Latest / Caught on the Mike... / "Independently Thriving" with hip-hop artist J.Crum

Transcript

"Independently Thriving" with hip-hop artist J.Crum · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited to have him on the show today.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't wait for you to hear what he has to talk about.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, this is caught on the mic.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to say that I have hip hop artists from Omaha, Nebraska, J.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Crumb joining me on the podcast today.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: How the heck are you, man?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm great.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm I'm very honored to be on this show.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate you.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Every day, like everybody else in the world right now, I will scroll through TikTok.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hours will have passed by.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell you what, that algorithm feeds me your videos on a regular basis, and I ain't mad at it one bit.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Finally, an algorithm working in my favor.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that the most challenging thing as somebody that creates content is jarring those algorithms to work in your favor?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh it it could it could drive a man crazy.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: I try to live life like in real life as much as possible to help keep me sane.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and I and for people who follow me, I try to get them offline as much as possible.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I, you know, I'm a big advocate for email lists and text apps and stuff like that to to where I don't have to depend on somebody's you know equation to you know to get through to someone, you know.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna circle back on that here in a couple of minutes.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Without any further ado, why don't you tell our listeners all about who you are and what you're all about?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my name is Jay Crumb.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I am a hip hop artist.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm big on community.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm big on serving in community, I'm big on mental health, um, I'm big on, you know, helping support, you know, grow the next generation.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm married, faith is important to me.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's about all I could say in a in a short amount of time, I think.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, man, you you can take all the time you want.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're here for you.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I appreciate it.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, how how long have you been doing music?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, I have been doing music uh since high school.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, um a little over 15 years.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I actually recorded my first song like 20 years ago, which was which is crazy to think about.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was you know, but I was 13 and goofing off and stuff like that.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: But that was yeah, that was the that was really the beginning of it.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: But uh I really started taking it serious in high school um and kind of went all different types of paths up until maybe around 2013, where like I'm dropping my first album and doing shows pretty consistent and everything like that.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So the hip hop community around Omaha, Nebraska, where you're located.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: What's it like currently?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: What's the current state of the hip-hop community?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, right now it's probably the best it's ever been.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a lot of really cool things happening with a lot of different artists.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you got King ISO who signed to Strange Music with Tech Nine.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: He's I mean, he's doing a phenomenal job.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: You got uh Tabo who signed up to Pyrex, he's a good friend of ISO.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're all going on tour together.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you got the guys over at Nice Enough who are all doing amazing things.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Culture House with Marcy Yates and and Zoboy, and um, you got Skyrie, you got Yadaman, you got just just Thailand.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: You just got so many people who are doing really, really cool things uh right now.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I I can't think of another time where there were so many people doing great things at the same time in our city.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that's super exciting, and I've made the same observation like yeah, everybody's kind of been lurking, and now it's just everybody's blossoming like none other for sure.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're opposed to like 10 years ago, and even and I come from the music, you know.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I we have a mutual friend in Dave Campbell, yeah, and and I have a I have a music background.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I played in bands for years and years and years and years, and I would say I've been out of it for about 10 years.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was a lot more competitive, yeah.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh about 10, 12 years ago than what it is now.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: It seems more communal now.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Am I off base with that?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, I think I think definitely, um, I think some there's some some of that competition there still.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's everything.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's the heart of hip hop.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's not gonna go away.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I think people are realizing that we're better together, um, and we're better like it's kind of got this mentality like us against the world.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think having that in mind, now that we kind of get it, we're starting to see the fruit of that.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So as an advocate of mental health, yeah.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do you find a lot of that represented in your music?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: I I would say, um, yeah, I talk about it a lot.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Probably my most popular song is one called placebos.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's uh it's all about like my struggle with um depression, um, thoughts of suicide, sidey, suicide ideation, all those types of things.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I almost didn't put it out because it was it, it was probably the most in-depth I've been talking about it, just seeing how it's impacted and helped people, um, just showed me that was the right thing to do.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, but yeah, I'm really, really big on that right now, for sure.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Not right now, I guess.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: For that's just that's just ingrained in who I am.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're entering this phase in time where people are being way more transparent about their mental health, yeah.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I see that as being an incredible thing, especially if it seeps into somebody's art and it's represented by somebody's art.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of which, who are who are some of your biggest influences?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, um, I got influences from all over.