SJ, born Jamal Fareed, is a successful hip-hop artist, born and bred in Youngstown, OH. Only 24 years old, SJ has performed in front of crowds as big as 20,000 people, as well as collaborated with many fellow hip hop and rap artists.
His album "The Revolution" was released in September 2015. "The Revolution" is refreshing — SJ combines old-school beats with some of the most intelligent commentary I’ve heard in my exploration of rap. The album is also collaborative, featuring talent from Derick Elmore, Deezol, Rufus Blaq, L1, Eric Woods, Jordan Mastrangelo, Real Rell, and JTRIP. My favorite song is "Da Realist Spitters (ft. L1)":
See what y'all kats don't understand is everyone's doin the same things you do,
Same game you play's insane, redo, Lemme show you how pathetic's your view,
You live in a hood where you rap, gun clap, get ass, and you 'Beez in the trap (What?)',
Well you're wack and you live with your mom (heheh he got half a bar)
Below, SJ talks about his beginnings and his thoughts on the music scene in Youngstown, OH.
You can download and stream "The Revolution" through the following links:
Download Link: smarturl.it/sjtherevolution
Streaming Link: smarturl.it/therevolutionstream
When did you start playing?
I first started playing the piano when I was six, then I started playing the trumpet at 10 or 11. After that, I started producing and rapping at 15.
Why did you start playing?
My brothers and I were sitting in our mom’s living room and we were thinking, "Hey, we want to start a music production company called 1093 Productions," but we didn’t know really how to start, so we just started making beats.The idea was to sell quality beats to rappers we knew, but then I was like, well the people I know who raps are wack. So I started writing rhymes to the beats we made and then, you know, I came to my own conclusion that I was wack as well.
But practice makes perfect, so I kept getting better and better. That drive of people doubting me was really why I kept doing it.
Is your family musical?
Bits and pieces. My brother — he’s also my business partner — he’s a musician and a producer. My cousin sings. My other cousin sings. My dad’s half of the family. My other brother raps. So I guess, okay, I do have a musical family.
Which famous musicians do you admire?
There are separate quadrants. We got the rap icons — Tupac Eminem, Nas and T.I., in that order. Always. And then the pop icon quadrant — people like Prince, Earth Wind and Fire, & Parliament Funkadelic. I was really inspired by stuff like that.
Do you perform in public? Describe those occasions? Concerts, radio, TV?
I’ve performed in more than 70 shows in the past three years. One was as big as 20,000 people. Some are as small as three. Those experiences really helped shaped me just as a performer.
In 2013, that’s when we really went hard performing. That’s probably the most I’ve ever performed in my life. I think we did maybe 40 shows that year, most of which was attributed to DJ Jaimin P when he owned the Lower Level, which is now Club Pandora. The performances kept getting better, and then we were able to weed out certain shows and started focusing on the quality of the shows.
We had our release party last November at Suzie’s Dogs and Drafts. Awesome experience, we had a packed house, and our supporting acts Yanno and DTown did a phenomenal job. It was an awesome night.
Right now, we’re focusing on building the live show. I have a live band that plays with me now called The 1093 Experience and we’re developing strategies to perform more in the Tri-State area. They’re an awesome group of guys and they kill it every single time. Since I started performing, I always wanted to play with a live band. It’s different, and you get the opportunity to see these talented musicians take the music you originally wrote and spin it in a different way. That’s the beauty of being a musician.
As far as TV, my songs “Take Ya Higher” and “C.I.R. Good” recently got featured on season 3 of Canadian TV show “Mohawk Girls." It’s like a modern-day “Sex and The City”. I like it. It’s pretty funny, and the process was so smooth. You can catch it online if you Google "Mohawk Girls."
How do you find the music scene in YO?
I think it’s choppy. The reason why I say that is because there are some venues that are geared towards specific artists and there are some artists and groups that only mess with certain people and not others. There’s no real unity in Youngstown. I think if everyone just got on the unity train, the music, as a whole, would grow exponentially. Right now, everybody is divided. I try my best to connect with people as often as I can, but I’m only one person, and we’re only one label.
Do you think that you are going to be moving outside of Youngstown to pursue music or continue pursuing in the YO?
It’s really interesting that you ask that question because I’m always teeter-tottering back and forth with it. I went to Miami Spring Break of 2014 and came back and said, "Forget Youngstown, haha." It’s a different world down there, and really what rappers are talking about down there is real! The luxury cars, the mansions, the yachts, and the women are real. I also wanted to move to New York.
I was inspired by the hustle. You go to New York City and you see all these awesome street performers. It really inspires you. I would love to move there, but I feel this obligation to make it in my hometown. There’s nothing like being the hometown champion.
There are a lot of problems that need to be ironed out, not just within the city, but within the industry as well. The music industry does this whole pay to play thing. You pay to perform on stage but you’re supposed to purchase tickets to sell up front in order to make your money back. Promoters promise young, naïve acts who don’t know any better with playing at the cool spot, and it’s for exposure. They usually have 10-20 acts a night and no one fits together musically, so by the time the good acts come and perform, people are tired and they want to go home. No performing artist likes this that I know. These venues don’t understand; why would I spend 100-250 bucks on this horrible deal, when I could have it go to marketing, shirts, buying more CDs, or getting more distribution? Some of these promoters don’t understand that we are running businesses, not hobbies.
That’s another problem in the music industry; some of these promoters are not willing to pay the artist. I will also say that sometimes the artists don’t bring a quality show.
Is that a standard problem in Youngstown bars?
It’s common everywhere, not just Youngstown. I’m not sure if the venues aren’t savvy enough and haven’t caught on to the promoter’s game or they simply don’t care. I made a promise to never pay for a performance, and I’ve done pretty well. I will shout out the Youngstown bars because they are awesome and I have great relationships with a few of its owners. Who I’m talking about are venues and promoters who do this “pay to play” thing.
That also goes to show what I’m about, and what my record label, 1093 Entertainment, is about — thinking and being different. We move in a completely different way. I’ve always been the type of person that stood out from the crowd. I was never the trend rapper. As Eminem said in the Shady Cxvpher, “Never spit that hustler shit, it wasn’t a fit for me, Let them adjust ‘til they just get the gist of me”. I come from the hood, but I'm not gonna be like, "Oh I'm going to glorify this like it’s the best life ever."
The street life is not cute and it's not a game. Why are you trying to rep something that clearly doesn’t have love for you? On the flipside, growing up in the hood teaches you many life lessons that will shape your character in a good way if utilized in the right way.
Back in the 90s, rap and hip hop was amazing. You had Nas’s "Illmatic," Biggie's "Ready to Die," Jay Z's "Reasonable Doubt," Big Pun's "Capital Punishment."
Yeah, they rapped some of the same concepts trap rappers of today rap about, but they did it in a more creative way. It wasn’t so fabricated. Nowadays, it's okay for people to rap about guns, money, hoes, but shit, you never lived that life. Now it's acceptable for you to be fake. Sooner or later though, as Big Daddy Kane once said “Once the trend is gone … You’re gone!”
Check out SJ with his band, The 1093 Experience at his upcoming show at The Federal in Youngstown, OH: February 4, 2016.
