J. Valentine interview

[Darksider]

J. Valentine Is The Conversation Piece Of R&Bay (Exclusive Interview)
March 6, 2007 by nando


 J. Valentine 
 
From singing with his brothers at the age of 9 with a major deal, to writing for today's big R&B and pop stars, J. Valentine had the patience to use his talent in other ways, never hogging the spotlight to himself. Eventually establishing his City Boyz Muzik label with Bailey as his headline artist, J created an outlet to bring up new talent. Now in 2007 J is back on a major, with his debut album Conversation Piece on its way for the summer, a wait that will definitely be worth the trouble.

J. Valentine linked up with West Coast Rydaz for a very in depth interview, in which he talks about his early singing career, creating City Boyz, major labels, his time working with Suge Knight & Death Row and much much more.

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West Coast Rydaz: Talk about how you acquired this major deal. Were the labels already looking at you for a while now, were others interested?

J. Valentine: Every label you can think of holla'd at me. I already had relationships with pretty much every label from being a writer and producer so I had already done stuff for a lot of labels. I had already been getting offers from different people to do my own project but the timing for me wasn't right. I didn't wanna do it yet, then I didn't have the position and the bargaining power that I felt I needed to be able to do me. Sometimes when labels come early, they wanna make you whatever they wanna make you into, whatever is popular at the time.

West Coast Rydaz: Like a developmental thing?

J. Valentine: Not so much a developmental type thing, they wasn't trying to offer me nothing like that. They were always offering me real deals but it was a fact of them wanting me to do records like other artists that were already famous. If Usher was hot at the time, they was like 'Oh you can do what Usher is doing', or whoever is the hot artist at the time. If it's Omarion, if it's Mario, Tyrese. They like 'Oh we can do records like them,' other than letting you do you. So at the time people was offering stuff but it wasn't to the point where I had the freedom to be myself. I wasn't willing to risk that, I gotta be me at all costs and I'm willing to win or lose being me. I chose to wait, I didn't feel the time was right. People would offer me situations, like 'Yo we should make some deals happen' I always passed. I didn't feel the time was right for it, especially after I did the Keyshia video. After I did "I Changed My Mind" a lot of labels was like yo, cause then they started seeing me on TV. Interscope/A&M was one of the first labels that hollered at me. At the time I wanted to do the indy project first, Bailey. I wasn't even thinking of being an artist, I was strictly on some sitting in the background and playing my position from there.

West Coast Rydaz: So this deal with J Records, what is the break down? Are you a sole artist on the label or did you bring City Boyz Muzik with you?

J. Valentine: It's City Boyz. Anything I'm involved with is gonna be City Boyz.

West Coast Rydaz: What does this mean for the label, do you plan on putting anything out from Bailey on a major?

J. Valentine: I have relationships with pretty much every label so I don't have a thing where I'm only doing J Records projects. City Boyz has a deal with J Records but City Boyz is it's own entity. I'm not locked in to where I can only take projects there. For me right now, the main thing is concentrating on Bailey's project and concentrating on mine. I'm not trying to do a thousand things at once. I don't wanna try and sign up everybody and not give each project it's just due. I don't' believe in just signing people to hold them.

You gotta get some things really cracking before you start getting into that. To me I feel like you playing with people's livelihoods. Music is an escape for all of us. That's why you don't always have to be in the streets, we don't have to be dealing with a lot of the bullshit that we was dealing with. It gives us a way out. So we can do something legal.

West Coast Rydaz: Talk about recruiting Bailey to the label. Bailey talked about how he aligned with you in his interview with us, tell your side of the story.

J. Valentine: From my end, I was doing a lot of writing and I was getting bored to be all the way real with you. I kind of felt like it was more to it than just writing so I wanted to open up my horizons and do more things within the business. For me it was a learning experience. I wanted to be able to give back. I'm one of them dudes that believes that if God blesses you with success and opportunity, you should utilize it to help somebody else. I'm not trying to be on no save the world shit, I can't do that for everybody but if I feel like I can help Bailey and I can get him to the point where he can go and grab somebody, then that's one more dude we helped. It all comes down from the line of me reaching back.

