On The Rise: Jake James
January 23rd, 2022
New York is known for bringing up new artists and rapper Jake James is one amongst them. Hailing originally from the 518, upstate New York, Jake immersed himself into the rap game. With inspirations such as the Notorious B.I.G. and Mac Miller, Jake believed it was only right to follow his dreams of rap. In order to follow his dreams of rap, Jake had to build a career in finances on Wall Street first. An investment banker by day and rapper by night, get to fully know Jake James in our interview below!
What got you into hip hop?
I started off listening to people like Otis Redding, a lot of soul artists. Bob Marley, a lot of reggae. There's a lot that transfers into hip hop from that. That was my early introduction as a young kid. I started listening to a lot of Biggie when I was around 11. I just fell in love with the word play and the impact it had on people's lives. Then I met Mac Miller in person when I was 13 and that was kind of a random event that sparked me to launch my own rap career. I'd always written raps but I grew up in a really small town and being a hip hop artist was not high on people's list of things to become. Once I met Mac, it kind of showed me that things were possible. I knew I had a knack for wordplay and rapping. That's what launched it off. Shout out to Mac Miller and rest in peace. I just released my first song 11 months ago, so I'm still pretty brand new from a commercial prospective but I've been making music most of my life.
What about Biggie inspired you?
The flow, the cadence. A lot of hip hop people have to speed up their flow and their rhyme schemes to impress people, Biggie didn't do any of that. He was slow rhyme scheme. He just had a certain charisma about him that made him the undeniably greatest one when it came to wordplay. His production choices, the producers he's worked with. Having Puff on his team, I think there was just a lot to learn from him and his career. Also, just the impact he had on hip hop in general. Jay-Z was like his little brother which is crazy to think about, now that Jay-Z is the biggest rapper. Biggie was just a big influence for me, just the sound coming from New York and it just resonated with me on a different level than most. My first single was actually produced by Buckwild who was one of Biggie's producers. He had made one of the songs, 'I Got A Story To Tell' for Biggie. Buck reached out to me about a year ago now and we dropped our first single together in late February last year. Shout out to Buckwild and R.I.P. to Biggie.
You were initially into finance and the corporate world. Talk about that shift and transition into rap.
It was crazy. I worked on Wall Street since I was about 17, I always had a passion for finance and just understanding how the world works. I grew up with a low income background, money struggles, lost my house at one point. I wanted to figure out why is this the way some people live when some people live in a mansion and have everything they need. Finance was the easiest way to explain why that happens and how to manipulate it on your own. That was a tool for me to get out of a tough situation as a kid, make a better life for my family and initially build a career that would give me a reputation where I could transact in a different way than most rappers could which I think would be valuable moving forward.
While I was working on Wall Street I started building my hip hop career doing shows opening for people starting off in Manhattan. I opened for G-Unit, Dave East, Moneybagg Yo, and a couple of other people. It was just organically building while I was working on Wall Street which was interesting, but then COVID hit and at this point I had no music out. I was still working on Wall Street but then it turned completely remote so then I had an opportunity to travel the country, meet a lot of people, and really experience the music industry first hand for the first time. COVID was like a weird opportunity to be able to do that and then music completely took off after that. I started releasing music for the first time. I'm grateful for what Wall Street taught me, I feel like it'll be valuable moving forward and for any business I want to start in the future. I'm going to always stay involved in business. It was crazy balancing both lives at the same time. I'm transitioning out of Wall Street and the finance background into full hip hop but it definitely was a wild experience. It teaches you how to work 100 hours a week every week for years at a time and stay up with the groove of things. Much love to Wall Street and everybody who helped me but now it's time to build the music up instead.
You stated you're an investment banker by day and a rapper by night, what has balancing both of these taught you?