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, for so I'm from Detroit originally, so I got a lot of like Motown influences.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think you can kind of hear that some of the musicality um in my music.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, Stevie Wonder, um, Al Green, Michael Jackson, like Otis Redding, just a lot of that.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then you you uh for hip hop, um, you'll find like Kanye West is a huge influence for me.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um Outcast.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I really love J.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Cole.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, A Tribe Called Quest.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you if you look, I got their uh their album cover right there on my wall.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Kendrick Lamar.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's awesome.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um man, yeah, I the list can go on and on.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Rakem, Jay-Z.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I even got like some rock influences.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So like Nirvana, uh Foo Fighters.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love Norles Barkley.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just I just have a lot of, yeah, I just kind of pull from a lot of different places.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think the best artists do, you know, and and sometimes that's sometimes that creates the cognitive dissonance in your head because you yeah, because you're performing one style of music, but you're in love with another sometimes.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: What's what's your take on Kanye's catalog?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I I know that's yeah, yeah.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I saw this in a Facebook feed just today where they had all of his albums posted up.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, okay, you can only pick three.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, yeah, that's tough.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's tough.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I love like even the stuff that I may have not liked right away.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I've gone back.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know what, this is really good.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is really, really good.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's kind of stood the test of time.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I yeah, I think I think he's I think he's done incredible.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, I think people like, oh, I like the old Kanye and all that type of stuff, but I don't know, man.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: I I I'm I'm one of the people that I I really really enjoy all of it, you know.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I find something in all of it that I can really, really like.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that he's like, I think the reason why he's still relevant and he's still like the number, you know, one of the top artists of the world is the fact that he didn't stay stagnant, right?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: That he just kept changing, kept evolving.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Not only like he wasn't like not necessarily like uh an artist that just followed trends, but it's like set them.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey guys, this is what we're doing now, you know what I mean?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it would be like we was all wearing long T's and and shorts that go down to our ankles, and then he shows up, and now we're all wearing polos and fitted jeans and khakis, and you know, and then he's like, Hey, this is what we're doing now, and now everybody is wearing, you know, Yeezys, you know, like we was all on Jordans, and now Yeezys is like the most expensive top-of-the-line shoe in the world because Kanye West said this is what we're doing now.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Bringing it full circle back to the the mental health point.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think the cult of personality around Kanye West has kind of tarnished some of his musical legacy to a certain degree?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And some people um some people started to tune out some of his better songs because they were paying attention to what was going on in the press more.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people are um their outrage doesn't last very long, right?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because even me, I was like, man, I'm this I'm so disappointed, and even I was like, Man, I don't know if I can support, but then when the album dropped, I'm like, I'm still pushing play, you know, like I'm still I'm still tuning in, you know.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I don't know.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I there's so much I disagree with Kanye about, right?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much I just like I I could have like an hour hours long conversation, like argument with him.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is why you're wrong.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still a super fan though.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just it's like the marker of creative genius is sometimes sometimes that eccentrism leads through.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if it wasn't for that, maybe he wouldn't be creating this style of music or the great art that he is.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think and I think a lot of people, I think a lot of people are that same way where they're like, oh yeah, I'm you know, I'm and he may have turned on some turned off some, but not as much as people would make you believe.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, we saw what happened when oh, we're doing a live listening party on Apple Music.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I everyone that I know was tuned into that stream, you know, right?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody that I know was like, Where is Donda?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like they were angry when it didn't drop at midnight, like everyone that I know.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: So he I he definitely turned off some people, but um, it's just not as much as you know, media would make it.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, during during the election, it was one of those things where it's like, yeah, man, I gotta listen, I gotta listen to graduation day with my videos rolled up.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: For sure, for sure.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: It felt like that.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And yet here we are talking about him.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, here we are, yeah, here we are.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: So outside of music, what's your life like, man?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: What what kind of things do you do?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: What what kind of things are you into?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um, so I work uh I work pretty heavily in our community.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I work with like uh youth um who are on probation.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: So um I work as a community youth coach.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so um kids who are on probation, maybe, maybe, maybe gang involved.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm I'm really there to just help mentor them and help support them and and help, you know, help them show that there's a better way.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: So uh that's the other thing that I do.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh other than that, um I also uh run a uh it's it's still kind of music, it's still involved with music, but it's not me like writing and creating music.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I I run a company called Streetlight Sounds, which is about uh it offers like uh label services sort of for independent artists.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: So if you need graphic design, if you need mixing and mastering, if you need ads management, if you need uh consultations, you know, for your branding, those are the things that we do.