compromising my religious beliefs but at the same time still bring an element of good Hip Hop that we had back in the old school you know back in the mid to late '90s.”
Keeping The Faith: “My religious beliefs play a hard role in my music. I didn’t even convert to Islam until 2006. My first album was called This is my Jihad: Harb and Salaam and that means 'This is my struggle: the war and the peace.' Everything I do, or have done up until this point of my career, is based off of my religion one way or another. I’m not a 'Muslim rapper;' I’m just a rapper that’s Muslim.”
Scene 1 - Pittsburgh: “When I first came on to the scene it was the end of 2004 beginning of 05 and we only had one big group and they had already broken up, that was Strict Flow. You always had people doin’ Hip Hop here, but it never turned into a full fledged scene until like the end of ’07 so it was hard for anybody to break. Wiz Khalifa [click to read] was actually like the first person to get national attention. It’s still hard for Wiz here and he’s been on MTV, Top 40 singles, he’s on Warner Brothers [Records] with a 2.3 million dollar advance…it’s still hard for him here because of all these haters. I’ve been nominated for the Pittsburgh Hip-Hop Awards for the past two years, we’ve only had it for three, …[pause]… and you see it’s just difficult for everybody not just one individual. It’s hard period and it doesn’t matter who you are; it’s hard for local acts and national acts. The Government is another local act here and they ran Dipset outta Pittsburgh. It’s a tough crowd for anybody.”
Scene 2 – Toronto: “I’ve been back and forth from Toronto since I was 18, and the scene there has a lot of potential. The scene in Toronto is really similar to the scene in Pittsburgh; it’s really tough for anybody. I just read Luu Breeze’s [click to read] interview on [HipHopDX] and he said, 'Toronto isn’t called the Screw Face capital for no reason,' and that’s the truth. There’s a lot of amazing emcees up there from Drake, to Luu Breeze, of course Kardinal Offishall [click to read], Saukrates, Choclair, Slug, there’s so many but it just the unification that every other local scene needs that every city hasn’t had to bust yet. There’s so much division but it’s still a great scene though. Plus the first group [Main Source] [click to read] ever to get five mics is from Toronto.”
1+1=A Duo: “BC Sol is a combination of my man Nova and I. We’ve been collectively nominated for more Hip Hop awards than any artist in Pittsburgh Hip Hop history, and we’ve never put out a CD; we’ve only put out like four or five songs but we performed at shows constantly when we were both still living here. We have a quote we stole from Phonte in Little Brother [click to read]: 'We love Hip Hop we just hate the niggas in it.' It’s just us havin’ fun, it’s two genuinely good fans of Hip Hop, two friends just comin’ together.
G.O.O.D Company, that’s the duo I’m in right now and that’s what I’m really pushin’. My friend Fundamental, another really good friend of mine named Alex from Toronto, he’s the producer and I’m the rapper. We’ve just formed last year and we’re really gettin’ some nice reviews in Toronto. We’re about to drop an EP in a couple weeks and I’m shootin’ a video for our single on Saturday for the song called 'Good.' We got the thing that he’s from Toronto, I’m from Pittsburgh and we’re really tryin’ to make an international bridge…nobody’s really done it since Main Source with Sir Scratch, K-Cut, and Large Professor did it in the late '80s early '90s.”
The Discography: “May 27th 2008 I did Live From The 724, which was a collection of some local hits, some unreleased freestyles and stuff like that. I did it as a free download and that’s at like 5,000 downloads. On July 24th 2008 I did my first full length LP, This is My Jihad, which was nominated recently for album of the year at the [Pittsburgh] Hip Hop Awards. Right now we’re gunna do the Damn Good EP, which is gonna be out in I believe two-to-three weeks ; it’s gonna follow right after the video, we’re just waitin’ to get the material mastered. I have another project upcomin’ called Black Connections with a fellow Pittsburgh artist named Divine 7.“
Features Now And Next: “On This Is My Jihad, I had Ayatollah on there, 9th Wonder [click to read], and Charon Don. On the future projects, I think I got Skyzoo [click to read], Stimuli [click to read], …I just did a record with One.Be.Lo the other day…and Emilo Rojas [click to read] and I got somethin’ comin’ up.”
Label Situation: “I’m on an independent label right now on pretty much and open contract, it’s call Godsendant Music and my man Krohme opened it up. It’s really, really indie and underground. Krohme is one of my good friends and he knows that if a deal came together that would beneficial and it would behoove me to leave then so be it, that’s a good friend of mine and he’d come with me. Right now nothin’ is on the table yet and I don’t like to count my chickens before they hatch.”
Lasting Impression: “I want people to look at me, I don’t care what they say about me on the mic, I want people to be like, 'He made an impact on the game for the better.' That’s the number 1 thing. Of course I wanna be in everybody’s top five but who doesn’t?”
Considering Toronto, Canada to be his second home it seems as though this young artist is choosing to go from one bad scene to the next; however it has been said that, “without struggle there can be no success.”
DXnext recently met up with A-Jaxx to speak about his Hip Hop game. During the conversation, he also talks a lot about his peers of past and present.
Introducing A-Jaxx: “I’m a 23 year old emcee from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’ve been rapping since I was 13. I actually wanted to be an R&B singer first but I figured I’d have more fun with rappin.’”
