We have been blessed with the opportunity to work with Izzy Jone$! Here is our interview with them where we got to know them better!
Tell us about yourself! What should people know about you?
I’m a storyteller. That’s my purpose. Everyone in the community has a purpose, whether that’s being a healer, a builder, weaver, or a visionary. Learning my purpose has tremendously changed my view on life. Life is short, but living is also the longest thing we’ll ever do. So, storytelling through music, cartoons, and literature is my goal and next steps.
How long have you been making music and what or who inspired you to do so?
I’ve been making music all of my life. My earliest memories are of living in the Forest Chase neighborhood on Cedar Shoals Dr in College Park, Georgia. It was a townhome where I lived with my mom, dad, and sister. I was three years old and would set up my toys like a drum set. My first access to music was the Baptist Church. Music is what made me conscious and feel. When I would go to Wal-Mart with my mom, I would ask for tambourines and the small cymbals they’d sell on the toy aisle. I would take the wire hanger with the white wrapping and break the hangers, split the white cylinder in half and make drumsticks. My dad eventually would break the white cylinder in half without ruining the hanger. Eventually, on my 4th birthday, my parents bought me a plastic toy drum set but I vividly remember breaking it at least two times. I would look through my mom’s JCPenney catalogs and obsess over the instrument section. I would call out background instruments in the car with my parents and finger drum along the window to any song. Eventually, by next Christmas, my parents bought me my first drum set. A black Sunlite set. I had it until I was thirteen years old. Music is a part of me like hydrogen and carbon.
We are aware not everyone makes music the same. What is your creative process like?
My process is constantly evolving. Ideas come at different times and from different places. Some days, the music comes through the guitar or I hum a melody. Other days, it’s lyrics or a flow to a beat I’ve made. It never is the same. Writing verses and songs ebbs and flows. I love to explore new and old ideas, mix them together, try alternative vocal takes and freestyle. Some songs I make are all freestyled, I’ll punch in at a writer's pace but then they’ll be a spark of a verse I want to hone in on and I will write every letter on a piece of paper; but this process always shifts.
Is there any advice you would give to upcoming artists?
Avoid eating raw chicken. As an artist, at any point, it is easy to fall victim to this. Let me explain. When you make chicken you clean it, season it, marinate it, and then start to cook it. Sometimes, we as artists can find ourselves putting the chicken on a plate and biting into it. Judging it before we’ve cooked it. Then it’s also the crossroads of putting the chicken in the oven for 5 minutes and proceeding to do the same. Judging it before it’s done. When cooking chicken, you have to let it cook all the way through. You have to let it get to the perfect temperature. Importantly, you have to take it out before it overcooks. Once it’s finished and you plate it, there’s a sense of one not being able to change anything about it. Whoever eats the chicken is the judge of how it tastes. So my solution in mindset is that there is power in doing. Do it. Be inspired, be yourself, be intentional. Not doing is the worst thing an artist can do. Avoid eating raw chicken and do.
Who would you say is the best artist of all time?
This is a loaded question and there’s many artists that deserve notice so I’ll start with musicians.
I love Stevie Wonder. Michael Jackson. Prince. I own all of their albums. Alice Coltrane. Eric Dolphy, Bad Brains, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, every member of Weather Report, Stanley Clarke; Roland Rashaan Kirk is special, a blind saxophonist that played three horns at once and multiple other horns. Sun Ra is the sensei. Marshall Allen is the oldest living active musician at 100 years old. Lil Wayne is still creating mind vomiting metaphors and verses. Herbie Hancock still has songs I can’t get over. Quincy Jones is my biggest inspiration musically. My mom loves Teddy Pendergrass and Evelyn Champagne King. Frank Zappa has a discography I’m still digesting but his output was just prolific. The Gorillaz deserve their flowers as well. Mac Demarco, Phyllis Hyman, and Minnie Riperton, Oscar Peterson, Max Roach, Eroll Garner, Buddy Rich, Yussef Days, Billy Cobham, the Three Kings (Freddie King, Albert King, my grandma put me on to BB King at six years old.
Now as far as the full scope of artists, my list begins with Daniel Arsham, Fab 5 Freddy, James Hampton, Betye Saar, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Faith Ringold, Hebru Brantley, Salvador Dali, and Claude Monet.
The king of comics Jack Kirby, the artist and writer of Cerebus– Dave Sim, the painter Alex Ross, the legendary Jackie Ormes, and Jay Jackson– the writer and artist for Bungleton Greene, first black superhero ever printed in 1945, predating Black Panther by twenty one years old.
And lastly, God. The world we see is the most beautiful art piece we’ve ever seen. Music and art is just humans' best attempt at imitating the feelings and colorscapes we experience in life.
Where can people find you on social media?
My social media is @oneizzyjones on everything. Subscribe to my YouTube channel. There’s more music videos and cartoons on the way.
Peace.
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