Jacka Interview
By Black Dog Bone
Continued from Murder Dog vol 16 #1
Everybody has been waiting for the real Jacka solo album. It’s been a
long time coming. When is it coming out and what’s it called? Is it called
“African Warrior”?
The solo album is called “Tear Gas”. The song “African Warrior” is on
the album that I did called “Mob Trials Part 3”. That’s with production
by Nick Peace of Million Dollar Dream. That was me, Fed X and AP.9. “Tear
Gas” is the name of my solo album. It comes out in June. I have another
solo album out called “The Street Album”. It’s like a mixtape with all
original beats. It’s like a real album but it’s hosted by a DJ. It’s
ugly! Cause I got the music. If you ain’t got this kinda music you better
join us, otherwise you gonna fall off. People are gonna have to step
it up again and start making dope songs again. I don’t mean just in the
Bay but across the world. If you rap you’re gonna have to come with some
dope songs or we’re gonna take the whole show over.
In the end it doesn’t matter what’s happening with the economy or the
music industry, if you come with an album that’s so exceptional, so
mind blowing, it’s going to sell.
Right. And I’ve got a lotta songs on the “Tear Gas” album that aren’t
the typical shit. I’m working with some really good people on there too,
like major artists who wanna support it. They’re fans also. Even I’m
a fan of good music. No matter what it is, if it’s good I want to support
it to the fullest and help to make sure it’s heard. I’m tellin you, this
album is the best work I ever did. I can’t wait to drop it. Me and my
boy PK are doing everything we have to do to make sure it comes out the
way it should. This is like the first project that I’ve pushed like that.
All my fans are behind me, but this is the first album that’s going to
reach people all over the world.
How do you go about writing a song? Where does the process start for
you?
I just get the beat first and then I think real deep. I don’t just start
writing, I take my time. I could just write something down right away
when I’m trying to get something done hella fast, or I could think about
what I’m saying and consider all the different ways I could come, and
then come with the best thing. Once I do that, I just flow. I make sure
I’m gonna definitely stand out on the track. Also, because I listen to
a lot of different music, different ideas come to me that other people
wouldn’t do.
Do you write your lyrics down?
Yeah, I write ‘em down. I type them in my phone. I sit down and write
and I come up with shit that it ain’t no way in hell nobody can come
up with. We all say the same shit, but the way I’m puttin it, ain’t nobody
doing what I’m doing. Everybody’s just listening to the beat and writin
the rap. I’m thinkin so fuckin deep that I’m gonna murder the track.
That’s what I’m tryin to do. I’m gonna use the sound, I’m gonna use the
swag, I’m gonna do whatever I can to make what I’m saying sound better
than you’ve ever heard it before.
Do you think your fans know you more as a part of Mob Figaz or more as
The Jacka, the solo artist?
They all know who the Mob Figaz is, even the new fans. They know the
Mob Figaz. It’s something that their uncles or their older cousins or
whoever was listening to, and they definitely passed it down. Even though
we all stand on our own as solo artists, the Mob Figaz are always respected
and remembered as a force. We always stayed in tune with the young dudes.
Even though we’ve been around, we still young. We still relate to the
kids comin up. We stay in touch with our young brothers and sisters and
all our young fans. I don’t feel like I’m any older than them, but at
the same time I know more than they do because of the experiences that
I experienced through time.
The kind of respect you have in the streets is hard to get. The streets
don’t get sold on hype, you’ve got to come with the quality music to
get that respect. I don’t think anybody thinks of you as an old
rapper. You keep that edge.
My boy Roblo asked me the other day, “How do you keep it so young and
fresh? You don’t go with the regular flow.” Biggie Smalls said, if you’re
a decent rapper then there’s no way you shouldn’t make it. If all you
gotta be is decent, then we gotta be amazing! I know I’m more than decent,
so let’s go!
What was it that influenced you to be a rapper?
Maybe the drug dealers and shit—that was a big influence for me to want
to be a rapper. When I’d look at them and when I’d see the rappers on
TV, they all looked like drug dealers. They looked just like the niggaz
that I’d see on the streets. The big donkey ropes and flattops and dope-as-fuck
clothes. Goin to the mall and seeing how the dope dealers would spend
money, see what they buying. All that influenced Rap. Rappin is easy
really, it’s the concepts and the stories and the metaphors and the punch
lines that you gotta come up with. If you ain’t never really lived out
on the streets doing street shit, then you ain’t gonna be a good rapper.