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, beats, stuff like that.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're it's kind of like a one-stop shop for independent artists to to kind of get everything they need to to get their career off the ground.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, and you've kind of been knee deep in writing some courses, yeah, haven't you?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have talk a little bit about that.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um I'm I'm developing this course called Artists Elevate.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's dropping August 16th, and um it's really it's really geared for independent artists.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh a lot of people try to go the route of if I can get a cosign, um, I'm going to that that's gonna change everything for me.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: If I can get a big feature, if I can get all that, and really like as as anything that's worth pursuing, this is a daily grind.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's uh it's so there are people who kind of have the work ethic to want to do this, but they just don't know where to put their efforts, they don't know where to spend their money, they don't know where to where to uh you know put their time into.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so with this course, it's really showing here, here are some of the the everything that I've learned that have helped get me to this point.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm putting it all out there.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not leaving anything out, and you know, hopefully it's it's it's something that that can help.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've with our consultations, like we've seen we've seen clients.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I have one client in particular.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he was selling so much merch from the methods that we gave him to where he uh he didn't have the manpower to keep putting out the shirts, like he had to like hire somebody to help him.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was just, but it was just cool to see that, you know.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, my remarch, this is up 5,000, my artist streams are up 1500.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, it's really, really dope.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and he was kind of the guy that was like, you need to do a course, bro.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I'm not trying to do that at all.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, I got too much going on in my life.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then I just thought about what it would be long term.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if the people who come to me for consultations, what if they had this knowledge already there that would be included in this course?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Think of how much further we can help and assist people who already have this knowledge.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it it it just it just showed me that this would be the this should this, I feel like we need it.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like our city needs it.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like the uh the communities that I'm in need it.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, yeah.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And some of that stuff, you know, when you start to have success and find success on the micro level, it kind of unintentionally blows up on the macro level.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: So um what are some what are some things that you are noticing with your career right now um as far as how people are discovering you from outside of the four walls of Omaha Nebraska?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so a lot of it is is uh TikTok's been a big uh as of late has been a big um help with that.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: So finding a lot of a lot of people have found me through through that.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that's been really cool.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because that's really that's basically just content marketing.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have to spend any money for that.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have to do any of that.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: I just had to make dope content and the algorithm kind of works in your favor, uh works in the favor of of dope content, it seems like.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: So the content's good, and so I don't have to worry about any of that other stuff.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um the other stuff is you know, I I I'm very good at um uh social media ads and using correct targeting and things like that.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's been good.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then other other than that is um, you know, networking with people outside the city.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so like and it's not it's not necessarily networking with people outside the city that are like bigger than bigger than me, you know what I mean?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's just you know, hey, if I think you're dope, you know, and we're we're at the same level.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of us we try to network vertically when we should be networking horizontally.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: So find artists who are dope who are on the same level as you and just reach out, say, hey, you're dope.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I share your stuff, I'll I'll support you.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'll, you know, and so um just showing genuine support and uh without any other motives than other other than just to hey, I just want to bill with you.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of amazing things have happened through that.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, absolutely.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the cream generally rises to the top anyway.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you align yourself with people that share the kind of the same vision you share and kind of are on the same level as you, right?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: The only other people you you have to seek out are the people that you think are better than you and align yourself with them as well.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: The ones that are uh I just I've I've noticed the ones that are better than you or the ones that are maybe be further along are just so difficult to to like getting getting their attention is part of the journey, keeping their attention and keeping communication is a whole different monster.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because you know, I had uh uh you know Lupe Fiasco liked one of my videos because I rapped over uh his kick push beat, right?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I just saw that actually, yeah, yeah.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so he liked it.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and but I mean that doesn't mean that I have Lupe's number and I can I can contact him whenever I want, or he would even return my DM.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, but you know, he saw it and he liked it, he shared it.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that's you know, that's cool.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny because you had Fred Durst like and comment on one of your videos too.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: That was really wild.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, what is the day that happened?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: I saw that and I was like, What?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that was crazy, and and I and I found it late.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was just scroll, I was just replying to people's comments, and I was like, What the heck?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what that's Fred Durst?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Fred Durst comment on there, Andy Grammer commented on there.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was kind of yeah, it was pretty wild.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: The people that that because I'm telling you, man, but prior to that prior to when I posted that video that that he commented on, and all these all these people were commented on, I was getting like I was getting ready to quit uh TikTok and I posted that video maybe like nine at night, and uh it was by like at like 11, I was like, it had maybe a hundred views, and I was like, dude, I'm about to delete this app, I'm done.