Dubcnn.com what's up I'm Jose and I'm here with a new artist we'd like to introduce to you, and your name is?
Jessta: Jesta James.
Dubcnn: What is up man? So yeah tell us where you're from first of all.
Jessta: For sure, for sure, I'm from Montana, I've been down here for almost 4 months now, just working on my album, working on my project. Getting' things going, just trying to get everything rollin right now. I make a little bit different music than most people are used to I call it Hick-Hop. It's a combination of country music, kind of like some Southern rock and some classic rock mixed in with hip hop and rap. Just kind of everything across the board. We also have a lot of tracks that we direct towards the radio too with the poppier sound. So we kinda really nailing everything, but other than that, it's gonna be a big year, we're doing some big collaborations going with some big time artists, some of the best producers. It's gonna get crazy here real soon.
Dubcnn: Alright so first off tell us how you got into this music? I know this is a unique sound you're coming out with, when did you start rapping and start doing all this stuff?
Jessta: I'd say that i've been a big fan of music my whole life. I've listened to all different kinds of music, like i said I have the country influences as a younger kid, and including classic rock. I didn't really get into hip hop and rap much until after I graduated high school and it was just something new to me .I heard it and it immediately caught my ear. I just kinda like a sponge, soaked up as much of it as I could form everything that sounded good to me. From there on I just kinda freestyling a lot, getting into that mode and freestyling at parties and what not. Then I had some friends that made music at that time, heard the freestyles, and they were really impressed I guess. They said you better get into writing some songs, they hooked me up with some beats. Pretty much it was on after that, I hit it hard man and I made about 100 different song in a 3 year period. I just wrote, recorded, taught myself how to record, how to produce I've been learning how to play instruments, i really just wanted to become a well rounded artist before I came out and try to get in the public eye.
Dubcnn: So Hick-Hop, thats a pretty general term, tell us about some of your influences from the hip hop sides, the country sides what kind of instrumentals do you got going on under all that stuff?
Jessta: Really, I never wanted to lose the hip hop side of things so I kinda kept that 808 in all my music. But I wanted to incorporate live instruments and live guitar and add live drums on top of the 808 and really bring the music to life and give it a real organic sound. Also I like to incorporate harmonica and banjos, and crazy instruments that people don't really associate with hip hop at all, and it gives a new flare to what has been done out there and so I just kind of created a new monster on it's own.
Dubcnn: Alright so starting off in Montana doing your own thing, how did you end up here? We're in a studio in Orange County.
Jessta: Well you know I love Montana, it's my heart that place. I really miss it a lot even though I've been going back and forth drives me crazy I just wanna be there. But I really couldn't really do the music how I wanted to do it on the top level being up there. I really needed to get out and be where the stuff's poplin'. So I booked as many big shows as I could up there opening up for big artists like The Game and Nipsey Hussle, and actually 2 Live Crew back in the day. Anything I could get my hands on I grabbed and I ran into some people who had a camp down here in Hollywood and they liked what I did, they knew I was trying to get down here and into the swing of things so we hooked up and just started conversing as far as artist development and all that. Then I just kinda came down here, been hittin' up all the best studios and I been working with everybody that I can.
Dubcnn: Alright, can you give us the names of some of the artists you been working with? Some of the collabs?
Jessta: Sure. Well i've been doing a lot of recording over at Paramount Studios, American Studios, I'm working with an engineer named Drew Druckers, he's amazing at what he does. He really helped me develop my sound, It really took me moving myself from Montana and removing myself from my environment to embrace where I'm from. Being up there, I didn't always play on the fact that I was from Montana, because I was in Montana. People I knew hard a hard time taking a white rapper someone who's into hip hop taking them seriously, it was a difficult thing for them so I never really did that but when I got down here people were like, "Whoa, that really separates you from the rest of the industry right now cause there's really no well known artists from Montana." A lot of people don't even know where it is so I really embrace that and Drew really helped me to kinda bring out the country side of things and make that more radio sounding as well so everyone will get to hear some of his production coming up real soon. I've been doing some recording with Krayzie Bone from Bone Thugs N' Harmony, he's got a studio out near Santa Anna and I've been working with him and his engineer. We're actually gonna be working on some new collaborations with Krayzie Bone and possible we're looking at getting Lil' Jon on the track I wanna do all different kinds of collaborations and kinda break down the barriers in music so i see myself doing collaborations with Taylor Swift or some other artists like that and really gaining their audience and being them exposure to Hip Hop they might not normally take a chance on.
Dubcnn: So content wise, what are you rapping about? I know you definitely gotta add your own feel to it, so what are you talking about on there?
Jessta: Real life stuff. I'm a real person, i've been through a lot of trials and tribulations in my own life. I've lost family members, I know what it's like to lose people that you care about. So I just try to make real music about relationships. I've had my fair share of those actually I just got engaged and I'm getting married here in a few months so I'm excited about that.
Dubcnn: Congratulations.
Jessta: So I definitely try to incorporate a little something in there for everyone, so I talk about real life stuff. So I feel, we were kinda talking about this earlier, I feel music itself, especially hip hop there's a lot of good stuff out there but there's been so much stuff that's already been done that I feel like it's gotten as a culture it's gotten kind of rutted, and the fact that we're listening to a lot of repetitious sounding stuff. A lot of nursery rhyme type of music and not a lot of real emotion behind real subjects so I'm trying to bring something tangiable very organic, back to hip hop and music in general.
Dubcnn: Definitely man. What's the next thing you're planning on doing as far as people seeing you and kinda gettin' out there?
Jessta: Really we got a lot of things going on right now that I'm real excited about. Besides the music which is just kinda happening on its own whether I want it to or not. We're just dropping new songs every day that are amazing so I'm very excited about that. On top of that we have, I'm gonna be an executive producer on a reality TV show that we're filming. There's gonna be some celebrity guests, some big name celebrities so that's gonna be real fun, plus we're gonna be filming in Montana So I'll be able to share with the rest of the world where I'm from and what it's like up there. Over the next 2 or 3 weeks we're trying to film my first 2 major music videos that really are gonna blow everything else out of the water right now just because of the technology that we're bringing to the table and the style that we're gonna be shooting these videos in is really something unique. So I'm looking forward to everybody getting' a piece of that real soon.
Dubcnn: Alright cool man. Well you heard it here first Dubcnn.com. Tell us where we can find you online and where you have your stuff posted up.
Jessta: You bet. Obviously I'm on Myspace and Facebook. Just google Jessta James. On twitter same thing @JesstaJames one word. You can go to my website, www.jestajames.com you can watch clips of the making of videos and some of my songs you can get a taste of the music, and actually we're gonna have everything up on iTunes and everywhere probably within a week or 2 weeks so if you go up there and you hit the iTunes link and you don't getting it'll be coming up soon. But definitely check it out, you can see some photos and check out my bio. That's a fun one. So yeah appreciate the interview, Jesta James, Look out.
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Related Media & Links
Jessta James Official Site
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Jessta James // Video Interview // Dubcnn
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