In Depth: Jasi
Bristol based artist Jasi had only been on the scene for a minute, before capturing our full attention with his debut Cruel World EP on August 16th, 2019. The six track EP is a trap-wave/conscious rap release, dipping between heart wrenching social issues through to uplifting, feel good jams. It features popular singles including FTS, Cookies & AM as well as contributions by his friends and relatives Bleeeks, Sly Diggers and Kwazi amongst others. Currently working alongside his homegrown collective TΛΣ aka Thrive And Exceed, Jasi looks to build on last year’s success and surprise people with his next musical offering. We caught up with Jasi to speak in depth on his come-up in Bristol, exclusive insights into the Cruel World EP and more.
Born and raised in Bristol, Jasi grew up in Montpelier, Albany Park. The area was notorious for its community spirit, however certain parts were blighted by poverty and illegality. “Back in the day,” reminisced Jasi, recalling life as a youngen. “Outside my window, you had a few crack spots just outside. Right where we played basketball, there'd be loads of crack heads hidden, broken glass all over the courts. The neighbour next door got taken out, I remember one time a SWAT team coming through our garden because of what he had in his yard. Living around here was mad back then, but now? Obviously over time, it's kinda changed. Various things, more money, gentrification - that's what people call it. The area was mad, but same time it had a lot of spirit and it was always a place where you'd find certain people and a certain vibe. I'm glad that I grew up in that era and got to experience the city the way it was.”
Between the ages of eight and ten, Jasi began practising battle rapping with his cousin, before taking the music more seriously after being inspired by the likes of Akala, Lowkey and Black Josh. “I rapped a lot about the things I'd seen in the world,” Jasi explained, “I was inspired by people like Akala and Lowkey, to know you can talk about anything on a track. You've got to make sure it bangs and it still sounds good, it's not too preachy and that. It had a lot of knowledge on their stuff, which inspired me quite a lot. To be honest, people like Black Josh as well. I remember when I first saw Black Josh, the type of stuff he was rapping about with a thick northern accent - it was inspiring to me again, to do whatever you want.”
By his teenage years, Jasi had already learnt to play the piano and violin. However as a hip-hop enthusiast, he gradually began writing rhymes, performing at open mics, house parties - wherever a microphone was set up. “I didn't start recording until I was about 19,” said Jasi, remembering the first project he recorded. “I made something called SFMS, under the name Deedash Red. That was, I think in 2014? That was the first thing I put out, I made it on Bandcamp and it wasn't promoted in any type of way. I just put some music out there and people appreciated it, I got some love and that. But it was at a time when I was messing around, I didn't have that much direction with it.”
“Nah, a couple people helped me out still,” Jasi continued, shouting out people who helped bring him into music. “Krazy, aka Steven Draper of Crudely Cut Records. He had like, an emergency meeting one time for Bristol music. He was trying to put things together. We turned up there, then through that his friend who had a studio said we could come through and record. Since then, there was a couple people who have chatted to me and helped bring me through. Res One from Split Prophets, Bil Next as well is a good friend, we talk about music all the time - well, we chat about a lot of football most of the time, but we chat about music as well. In terms of a Bristol team I support City, but before I supported City from when I was young, I always supported Arsenal. I'm French-Caribbean, Thierry Henry is from the same island as my Mum. So it's one of them ones where when I'd seen him playing, I was like, 'That's my team!' ”
Altogether these factors led Jasi to creating his solo debut, the Cruel World EP. After getting his own microphone, he began experimenting with vocals and instrumentals. From there he began recording solo, before bringing features through. “We recorded a lot of tracks at different times,” said Jasi, revealing the EP’s creation process. “It's probably been in the making for over a year. My cousin came through from France, I went to France to record some of it as well. I had my bro come down from Brum, and every time it was sessions. We just picked out the best tunes - there were a few left over that I still like, which I'll probably put out some way. But that's basically what it was to be honest, just a collection of different sessions and different vibes. To be honest I wanted to drop it earlier, I felt like there was a good time to get some stuff out and just in time for Summer. But obviously August is still a good time to put it out there, so all good.”
The Cruel World EP is a six track release, with lyrical features by Jasi’s friends and family. These include Sly Diggers, Kwazi, Nelson Barros and more. One of the first singles from the EP that got gifted a visual was FTS, featuring Bleeeks. “Bleeeks is a good friend of mine,” Jasi replied, when asked for insights into the FTS single. “We've been boys for over a decade. He's been making music for a while. Now we're working together as part of a collective, T.A.E - Thrive And Exceed. At the time, that wasn't the case. He was just my friend that I wanted to bring in, we just vibsed together and it was very organic. That track has so many powerful meanings.”
The FTS single is heavy-hitting lyrically, shining a light on explicit social issues. Despite this, the track has an uplifting instrumental underlying it. “The way I do it is by letting things come naturally to me,” said Jasi, explaining how he finds a balance between speaking on serious themes whilst keeping a vibe. “I think when you're trying to create a certain kind of vibe, if you want to be talking about shit that's relevant but still make it a way that's appealing and interesting to people... It has to be very pure and organic, coming from the heart rather than trying to make intricate words rhyme with a deep concept. It just has to come from the right kind of place, I think. That's kind of how I done it - I focus on making sure the sound and whatever comes out right, as what I feel the sound needs. That's kind of how I get that balance really.”