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to sleep, I woke up the next day and it was like you know, 40,000 views, all these different kinds.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, yo, I like woke up to all these alerts.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, yeah, so that I thought that was pretty crazy because I was I literally got on the app to try to delete it, and so uh when I saw that, I was like, okay, I need to just keep going.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's kind of what one of those things where consistency is key, and eventually it'll pay off.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely, yeah.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's that's one of my challenges as well, because I try and make at least one video every other day, and it and it's just it's just minor things, and then I try and share and see if the algorithm catches on.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, and it's weird what videos the algorithm catches on to because what I think is good content isn't necessarily what other people think is good content.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Here, here's what I learned, and this would be for for people who are listening is people don't share content to support you, right?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: People share content because uh because of how it makes them look, right?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm shit, so like that video, the video that went viral was me talking about my experiences as a black man, right?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was me talking about um, you know, the first time I was called a racial slur, and I started breaking down uh systemic racism in my bars.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I got a bunch of shares, and I what I realized it's not necessarily like yes, it's it's that, you know, yes, there's people probably who shared it, they're like, yo, he's dope.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: I want to support him, I want him to blow up.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: But there are people who are sharing that because they wanted to, they they may have been in conversations where they're trying to explain this to somebody, like what systemic racism is.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now you got a now you got a uh a one-minute video that breaks it down in a in a great way.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sharing it because it makes me look like I know what I'm talking about.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it maybe, maybe it does, it makes them feel like, okay, this is this serves this purpose for me for what I'm trying to get across.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so what I'm noticing with a lot of the viral videos, you know, the things that get shared the most, even when it's like you don't think it's that great, it's you got to think about okay, how is this adding value to somebody?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what those are the things that add value, whether it's hey, I want to look funny, or hey, I want to look informed, or hey, I want to, you know, I want to be whatever.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's how that's the value that that you're giving to someone with the content.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so people are a lot more selfish than you think.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right, right.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the thing.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you think about this echo chamber that we've lived in in the past five to ten years, this sociopolitical echo chamber.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, social media has really amplified mostly negatively.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and and it's it's good to see people sharing videos like yours, yeah, talking about systemic racism.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely, and addressing it.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was saying it in a way I was I was more in jest in the way I was saying it, but yeah, no, it's definitely it was more because of the messaging, not necessarily because exactly, exactly, and that's kind of what I'm getting at is like there there's so much out there that it's just like I have moments where I think about deleting social media, and if it wasn't for extended friends and extended family that I don't see all the time, I might have done it a handful of times.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: For sure, for sure.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: If yeah, if it wasn't for music, I would I would be out of here, right?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's it is it is the worst relationship in the world because like you hate it, but you need it, yeah, but you hate it, but you love it, and it's and and you never know what you feel like you never know the yeah, the amazing things it's like golden handcuffs, they're gold and they're valuable, but like they're still handcuffs, right?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're still kind of you like you're still bound, like you're still kind of stuck doing this thing, you know.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: So right, right.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I gotta tell you, my favorite TikTok of yours is you uh you doing the bars over big pun.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: I kept I kept getting those comparisons, right?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think most of it was because like I rap and I'm fat, but um it was really like I was like, I don't think I sound like pun, but um I kept getting the comparisons, so I was like, oh well let me just rap over a a pun beat, you know, and uh and of course like I thought you know it went crazy, so yeah.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: So was that which which video is your most shared or liked video?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: My most shared one uh is um the one the one I was talking about earlier, the one where I was I was uh what it's this it's entitled uh I was five.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it was when it's talking about the first time I was called a racial slur and then kind of breaking down systemic racism after that.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then after that, it is um I wrapped over a uh tribe beat.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh so that one that one went that one and then the pun beat probably was was second, was third.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Navigating social issues is not anything that's new to you.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was uh a few years ago you uh you were profiled in the news.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you want to talk about that at all?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh you talk uh you're talking about the um the waiting room situation, yes, sir.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that was yeah, that was a very interesting moment, right?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because let me see.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: We should probably put it into context.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's put it in the context.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so so tragically, somebody was uh murdered outside of the waiting room.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: As a response to that, um the waiting room said we are ban or we are banning local hip hop shows from from here.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're no longer gonna throw local hip-hop shows.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me, I would I I found that I found that as unfair because there are there are horrible things that happen at at all types of genres of music, right?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: I started talking about the horrible things that happen in other genres of music at shows, you know, uh, you know, that there are violence, there's riots, there's jumping, there's, you know, there's um you know, pill popping, there's assaults, there's there's all these different things that are happening at you know other shows.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: So to to to kind of take hip hop and be and and say, okay, well, hip-hop is the problem, not that hip-hop is a problem, is basically showing that man, that's that's not necessarily uh, at least to me, felt like that was fair.