I was looking to start some stuff up and I was hearing what was going on with all the young cats in the streets out here. To me, Bailey stood out. Bailey was my favorite. All the mixtape shit I was hearing and everything, he was my favorite. That was just my opinion, that was the dude who I kept rewinding his verses. At first it was funny because I didn't even know it was him. You gotta understand, our families have known each other forever. At first I'm just listening to a voice that keep comin on these records. I'm like yo it's this one nigga that's crazy on there! Bailey is Bailey's last name and I always knew him as James. I had went to LA for a few years and when I went to LA, Bailey was playing basketball. He was doing his neighborhood thing and not on the rap shit heavy like that. I'm a few years older than him so when I left he was still in the hood, hoopin, doing shit young niggas do and not really in the game yet. Quinn was in the game heavy, and with him being Quinn's lil brother of course I always knew it was gonna rub off on him. But he hadn't really jumped into it yet so when I started hearing shit and coming back, it was him that I kept hearing. I'm hearing Bailey, Bailey, Bailey. And I ain't putting 2 and 2 together yet. I'm just like ok this is a young nigga named Bailey.

At the time my brother-in-law owned the most popular little barbershop in Fillmore. I knew he would know, so I go to the shop and I'm talking to him and I'm like yo who is this young nigga Bailey I keep hearing. He was like nigga you know Bailey! I'm like nah. He like nigga Bailey is James Bailey, Quinn's lil brother James. I'm like oh hell naw! So I'm like where he at? At the time he was hustling to it took a little bit to catch up with him. So when we finally caught up I told him how I felt about what he was doing and what I felt I could help him with. I believe in the whole service industry and helping. I'm not one of those dudes that ever look at it like Bailey is my artist. I believe me and Bailey are partners. I'm helping him see his dream. I explained to him what I wanted to do and let him know, I'm new to the indy game but I'm ready to dive all the way in with something I believe in, be it financially, be it time. I gave him what I felt I could do. He believed in me and I believed in him. So we kind of took it from there.

West Coast Rydaz: And now we have City Boyz Muzik.

J. Valentine: At this point it's not even a company at the time. When I meet Bailey I don't even have a name yet. City Boyz Muzik was built around Bailey. Me coming up with the name, doing all that, I was strictly a writer and producer at the time. I hadn't even put on the executive hat yet.

West Coast Rydaz: For the longest time I didn't know you were behind City Boyz, it always seemed like it was just Bailey's independent label.

J. Valentine: Nobody knew because I'm not that type of dude. I'm not a boastful type of dude. That's not my thing, I'm not the nigga to be 'I own this and that." I try to just handle my business and do things accordingly. That to me don't prove anything. Anybody can get a company started and claim to be a CEO. That ain't impressive to me. My thing is, I was gonna stay in the background, keep it low. People didn't even know what I had done. When I met people they like oh here go a young nigga who maybe got a couple of dollars and wanna do something. Not even knowing of the records I wrote, not knowing the history and knowing I come from the Newtrons from back in the days. Not knowing who my family was, none of that. To me it was all irrelevant. It was all about starting from scratch and building from there. I didn't wanna have to keep using my family's name or records I had written. I wanted people to respect what we was doing from the music that we had and what we was trying to build, and that was having a good business ethic.

West Coast Rydaz: Talk about the in-house production...will City Boyz Production be handing the majority of the beats on the album and who else will be lending their talents?

J. Valentine: The production team is just Major League Buckets and myself. My other boy Tha Rolla work with us a lot too. We did 4 songs on my album but I got Cool and Dre, Scott Storch, The Underdogs, who did "She Worth The Trouble" with me. They was just up for an Oscar, for scoring the whole movie of Dreamgirls. Then I got Polow Da Don's joint with me and Keak on it, Dre and Vidal, and Needlz. I'm actually going into the studio with Lil Jon tomorrow morning.

West Coast Rydaz: Will your album primarily be more laid back R&B, will it be "bay area"?