You can only go so far, because Rap came from the fuckin streets. It
came from all of that shit. When you look at the rappers of that time
or any time, a lotta them niggaz is in the penitentiary or died from
some gangsta shit. Somebody killed them or they got locked up, cause
they was real street muthafuckas. Then you got the rappers who ain’t
from the streets, they make some little bullshit song, but then they’re
gone—they disappear. Because they don’t have all the elements, they don’t have
what it takes. I might be able to get down and break dance for you, but
I’ve got a lot of the elements.
What’s happening now is rappers are making grimy gangsta songs, but with
a dance beat. Dance is a crucial part of any music. Look at Indian, African,
Arabic music, that shit makes you dance. Do you think about that?
Yeah. I make some songs that you can dance to. But my main thing is making
songs that get you focused. Every song that I do, I probably smoke like
a half ounce. Every single song, we’re gonna smoke a half ounce. My music
is shit for when you high. Even our club songs, like on the Gobots, you
listen to them when you’re high and you’re psychedelicked out! But the
slow songs, you can pop it in and even if you don’t smoke weed you gonna
get high. Because we smoke so much that that energy is coming out through
them speakers and it’s getting you high.
When you smoke it opens your mind up to different ways of seeing the
world. You go places you wouldn’t normally go, and all the control is
gone.
To the point where when you hear the songs again you’re like, “Fuck am
I actually sayin this shit?!” When you in the car and not smoking, you
just chillin and the CD’s on, you can’t believe the shit you were sayin.
And you feed offa the energy of people around you who like to hear the
shit. You feed off their energy and see that they go crazy at a part
when you say that. I know I said it and I know it’s dope, but I’m feelin
like somebody else said that shit. Cause when you high to do actually
go into altered states, then when you come down you kind of forget what
went on. You relive it and it’s like, fuck that was big!!
You’ve been doing music as solo and as a member of Mob Figaz for many
years, but in 2008 you just took off all of a sudden. What made you get
so hot last year?
It’s been building up slowly. It was a certain amount of work that we
had to do. We had to put out a lotta albums, had to get to know the DJ’s,
had to get to know the club promoters—all the stuff that I didn’t want
to do at first. It all paid off. It was a reason we was doin it, a reason
we was goin clubbin, a reason we was meeting all these people. After
a while I started actually knowin the guys. It all eventually worked
out. That’s what usually holds an artist back, when he don’t get out
there and holler at the people. If you’re gonna do it you gotta hit all
angles of it. You just can’t rap and leave it at that. You gotta network
too. We just started networkin a little more. The music was speakin for
itself. The people on the streets knew it—the music was there. We just
had to step our networking skills up. It all pieced together, but it
took some time. It wasn’t an overnight thing. And we’re still independent.
We’re still searching for that big score.
Did you see this coming? Did you see things change when you started really
connecting with people and promoting?
Yeah, after a while I knew all the DJ’s, I know all the girls, I know
all the promoters. I’m cool with them, and my boy PK, he cool with them.
Every time somebody throw a party and they need support from us, we’re
there.
Basically you started getting to know the music community and be part
of that.
Yeah. Before that we’re just hanging out with our friends. We could be
out. Instead of bein on the corner at night we could be somewhere actually
makin something happen. I started fuckin with the community a little
more and it works. When they like you they wanna see you. You gotta get
out there and get with ‘em.
What’s going on with the Mob Figaz now? Are you still together as a group?
The Mob Figaz, we’ve always been together because it’s more than the
music. We were friends way before we was a group. That wasn’t even our
plan, our plan wasn’t never to become a group. We were all solo artists
anyway. This is probably what’s best for us, because before we got together
as the Mob Figaz we were solo artists. Me and Feddy was in a group, but
I’m with him every day still. We go to the same studio, we do the same
thing. Huss, he’s locked, but he’d be doin the same thing we be doing
right now if he was out. And Rydah, he’s doin his thing and he’d always
been a solo artist; same with AP.9. Before I even started gettin known
for rappin, the boy Rydah was already big in Pitsburg. He was hot on
the streets—they was fuckin with him, they loved him. The boy Hussalah
was right under him, he came right up next. Me and Feddy always been
boys, so when we all hooked up it was the best thing for me. We always
gonna be cool, we always gonna be together even if we’re not makin music.