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like, you know, uh we got to do a better job of of really identifying what the what the issue is, yeah, you know.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so for me, it felt very um, for me it felt unfair.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I spoke out on it, got contacted by the news, I went and spoke to the news, and they kind of drove the conversation in the direction that it went.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't necessarily letting them off the hook, but I definitely was trying to say, like, yo, like I'm sure there's some type of pressure being put on him by by you know people in the city or stuff like that.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, the news, they kind of they'll take the blurbs and the sound bites and everything like that, and they'll take it all and they'll make it construct kind of their own yeah, they'll spin it their own narrative and spin it.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's kind of how it felt.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, doing that story was they were just they kind of spun it in the way that they wanted it to go and made it made it uh made it something that I wasn't necessarily trying to say.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um it felt spun at the time, just to be yeah, completely honest with you.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: It felt spun at the time, but yeah.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I think those of us that knew knew where your intentions were and knew that you had the best intentions at heart and that you were really just advocating for the art.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And like you can't punish the art for a few bad actors outside of the realm of where the art was held.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a thing of like you know, a simple Google search, right?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: A simple, simple research of the people that you're that you book, right?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you can see, okay, is this is this what I want in my venue or is this not?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because like there are plenty of there, like, and I think one of the examples that probably caused like a little bit of a firestorm is when I talked about uh some of the Proud Boys that are in punk music, right?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, hey, like, you know, you're not booking Proud Boys.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: You look them up, you find out if they're Proud Boys, and you're like, oh no, you can't play in our venue.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: So like we don't we don't want that represented here.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: So like there's certain things that you can, like I said, just a simple thing of like, okay, well, nah, I don't think that's the best, I don't think that's the best use of our night, uh, having you come to our establishment.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like anyone can do that.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so you don't have to punish the entire, like you were saying, like for a couple of you know, bad apples or whatever.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not even to say that the artists that were booked there that they're the reason why it was that no, no, no, and that that's we don't know.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's not even what we don't know what was yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know what was going on, right?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but yeah, but to put to say, okay, well, because this is a local hip-hop show, um, that's why this man was murdered.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yo, like we don't even know, we don't know how related it was.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't even happen inside the venue.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: It we don't know what it was, so it it just felt it felt very unfair.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and yeah, so well, you just played there what two weeks ago.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you I mean, obviously there's a there's a happy ending to that story, yeah.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we took it took a definitely took a uh I was definitely uh on a on a year of yeah, we're not playing here, you know.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I think also when you add that plus the pandemic is kind of like yeah, you know, it is what it is.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I had conversations with the with the uh venue owners and um and some of the other promoters and and stuff like that.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and after you know, wrestling and arguing and all of those things, right?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think we kind of have an understanding now.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so um yeah, so yeah, and and and the thing is, man, the the city needs guys like you, you know, we you know we we we really do like it's I don't feel that there is enough, and I'm not saying just in the music, I'm saying in the culture in general, the hip hop culture isn't as spread spread as rapidly through Omaha as it should be.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Not at all, yeah.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and in and and it's all of us, you know, it's it's all of us as fans, you know, as you as performers, you know, it's in in a place like the the waiting room, man, you can't not play there.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, for sure.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's you know, and it's not like uh like this, like there's not many other options either, you know.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like, okay, well, yeah, we we'll we'll take our stand and we'll and we say, you know, we'll we'll do what we need to do and we need to figure out how we proceed.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they were open to conversations and everything like that.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: And if people are still like, hey, I'm not playing the waiting room, like that's their right.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't, I don't, I don't uh, I don't mind that, I don't fight that, I don't disagree with that.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like however you feel is is how you feel.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think for me, um I wanted to see uh like where they were at as well.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that was and and um I also wanted to help open the door for like people that I know that were that are like younger than me, like they were like, man, my dream was to play this thing.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and so like if you know if this makes it to where they can if this helps open up that door and be like, okay, you know, hip hop is is we're welcoming it again.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, that's something I wanted to try to do.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: So what makes J.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Crumb's music different than any other hip hop artist out there right now?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think uh I think you can find that difference um in the content.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think you can find that difference um in the sound.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think I think I think I have a great blend of of uh melodic with like the boom bap grittiness as well.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think uh it's presented in a way that will get you thinking.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's presented in a way um to where a lot of people from all different types of walks of life are gonna find something they can identify with and and gravitate to.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love that, sir.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, man.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: You got some big, big festivals coming up.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is happening this Saturday.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's the Maha Music Festival taking place in Omaha, Nebraska.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the Maha has been growing year over year over year.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Past headliners include Deathcab for Cutie, uh Run the Jewels, Lizzo.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um let's talk about this Saturday.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Who's on the bill with you?
