feat. J Wade
Introducing J Wade.
Chicago Hip-Hop was flipped on its head when J Wade began releasing projects in 2020. "J Wade raps like an all-terrain vehicle," said Chicago Reader. He concluded the year 2023 with the release of "Sellsword," an album fully produced by the underground legend, Wiardon. Dizzying flows with intoxicating and entrancing production, "Sellsword" sees J Wade at his most gritty to date. Heavily highlighting how it feels to chase success as a passionate musician, Wade invites you to his realm of darkness. Grim and almost unnerving at times, yet you can't help but continue to be enthralled by each track as the 35 minute album spins along. What good is such a vivid body of work without equally visceral music videos to accompany it? J Wade is launched a project with Busker to fund high quality visuals to elevate "Sellsword" to the heights it was destined to reach.
Q: Tell us about yourself, how long have you been rapping and how long have you been working with Wiardon?
I first started writing in 2016. It began as just a hobby and I don’t think I even recorded anything until about a year or so after I started writing. Around 2018 when I started working with Cloud Boy was when I truly became absorbed in it and knew I wanted to make music my career.
As far as working with Wiardon, I first bought a beat from him on my birthday in 2018. My friends put money together to buy me a Wiardon beat as my gift since I had been a fan of him for so long. That song still has yet to release but we have one other single, “Here Lies,” from 2020. I always knew I wanted to make a whole project on his production at some point. I just contacted him in 2022 and ended up buying a bunch of beats with the intention of creating this body of work.
Q: Your album is called “Sellsword” and throughout the album you make references to swords like on “Pure of Heart”, you refer to yourself as a “pure swordsman” and conjure an image of “a blade hanging off your back like a dorsal fin”. What do swords symbolize to you and how does it relate to the theme of the project?
With a certain level of mastery, a sword is no longer simply a weapon. It becomes an extension of the user, a tool of expression rather than just an object. Although it may not be as sharp to the touch, this is how I treat the mic. An extension of myself, as deadly as it is beautiful. As my pen bled ink on countless pages, woven an abundance of rhymes and I became deadly enough with the mic to seemingly make my thoughts come to life, this album is me treating my musical movements with the delicate yet cold hands of an assassin for hire.
Q: Visuals are a really important part of art and music to me and I was immediately taken by the cover art. What was the inspiration?
Honestly, the cover concept came to me shortly after I had the idea for the “Sellsword” theme. I knew I wanted to focus on money changing hands. I wanted this cover to have a “Godfather” kind of aesthetic to it. Other than that I wasn’t sure of the exact shot I wanted to go with. My cousin Jackson (@chainstays) is the photographer behind this and most of my covers. We knew the general idea we had and we knew we wanted the shot to take place during heavy snowfall. We saw the forecast said it was going to be a blizzard pretty much. We got up and immediately headed out to the spot with my other good friend Flee (@Flee.ku) and just got different angles of the money exchange.
Q: Speaking of visuals, you got a lot on the way. What’s the motivation behind going so hard on music videos for this album?
Well done visuals would bring this project to life in a whole new way. The music is expressive and paints quite the picture on its own but I want to add to that with some nice, well thought out videos. My goal is just to emphasize the longevity of it all.
Q: When I first heard this project I was biking through Queens in the rain at night and I was really feeling the synergy between my environment, the music, and the bars. How much of a role does your environment play in making music and what setting did you have in mind when making this album?
I don’t always notice the effect my environment has on me when working on music but it is definitely an integral part in my headspace. I did a lot of writing on this project in places like train rides, or during down time at shows or during studio sessions. I’ve gotten to the point where I can usually tap into my creative mind anywhere, but I try to use that to be able to use my music to take the listener anywhere. The setting in my mind for this album consists of snow covered, traffic ridden city streets, populated street corners, dark alleys, heavy raindrops flying past train windows and things of that sort.
Q: I loved “Save Them!” as it felt like a palette cleanser before diving back into your dense raps. What was your thought process behind including an instrumental interlude?
I treat instrumental interludes kind of how I treat the transitions between songs. It’s the little extra flavor to the music that gives it more personality. Calling it a palette cleanser is the perfect description because that’s how I decide where to place the interlude in the tracklist. I figure people might need a slight break from getting beat upside the head with bars and to me it seems to make the moments after the interlude stick out even more.
Q: On the topic of your really immersive and heavy brand of rap, do you pursue any other forms of writing or just rap?
Mostly just rap but I don’t really view writing rap as just writing songs. I try to use this outlet to express not just my ability to write rhymes but also my ability to build worlds and take the listener on an unpredictable ride from song start to finish. In the future I see myself getting into writing a cartoon or something and getting into my voice acting bag.
Q: One of my favorite albums of yours, “The One Who Knocks”, is presumably a reference to Breaking Bad, and “Ladypiece” off this project starts with a clip from “The Sopranos”. What other shows inspire you?
Oh man too many to name. Lately I’m pretty slow with my TV viewing since if I’m not at work I’m usually playing videogames or working on music but I draw inspiration from everything. The Sopranos clip was actually added by Wiardon so I can’t take credit for that one. There’s references to “Hellsing,” and “The Irishman” on this album as well. Right now I’ve been watching “The Wire” and I’ve been loving it so don’t be surprised if I have some stuff inspired by that in the near future.
Q: In an industry where many of your contemporaries will wait years between releasing albums, you put out multiple a year. Do you push yourself to produce at such a fast pace or does it just come naturally?
It comes pretty naturally considering a lot of the music I release is stuff I have already been sitting on. Besides “Feint of Heart,” most of my releases sit for at least 6 months to a year before I actually release them. I just don’t like releasing singles and I feel like my music is meant to be consumed in album form. I just want to stay consistent in this landscape where people forget about you in a week.
Q: Any projects or releases in the pipeline?
Too many to name man! The two I’m pretty sure are coming out this year are my album with my long time friend and fellow Creative Mansion member Elkay Sapphire (@thepourist) and an album with my engineer/producer Doc Da Mindbenda (@Docdamindbenda). The album with Elkay is one we’ve been working on since 2019 and it’s probably the most conceptual work of mine to date. This will be good to hold me accountable, we’ll return to this and see if I actually release both of these this year.