If Rydah calls me and tells me anything, I don’t give a fuck what it
is, I’m there! If Feddy called me or P.9 or Huss, and tell me something
went wrong or they need something, anything—I’m gonna be right there.
Period. We all feel that way. That’s more than a group of music. We really
kept it Mafia. We really follow the code and did this Mob shit for real.
We follow the code of the streets and we have to move in silence. It’s
more than music to us.
All of the members of Mob Figaz are from Pitsburg?
We moved to Pitsburg. We’re from Pitsburg though. Hussalah and Rydah
is actually from Pitsburg. P.9 is from Fillmore, San Francisco California.
He moved from there. Me and Feddy moved from Richmond, California.
Your parents grew up in Richmond?
My parents came from Southern California; they moved up. They from the
Bay though. When I was growing up we was bouncing up and down the coast.
They was just traveling-ass people. You can’t make a home in the Bay
if you don’t have family. People do, but you’ve gotta be really like
educated. You can’t be no street muthafuckas, just move to the Bay and
try to make it. We had a lotta family members out here.
When you first came out nobody had heard about Pitsburg. It seemed like
it was far away from the Bay, no rappers had come out of there. And as
soon as I heard Mob Figaz I could here you had a different sound. It
was not the typical Bay Area sound.
Everybody at that time was really on some independent home studio recordings.
This was before Protools, so whatever equipment you got, whatever kinda
beats you could get from whoever—that was the sound. Mob Figaz was comin
for some straight quality. We were paying for some real studio time and
get real beats from real muthafuckas. It just blew our competition clear
out the water. We was the number one fuckin group in the Bay for years.
Mob Figaz were like the NWA of the Bay. You were all young and wild.
When you were working together as a group did you influence each other?
We used to work together. We all thought the same way. We all thought
the same shit was funny. We started realizing who each of us was, and
we started noticing that we all liked the same shit. But everybody had
different hustles. Huss was a real hustler, Rydah was a real hustler,
Feddy—he’d get down, real grime-ball, really ready to bust a head. Me,
I’m just down with whatever. Whoever say whatever, I’m right there to
do it with him. AP.9—sometimes I forget to say AP.9 because he didn’t
grow up with us. He had moved to Pitsburg after we already had our shit
established. I was in jail when he came to Pitsburg. When I got out he
had made a name for himself out there in Pitsburg. He was buzzing, he
was big out there. They was callin him “Bishop”. I was like, who’s this
Bishop? I gotta meet this Bishop nigga. I met him and he was so fuckin
cool I couldn’t fuckin believe it. He made me feel so good just to know
him. I learned how to treat people, fuckin with AP.9. Learned how to
communicate with people. And I learned how to make people feel good about
themselves. Because it ain’t about you really; it’s about how people
fuckin feel about you. It ain’t about how much shit you got or what kinda
shit you can brag on. It’s about how muthafuckas feel about you. I learned
that from AP.9. Whatever you do you gotta make muthafuckas love you.
That’s a good point. You have to really like the artist to like the music
they make. I always thought of The Jacka as the quiet one of the Mob
Figaz. You were the less aggressive member of the crew. But now you’re
the boss of the Bay! 2009 is going to be your year.
For a long time I just wanted to let the music speak for itself. I was
the least popular guy in the group. I was the last one. Everybody liked
the other Mob Figaz, but I was the last one. Because they wasn’t actually
listening. Because the sound was so new they were going off of who they
already knew in the group. Once they started buying the album and listening
to it, they were saying “This nigga Jacka is dope!” Then I started getting
recognized through the music. I let the music speak for me. I was always
the dude that’d rather be in the background smokin a blunt while Huss
and them niggaz is in the front dancing and doing whatever-the-fuck they’re
doin. I don’t do that. But then when everybody started goin to jail I
realized I gotta be the nigga in the front, I gotta get out there dancing,
I gotta keep it fuckin lit because who else is gonna do it? They wanna
see me, and I gotta start doing more shit. Now I got comfortable doin
that and it’s easy, it’s natural for me. But I can’t wait for Huss to
come back home so I can get back to the laidback Jack.
I see a lot of new rappers coming up in the Bay, and they aren’t affiliated
with any of the established artists. They’re coming out of different
neighborhoods and they’ve got a new sound.
Yeah. If you from a block or a neighborhood or you from a small town,
somewhere muthafuckas is gonna pull for you—the only way they’re gonna
pull for you is if you’re dope and they know some shit about you and
they know that you are actually living the shit that you’re talkin about.