Discipline, how your habits effect your long term outcome, the sacrifices you need to make to become successful. I see my family 3 or 4 times a year. I'm in my hometown maybe two weeks out of the year, total. There's a lot you have to sacrifice to live a life where you have two careers at the same time or one career that completely consumes what you're doing. I started on Wall Street when I was in school full time, so I was working 80 hours a week at the bank then I was going to school taking five classes at night, plus I was building my first mixtapes doing shows and stuff like that. I was introduced to this at an early age, you just gotta know how to not sleep and keep running with it.
Did you have a personal life?
Hip hop was it for me. Hip hop was my way of having a community outside of constant grind. Hip hop is a grind in itself but I've kind of built a family and a community within the music industry and that's why I feel comfortable transitioning outside of Wall Street at this point. This is what's meant for me, this is my whole network, so why not jump straight into it, you know? Shoutout to anyone that's in school or working full time, keep grinding.
What was it like growing up for you? Do you feel this impacts your music in any way?
For sure. It impacts everything I do. I feel like its the purpose in why I make music and why I want to have a voice and be able to impact a larger group of people. I grew up in a small town in upstate New York called Hillsdale with about 1,000 people. For me, I grew up looking around as it's a pretty economically depressed area. It's not a lot of opportunity for jobs or making money. A lot of people making 30,000 or 40,000 a year and they're very content with that kind of lifestyle. There's nothing wrong with that but the rest of the world is revolving much faster. There's much more money moving around, there's things impacting your life that you're not aware of in that environment, you just kind of let the world pass. A lot of my friends never travelled outside of the country, the rural upstate New York part of life. For me, that coupled with financial struggles at a time in my life, I knew I could have a message that would help other people in a similar situation and I feel like that story hasn't really be told in a long time. Eminem had the underdog come up story which a lot of people connected with and that resonates with people. I feel like my story going from struggles moving to public housing, working my way out of it, I feel like people can draw from that.
My goal with this is just to inspire people as I go along. It was a crazy time growing up, I went through a lot of ups and downs. I learned a lot, I wouldn't have it any other way but definitely growing up in a small town and taking it to a bigger level you see the impact you can have on people in your similar situations. I try to speak to the small town kids, I'm trying to speak to the city kids, anybody who doesn't have resources to get to where they want, or might think it's impossible. Impossible is not a real term in my mind.
How would you personally describe your music?
My last project was produced by Street Symphony, who's my A&R now. Street did 'Hustle' & 'Victory Lap' for the late Nipsey. It draws on old school samples and old school sounds, which I grew up on, but incorporates the new school style with 808 with hard drums. I'm a lyricist at the end of the day. I like to focus on lyricism and telling stories. Changing the way people think through my music. There's a lot of aspects of old school lyrical, New York City hip hop and I'm trying to bring in the new school aspects, something at a show that get's people going crazy. Also, some Rock, I dropped a song called 'High Grade' which is more Rock influenced, people love that energy. So somewhere between New York lyrical rapper and a Rockstar.
You did a temporary relocation to Atlanta to release your first EP 'Letter of Intent'. What motivated that move, why not stay here in New York?
COVID had hit and I hadn't really experienced much of the country at that time, so I travelled, met a lot of people, took a lot of meetings, and was at a lot of events. I ended up in Atlanta and I started working with a company called Blueprint Group, which is a really great management company down here in Atlanta. They work with a lot of people like Lil Wayne to Drake and Kanye in the early stages. They were affiliated with Young Money and a few other organizations, so I came down here with my independent label, Encore.
We started working with Blueprint and Street Symphony who helped me build up my first few projects and that's what motivated the move at first. Then I started building a good network of friends and getting involved in the culture and getting immersed in hip hop in Atlanta. For me, this is the mecca of hip hop culture in America right now. You look at New York, their economy is based on business and tech, in Atlanta, it's entertainment. That's what this city runs off of. Being here gave me an opportunity to build that network within the music industry as well as build my first project with somebody like Street, who's well established. I love the energy in Atlanta and we had a successful debut at Center Stage when the first project dropped. I love Atlanta. It's my second home from New York.