Starting Point: “I was in eighth grade and my English teacher, Mrs. Byers, said at the beginning of the year we had to write a paper on what we wanted to do for the rest of our lives. I said I wanted to rap. After the weekend, we turned our papers in and she’s like, 'I see here that you want to be a rapper. Do you have anything that you can rap for us?' I was like, 'It’s got cuss words in it Ms. B.' She locked the doors and was like, 'Well stand up and do your little rap.' I was all nervous and she said, 'Look, you can either do this or you can fail the paper!' So, after she closed the door I stood up and did the rap and that was it ever since then.”
Sound and style: “I’ve got and east coast rhyme style. I was born and bred on the east coast. I use to live in Queens, so I got the heavy east coast influence but really soulful production."
Past Forward: “A lot of brothas sayin’ they’re bringin’ Hip Hop back, but I just want Hip Hop to progress forward but maintain its roots; I feel that I can symbolize that while not compromising my religious beliefs but at the same time still bring an element of good Hip Hop that we had back in the old school you know back in the mid to late '90s.”
Keeping The Faith: “My religious beliefs play a hard role in my music. I didn’t even convert to Islam until 2006. My first album was called This is my Jihad: Harb and Salaam and that means 'This is my struggle: the war and the peace.' Everything I do, or have done up until this point of my career, is based off of my religion one way or another. I’m not a 'Muslim rapper;' I’m just a rapper that’s Muslim.”
Scene 1 - Pittsburgh: “When I first came on to the scene it was the end of 2004 beginning of 05 and we only had one big group and they had already broken up, that was Strict Flow. You always had people doin’ Hip Hop here, but it never turned into a full fledged scene until like the end of ’07 so it was hard for anybody to break. Wiz Khalifa [click to read] was actually like the first person to get national attention. It’s still hard for Wiz here and he’s been on MTV, Top 40 singles, he’s on Warner Brothers [Records] with a 2.3 million dollar advance…it’s still hard for him here because of all these haters. I’ve been nominated for the Pittsburgh Hip-Hop Awards for the past two years, we’ve only had it for three, …[pause]… and you see it’s just difficult for everybody not just one individual. It’s hard period and it doesn’t matter who you are; it’s hard for local acts and national acts. The Government is another local act here and they ran Dipset outta Pittsburgh. It’s a tough crowd for anybody.”
Scene 2 – Toronto: “I’ve been back and forth from Toronto since I was 18, and the scene there has a lot of potential. The scene in Toronto is really similar to the scene in Pittsburgh; it’s really tough for anybody. I just read Luu Breeze’s [click to read] interview on [HipHopDX] and he said, 'Toronto isn’t called the Screw Face capital for no reason,' and that’s the truth. There’s a lot of amazing emcees up there from Drake, to Luu Breeze, of course Kardinal Offishall [click to read], Saukrates, Choclair, Slug, there’s so many but it just the unification that every other local scene needs that every city hasn’t had to bust yet. There’s so much division but it’s still a great scene though. Plus the first group [Main Source] [click to read] ever to get five mics is from Toronto.”
1+1=A Duo: “BC Sol is a combination of my man Nova and I. We’ve been collectively nominated for more Hip Hop awards than any artist in Pittsburgh Hip Hop history, and we’ve never put out a CD; we’ve only put out like four or five songs but we performed at shows constantly when we were both still living here. We have a quote we stole from Phonte in Little Brother [click to read]: 'We love Hip Hop we just hate the niggas in it.' It’s just us havin’ fun, it’s two genuinely good fans of Hip Hop, two friends just comin’ together.
G.O.O.D Company, that’s the duo I’m in right now and that’s what I’m really pushin’. My friend Fundamental, another really good friend of mine named Alex from Toronto, he’s the producer and I’m the rapper. We’ve just formed last year and we’re really gettin’ some nice reviews in Toronto. We’re about to drop an EP in a couple weeks and I’m shootin’ a video for our single on Saturday for the song called 'Good.' We got the thing that he’s from Toronto, I’m from Pittsburgh and we’re really tryin’ to make an international bridge…nobody’s really done it since Main Source with Sir Scratch, K-Cut, and Large Professor did it in the late '80s early '90s.”
The Discography: “May 27th 2008 I did Live From The 724, which was a collection of some local hits, some unreleased freestyles and stuff like that. I did it as a free download and that’s at like 5,000 downloads. On July 24th 2008 I did my first full length LP, This is My Jihad, which was nominated recently for album of the year at the [Pittsburgh] Hip Hop Awards. Right now we’re gunna do the Damn Good EP, which is gonna be out in I believe two-to-three weeks ; it’s gonna follow right after the video, we’re just waitin’ to get the material mastered. I have another project upcomin’ called Black Connections with a fellow Pittsburgh artist named Divine 7.“
Features Now And Next: “On This Is My Jihad, I had Ayatollah on there, 9th Wonder [click to read], and Charon Don. On the future projects, I think I got Skyzoo [click to read], Stimuli [click to read], …I just did a record with One.Be.Lo the other day…and Emilo Rojas [click to read] and I got somethin’ comin’ up.”
Label Situation: “I’m on an independent label right now on pretty much and open contract, it’s call Godsendant Music and my man Krohme opened it up. It’s really, really indie and underground. Krohme is one of my good friends and he knows that if a deal came together that would beneficial and it would behoove me to leave then so be it, that’s a good friend of mine and he’d come with me. Right now nothin’ is on the table yet and I don’t like to count my chickens before they hatch.”
Lasting Impression: “I want people to look at me, I don’t care what they say about me on the mic, I want people to be like, 'He made an impact on the game for the better.' That’s the number 1 thing. Of course I wanna be in everybody’s top five but who doesn’t?”