Another single released with a visual is Okocha, noteworthy for its slick video animation courtesy of Texas animator Corpsmarshal_toonz. “I found through Instagram actually,” said Jasi, revealing how the Okocha video came about. “He lives in Texas. I just found his style kind of cool and a bit different. I gave him a shout, then he sorted that out. I've actually got another one lined up that I'm going to put out, from a guy in Birmingham called LilSaucy.Knucklez on Instagram. He did an animation for the Cruel World track, which I'm putting out soon. There's a freedom with animation - the colours you can use, the concepts you can create. There's more freedom to be creative. I've always liked cartoons and animations myself, I just rate that stuff as you can do a lot more within that medium. For me, the Okocha track... There's a few deeper levels that you can take from it. On the whole EP, there's a few issues that I kind of touch on - mental health, things like that. With Okocha, there's a whole vibe to it about just not really caring about what other people are trying to say, that you should just be balling out like JJ Okocha did. When I wrote it, I enjoyed myself and that's the idea. I was just chilling, not worrying about what other people had to say.”
Consisting of six tracks, Jasi actually recorded more singles for the Cruel World EP however cherry-picked his final selection. “I could have put a lot more on there,” claimed Jasi, “I wanted to reduce it to a number that's quite easy to consume, I feel like people don't always want to listen to a 20 track EP, or a 20 track mixtape type of thing. It's just a collection of natural songs, for me six just felt like a good little number to limit it to. But I'll probably put the other tracks out on Soundcloud or somehow put them out for free, I probably won't put them on another project. But we - the collective - do have a lot more music coming, there's a lot more people can expect.”
“It's a tough decision for me,” Jasi paused, answering which he believes is one of the most powerful tracks on the record. “See, from my side of perspectives, I like all the tracks for all different reasons. For me personally I'd probably say the title track, Cruel World which has topics talking about life, death, murder... My own personal demons, demons throughout the world as well. That's just a very personal one, I was recording it when my grandmother passed away in the hospital. There's a rhyme which is like, "10 days no water, she's sat there fighting" and that's... She was off life support, no medical systems, no food or water for 10 days. That's mainly a reference to that.”
“Probably Cookies & AM,” continued Jasi, revealing another of his favourite singles from the Cruel World EP. “That one's just a turn up vibe bruv. It's one which you can listen to by yourself and get gassed, or you could listen to it in a car or a party. It's just a nice feel good vibe, positive energies you know.”
As the conversation turned away from the Cruel World EP, Jasi spoke about his involvement with the music collective TΛΣ aka Thrive And Exceed. They incorporate community and creativity to promote their music, hosting events as well as producing clothing lines. “I've been involved since December 2018,” said Jasi, speaking on the TΛΣ collective. “We had an event a couple weeks ago, in two different venues. We've been putting a few different clothing lines out, different hoodies and stuff like that. In terms of music, I met most of the man around December 2018. We come together to make music, we'll feature on each others tracks and are putting out a forthcoming project. It's funny, when we came out at St. Pauls Carnival, Troy - one of the radio presenters of Bristol - was like, 'You guys kinda be like the Wu Tang Clan.' [Laughs] We brought like, 20 man onstage. We've got a lot of members, but in terms of purely music, I'd say there's five to seven main artists. Probably four of five artists have music on Spotify right now, there's a couple of artists with really good music, they're just lining it up and making sure it's right before it drops.”
“In terms of the project that's going to be coming out in 2020,” Jasi continued, “It's going to be mostly more vibsey in a club kind of sense, more like bangers you can move to. So it'd have more of the singers, more of the afrobeat guys on it and that kind of vibe. A couple of the guys are just straight rappers, that's all they do - no singing, etc. Then there's a few that are RnB guys, such as King Kai. Indigo.49 are straight rappers, RXY is afrobeats and rap. We've got Kwazi spitting on rap and 140, he does a bit of drum n bass as well. So there's really a variety, but in terms of this project it's going to be more of a... getting people together, get things done kind of project. We're going to be cutting it right down, it's probably going to be about six tracks I'd say, off the top of my head. We're keeping the number relatively low, we feel like we should focus our attention on a few really good tracks.”
Another highlight of 2019 for Jasi was to be featured on BBC4, after being recognised by New Creative Media for a film project he’d created. “I wrote and produced a five minute arts film,” Jasi explained, “The main body of it is essentially a music video, crossed with a kind of more abstract message, all kind of inner messages and layers to it. It was part of a project called New Creative, they give projects to young creatives basically and they just liked mine, picked it up. That was shown on BBC4, it's been on iPlayer for a couple of months. 24th September it came out, I'm going to try and get it into a few film festivals down the line.”
So far in 2020, Jasi has currently released one new single; YWF. “I made YWF when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer started managing Manchester United and went on an insane run of winning games,” Jasi reminisced, “I'm not a United fan, but that shit was so unlikely I felt compelled to write something. King Kai came through the cabin and hopped on it soon as he heard it. Burke mixed and mastered the track down, that was a pretty interesting process as not many people in Bristol really do this kind of music, but he was mad easy to work with. And yeah, we'll be putting out some visuals soon.
“You know, probably M Huncho,” replied Jasi, when asked if there were any artists he hadn’t met which he would consider collaborating with. “Someone asked me this the other day and I'll answer the same, I'm going to say M Huncho still. Real talk, the thing that he's doing is quite different and I respect that a lot. When I started doing my kind of thing, the way I use autotune on certain tracks, the kind of vibes I tried to hit. I wasn't already hearing too many people in the UK doing that kind of vibe, not saying no-one was but there wasn't a lot. Then when I heard Huncho, I liked how he was doing his thing. It's definitely different, but I can respect it a lot because it's very different to other things as well. I love that trend-setting.”
Jasi, thank you for your time. Any final shout outs?
“My boy Lijah just released a crazy UKG EP called Chapter II on Spotify, I worked on one of the tracks on there. Bleeeks has an EP out on all platforms called Brke & Unkwn - go check that!”
Words by Evo @ethanevo