Before the New Year, you dropped your second EP 'Earnings Season', what was the inspiration behind this project?
'Earnings Season' is the sequel to 'Letter of Intent' which was my first project laying out my intentions in the hip hop industry and the 'Earnings Season' is laying out what I am prepared to do to get to what I stated in 'Letter of Intent'. My aspirations. The 'Earnings Season' is me taking that on in real life. Working with Street for the first time, who's the first Grammy winning producer I've ever worked with. Also, just scaling my hip hop career and leaving Wall Street. For me it's the earning season. On Wall Street that's a term when companies report earnings and a lot of people either buy or sell their stocks depending on how they do. For me, this is just to show people I'm doing well, my company is growing and basically just an introduction to my life full time as an artist.
Also, before the New Year, you headlined SOB's for the second time, how was that experience?
That was a crazy experience. We hadn't exactly planned on the date because of COVID. We were kind of up in the air on whether or not it would be able to happen, since New York's pretty crazy with COVID right now. It ended up being a really big success. We worked directly with the owner's of SOB's to book it directly for the first time. Last time I had done a showcase structure with a few people I know. This time tried to pack it out with COVID, which was a challenge. We had Lola Brooke come and open for me, Curly J, HDBeenDope, and a lot of other artists came through. It was dope to bring everybody together in a time where the world is shut down. It was a successful event, we packed it out with 300+ people, and it was my first time getting to debut this project to the public. Shout out to SOB's, it's a great platform for artists starting off.
As an upcoming rapper, what are some obstacles you've faced, if any?
There's a lot right now, coming up, that artists are faced with. The main thing, when you're starting your career is having the right team and having the right backing behind you whether that's a major label or an independent label and the right management company. Initially that was the hurdle for me, but I was able to work through that over the past few years. My team and I really built a solid structure. That's the hardest part as an artist because you start making music in your bedroom, making music with beats offline. Even if you have a hit, how do you scale that into making more hits to being a superstar, living that lifestyle? It's difficult. You look at an artist like Lil Nas X, he was able to make a hit out of his bedroom but he wasn't able to become the superstar he is without a great management team, a major label and all of the infrastructure behind him. I'd say building your team can be a big hurdle. I was lucky to be able to do that over the past year. To bring my team together, all around, together, independently. Competing as an independent with major labels is challenging, if that's the route you want to go. For me that was important, especially in the start. To any artist doing it, know that the times are changing and you can really do this however you want to.
What are some goals you have for the New Year?
A few things I'm looking forward to early in 2022, as the rest of the year is still planning itself out, I'm working on an album with Street Symphony which will be my debut album. More to come on that. We'll see who I bring onto the project. I'm very excited to launch the first album. There's definitely a tour announcement near in the future. A lot of shows as the world starts to open back up again. Hopefully New York can recover from this COVID situation. I'm also working on a project with Big Jerm later on this year. Big Jerm was Mac Miller's main producer and engineer for a large part of his early career. We had gotten connected through some mutual contacts here in Atlanta and he just liked the music. Mac being a big inspiration for me, I'm really looking forward to working with Jerm 1 on 1. More to come on 2022 as a whole.
Where are you trying to take your career?
I get that a lot, being a white rapper. You could either be a SoundCloud rapper or you could really try to do something with it. I always aspire for greatness, I wouldn't aspire for any less. In life, I give anything my 100% or don't give it anything. For me, music is my plan A for the next few decades. I think there's a void in the market, there's an opening right now for really impactful, great white lyricists. We really haven't seen that since an Eminem, Mac Miller or G- Eazy. We have Jack Harlow now who's doing really well. I wouldn't consider him a lyricist per say but his music is good and he reached a really wide audience and that is a level I want to take it to. There's never been a white artist recently that's been a business minded, lyricist. look up to the Jay-Z's of the world so I'm definitely trying to take it to a level of Mac Miller, G-Eazy, and Eminem. Ima keep working until I can get there.