J. Valentine: Nah it's gonna be a real R&B record but it's gonna be Bay influenced because I'm from here, I live here, and I'm involved in what the bay is so of course it's gonna have the bay slang in it, and it's gonna have our game all the way through it. My train of thought is bay area. It's funny because Bailey actually came up with the whole R&Bay thang. Bailey and Big Von, it came from us joking in the studio one day. He like your shit ain't all the way R&B but it ain't all the way bay either cause don't nobody in the bay sing no more. Back in the day we had En Vogue, to Tony Toni Tone, to Lenny Williams, Timex Social Club, but now it's like ain't no more singers. Ain't no young dudes coming up singin' no more. They was like yo you a mixture of both. You got some R&Bay type shit. Bailey was like nigga you the King of R&Bay! It kind of just stuck from there. It's been something that's been attached to me at this point. You get all the people mumbling and grumbling, 'oh how he gonna be the king of R&Bay, what has he done, blah blah blah'. My thing is yo, if you ain't trying to be the top at something then why you doing it? I don't wanna be second, ever. I wanna win at all times. Ain't nothing higher than being the king of something. Unless you playing cards you can be the ace of spades but if you dealing with the real reality ain't nothing higher than the king and that's what I'm shooting for.

West Coast Rydaz: If anything that will make other artists wanna step their game up.

J. Valentine: That's been a cool thing too though. I been getting a lot of hits from MySpace, seeing a lot of young dudes in the streets really on some 'before you started doing your shit, people wasn't respecting me doing my singing thing. But now that you coming out and you coming out with a whole other vibe..' I'm not the average R&B nigga cause I come from the same place as all the rap niggas. We all from the same hood and the same parts. I'm in the same clubs as them and dealing with the same trials and tribulations. My daddy was a pimp. I grew up in the game, around my pops Ron Newt, Gangsta Brown, Fillmore Slim, Kenny Red. I know the game and been around it the same as anybody else, it's just the fact that my ability is singing instead of rapping. That was the talent that God gave me. I never went away from that. I was never like, oh since I'm from the hood I gotta rap.

West Coast Rydaz: So you never had the desire to rap? Was singing your first calling?

J. Valentine: Singing was always my first calling. That's what my pops had always put us towards young, that was his way to keep us off the streets. He made a group with me and my brothers and that's what we did. We sang and we performed, we did the Juneteenths, we used to strut down Fisherman's Wharf. People don't understand I had a record deal when I was 9. I was on MCA. We was going through street shit, we had an album out, our group was The Newtrons, we had a single out "My Heart Beats For You."

West Coast Rydaz: So that was your first big break?

J. Valentine: Yeah that was our first big break, me and my brothers. We did Soul Train, for some kids from the bay to be on Soul Train that was big. And this was Soul Train's heyday. When it was really cracking, we did Video Soul with Donny Simpson. We got a chance to go around the country, do our promo shit, but my brother was still caught up in the streets and got killed in a store robbery. At the time my pops went back to the pen. It was a little harder for my mama to deal with young boys like that. My brother got caught up. That was our first big break though. I been doing it though, I don't claim nothing else. My pops gave me that so I wouldn't go through the bullshit.

West Coast Rydaz: A few years back Suge Knight had introduced the new era of Death Row Records which seemed to include you, and we did see an advert for a J. Valentine album set to come out on Death Row. What was the situation with Death Row, were you ever signed?

J. Valentine: I was going to sign, the deal never materialized. It never went fully though. It was a lot of red tape, lawyers. At the time I was real heavy into writing. I had just wrote "Celebrity" for N'Sync. So I'm coming off this huge record, I got a lot of things pulling me toward the writing thing. The company wasn't fully set up yet. Suge was just getting home. That's the thing, I got nothing but love for dude. We really became close friends. But I was a young dude and my pops was managing me. We never got the right numbers down. For me it became a thing where, I had to just get back to my writing. My heart wasn't truly into the artist thing. It takes a lot to do the artist thing. It takes a lot of sacrifice.

The situation is that, at the time everything wasn't all the way setup yet. Me and Suge had a conversation, I told him I strictly wanted to do my writing thing. He respected that. It's funny because at the time he asked me, if you wanna get involved with the behind the scenes stuff, he was the first person to offer me an A&R job. He was like yo, I see it in you that you know what you doing with the business. If you wanna do behind the scenes shit, A&R shit, holla at me. From there I just really delved heavy into the writing thing.

West Coast Rydaz: Did you ever record material for a solo album back then?

J. Valentine: We recorded a few things, but not a lot. It was probably maybe like 4 songs that were cut when I was up there. That's the thing, the deal hadn't got done. But I never got heavy into an album.

West Coast Rydaz: What's the word with Wedding Crashers? It is complete, when is it dropping?