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Man, so uh I don't want to forget anybody, but I'm man, I'm so excited about this.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we got Thundercat, um, who is like I'm a huge fan of Thundercat, like crazy.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um we got Krang Ben.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, I don't know if I pronounced that right.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: We got Japanese breakfast, drive-by truckers.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um we got uh Edum, we got Kethro, we got um who else we got on there.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'm forgetting people.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna stop now because it's such a diverse mix, regardless.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is such a diverse mix, and that's crazy.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I love the fact that you're on that bill, man.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: You you've earned it.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: You've earned thank you done your work, and uh it it's it's good when we see the good guys succeed.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a dream of mine for a long, long, long time, right?
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then you just announced this week you're also on Lincoln Calling.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm hyped about that because I was supposed to be on it last year, right?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: But of course, the pandemic hit, right?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I think I did their their virtual show.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but to be back and doing it, you know, for the first time with uh with a with a live crowd, uh, I'm I'm so I'm so excited for.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um when is that taking place?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um September 23rd through the 25th.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to take us down another rabbit hole, but we're gonna we're gonna keep our our prayers up and keep positive that uh yeah things don't revert due to the delta variant.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, yeah, that we're for sure.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's for some places already uh yeah, we're all sweating bullets because man, we just got shows back, we don't want them to go away again, right?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right, yeah.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: I hear you, I hear you.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: So so what else is coming down the pipeline that we don't know about?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's see.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I got a lot of music, a lot, a lot of music on the way.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I got uh I got a couple group projects um that I can't quite talk about yet, but I got a couple grouped projects.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I got a solo project, I got a ton of singles, ton of ton more visuals.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know me.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm you know, just a lot of you're gonna get a lot of content from me.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so there's some other really, really cool things, like some really big things that I can't I can't really talk about, right?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: But when it happens, you're gonna know, like you'll see it.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, like you're not gonna be able to miss it.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: So um man, I'm really excited.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm excited for you.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's some really cool things, really cool things happening that um yeah, but and then touring.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're we got a tour coming um the on the uh on the top of next year, um, starting like right around springtime.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, you can stay on the lookout for that.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I'm getting back to touring and um yeah, I'm really excited, man.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of lot of really cool things happening.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome, man.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: So why don't you tell everybody where they can find you online?
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you can find me everywhere at J Crum Music, J C R U M music, um, J Crum Music.com.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, so just made it yeah, super easy.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can find me everywhere there, and and this is my ringing endorsement.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm I'm really big into indie hip hop.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've actually I played in rock bands and punk bands and screamo bands my whole life, but the funny thing was is I was always ahead at heart.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like to see to see you succeed and to see people in our community succeed, it it makes me happy, and it makes me even happier to see somebody succeed that gives so much back of themselves and uh so much of the back to the community that they came up in.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's been an honor to talk to you on the podcast today.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, it was a blast, bro.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you like even inviting me out to do this.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: So this is dope.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: How about that?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Big thanks to J.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Crum for being on the show today.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: That was a lot of fun, and I think if you would have let us, we would have talked for hours and hours and hours, and this would have been a three-hour long podcast.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: Please follow him on social media, and if you don't follow him anywhere else, follow him on TikTok.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: He has the best content on TikTok.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Trust me.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of online media and social media and online content, whatever, whatever, whatever, please make sure you are following me on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate your support.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you know somebody that would be a good guest for the show, shoot them my way.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Caught on the mic at gmail.com or send them to my website, www.caughtonthemic.com.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Last but not least, I would appreciate those five star reviews on Apple Podcasts.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: It helps broadcast the show to more people.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: This has been Caught on the Mic with Michael Clark.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Michael Clark.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, thank you.