J. Valentine: Man, the Wedding Crashers. I'm really ready to just put it out to the streets. It's been done for a minute, but all the parts of it ain't been lined up yet. It all ain't been sequenced yet. There's a lot of shit going on, everybody didn't expect my single to pick up as fast as it did. A lot of things kind of took us off of doing a mixtape. So I wanted it to be right. You go through that sometimes where you do stuff and then you like aight I wanna change this, so as a creative person you are constantly doing records so sometimes you kind of get caught up in it and you may have told people something was coming and it gets help up. It's kind of been all our parts, Bailey's been ready. Really you gotta blame me and Big Von.

West Coast Rydaz: Well it's crunch time for your album so I assume that's the priority.

J. Valentine: Von done changed his parts four times. Bailey is ready, he done about 40 mixtape records. I'll take the blame for that. Like you said it's been crunch time for my album. We wanted to do it for fun but also we wanted to do something that was hot. You do it for fun but you definitely wanna give it a good standing. With Hide Ya Breezy, it really opened a lot of people's eyes on us. For Wedding Crashers to be the follow up we have to make sure it wasn't no bullshit. We only pressed up so many of Hide Ya Breezy and that shit went like hotcakes. I didn't wanna overdo that record either, with the Go Dumb situation because it wasn't my song. I respected it for it was. It was a way to gain attention but it wasn't my record. I didn't wanna go overboard with it. Niggas was trying to press up vinyl on it. Dude it's not my song.

West Coast Rydaz: You didn't wanna blow up off somebody else's song right...

J. Valentine: But not even really blow up off somebody else's song it was really just respecting the fact that it's this man's record. I understand that from a writer and producer's perspective. For the radio it was great because he still got credited for his spins. I helped! Me and T Pain actually spoke about it. We laughed about it. He called me, he was out here doing a MySpace show. In the middle of his show he stopped and was like hold on, I heard it's a cat out here named J. Valentine that jacked my record, tell him I'm jackin it back. And he did my version. He did Go Dumb and they went crazy. Me and him laughed about it and was like, that's hot. I understand what it is. He realized when he came out here, yo that Go Dumb record is huge! So he flipped it, he performed my version.

West Coast Rydaz: You didn't expect it to blow up as big as it did?

J. Valentine: Go Dumb was really just us having fun and paying homage to the bay. I wasn't even thinking about no artist thing, it was just for Bailey's mixtape. We were doing another mixtape to follow up Livin Da Dream. My brother was like yo let's do it as an interlude in a sense and just have some fun with it, see if you can flip it. I'm like aight. Everybody pretty much knows the story at this point. I got up to KMEL, me and Von is talking about how they got this new song. I'm like yeah I flipped that record, but I'm just in there bullshittin, joking. Because we had already talked about it. He was like what you flip it to, I'm like it's called Go Dumb now. He's like how it go? So I just start freestyling part of the hook to him, but at the time it's not even written. He like aww I need that. So me and Bailey go to the lab, it's funny because Bailey was actually doing my vocals with me on the record. It was really for fun. I sang the record through one time. It's funny because people was like aww he can't really sing, the vocals on there ain't that great. I'm like okay, it was some shit I was just having fun with. So it was a record I sang through one time, had fun with, and it went somewhere else. It kind of came about from there, I gave it to Von, we at a strip club, he gave it to a DJ and the girls in there started going crazy. Literally going crazy over the record, I'm like damn we might really have something. So he gets the record and plays it the next day for the first time, it was #3 on the top 7 at 7 and the rest is history. It was #1 for 2 months straight in the bay.

West Coast Rydaz: Was "Church Girl" ft. E-40 supposed to be the first single?

J. Valentine: "Church Girl" was a mix show record. Strictly a mix show record to get people's mouths wet. It was for the mix show DJs to have something to spin and that's really what it was. To get the ball rolling. For me it was important that I did a true R&B record. To just show where I was as far as a writer and vocalist. I wanted to make sure I gave them something different. In a sense "Church Girl" was something they kind of expected. Nobody expected "She's Worth The Trouble". That caught everybody off guard, in a good way.

With a record to "She Worth The Trouble", I don't feel a certain way about wearing my heart on my sleeve on a record. That's what music is about. People get into those situations. It's been amazing how many dudes, from my cousins in the pen that heard it, like man niggas is loving this song. Of course you got all the women that are feeling it, every girl feels like they worth the trouble so they love it. Then just all the dudes who hit me up and see me in the streets and pull me to the side and like man that's some real shit right there.

It's a relatable record and it's real life. That's the thing about my album, I didn't sing none of the fantasy shit. To me that's been done by other people. "I'll buy you a 5 million dollar hour or a 4 million dollar ring." No! Let's keep it all the way real. That's what my project is about. It's about what young people are going through. Relationships with life.

West Coast Rydaz: So can we expect a video for "Shes Worth The Trouble"?

J. Valentine: Yeah that's in the works. I'm actually doing my photo shoot in a week and a half. From there I got a few promo things to do and we should be getting this video shot. When you on a major, every thing happens on a time line. You have to fall on schedule. People out here want the video now but around the country they don't know the record yet. I got to get everybody on the same page. At this point, we got the buzz going on here and everybody behind me and pushin for me. But the song's only been on the radio over here and MySpace. They just started playing it in LA. Felli and Miguel just started playing it. Chicago started last week, Sacramento has been crazy on it. It's been one of the top records in Sac for the last week so now it's starting to pick up. Kansas City, a couple of places in Florida, so it's starting to build now.

West Coast Rydaz: Once the video is out it will extend the life of the record.

J. Valentine: Absolutely. You look at a record like the Lloyd record. That record was out last year in Atlanta. Literally deep last year. But it caught on crazy and now it's a hit. It's a national smash now. Things take time and dealing with majors I'm learning that more and more. If it was strictly indy I would have shot the video as soon as I recorded the song. [laughs] You be ready to do that. But everything has to make sense, you can't spend money crazy like that. Things have to have their place. Things have to be in order. I can't just have this video with no radio play everywhere. Things have to build up from the ground. I watched what Polow did, he's one of my close friends. I watched what he did with Rich Boy. Throw Some D's, that record been out! He gave me a copy of that at least a year ago. To watch that record grow and climb, things take time to build, especially with new artists. Of course people know me out here with different records that I done. To the world I'm new.

West Coast Rydaz: Talk about the title of the album, "Conversation Piece"...

J. Valentine: Really the whole Conversation Piece is, I want my album to be a conversation piece to people. I want it to be something that sparks controversy, conversation to where they like yo did you hear that record where he said this. But it's also wrapped into the interludes on the album. I can't really explain that because I want people to get the album and see what I was talking about. But the album is a constant conversation with a female friend.

West Coast Rydaz: So the album has a theme to it.

J. Valentine: Yeah it's definitely a themed album. It's a conversation about all the shit. If you got a patna that's really like your homegirl but you tell her everything, you tell her more shit than you tell her girl, it's one of those type of things. You kind of letting her know, damn I might have met a girl I might be in love with. But then you might call her back and be like man I found out she was a ho. Or you might be like oh I'm going to bullshit at the strip club. It's just a constant conversation of a young dude going through life and trying to find himself. Dealing with women, dealing with breaking the cycle of things you may have grown up thinking about. I got record a record on there called "Housewife", and the record is about the old saying, you can't turn a ho into a housewife. But in the record I speak about how, she accepted me for my past, why can't I accept her for hers. It's the whole double standard. I speak on it like, damn maybe the only reason I can't accept her is because I'm thinking about what my niggas gonna say. So am I gonna let my niggas fuck up me having a good girl?

West Coast Rydaz: It sounds like both females and males will be able to relate to the record.

J. Valentine: That was one of the main reasons I did the deal with J Records because Clive understood the records. He listens to lyrics and he listens to songs. That was one of the main things he said 'you have a great connection with the male and female crowd. You figured out a way to weave it in.' I feel like I speak from both sides because I'm a dude who grew up lovin his mama, lovin my sisters but also having a close relationship with my pops. It wasn't one sided. I look at it from both sides, I'm open minded enough to listen. Like okay damn, a nigga really do be trippin, instead of just saying yeah that's just the way it is.

 

[Tha Psycho Hustla]

why dont ask bout "PB"?he was tyte on "she used to know me" by ygd.
and 20035436  interesting question couldīve been asked.

[nando]

why dont ask bout "PB"?he was tyte on "she used to know me" by ygd.
and 20035436  interesting question couldīve been asked.

why dwell on the past when theres all types of shit about to go down in J's future. He said it himself, he only recorded a few songs while at Death Row....