Amsterdam-born rapper, JB Scofield dropped his latest single, ‘OK OK,’ back in November and has grew massively accumulating over 3 Millions views and 3 millions streams on Spotify. Now, we all know about his fast paced rapping and catchy chorus, but I wanted to find out a little bit more about the rapper behind ‘Aguero,’ ‘Stretch It’ and ‘OK OK’ aswell as how Jugg and Finesse has helped his music go further, so I had a chat with him…
JB began his musical journey by free styling with his friends, in his friend’s basement: “My friends just used to say, ‘yo, J you’re talented, you should try to make a career out of it.’ But, I wasn’t taking it seriously at first, with school and that. When I went to college, that’s when I started recording music.”
“The rapping scene isn't that big in Leicester before, but some are starting to come through now such as JJ Esko and GT Milli. The scene is growing, it’s crazy.”
Coming from a Ghanaian and Nigerian background, JB’s parents were strict on him when it came to education, JB said: “With all of my shows, and the way stuff is going right out, they support my dream because ‘I've finished university,.”
JB has dropped many hits over the past 12 Months but I wanted to know which one of his own songs was his favourite, ‘Aguero’ was his answer: “I needed a song that was mad, different but still had a U.K. vibe.”
“I don’t listen to much U.K. music, more American artist such as Drake and Pop Smoke and Fiveo foreign. I just wanted something mad wavy. I had that hook, ‘Aguero’ the whole time in my head and when I recorded it because he's my favourite football player and wanted to dedicate it to him and when I went studio with it it was just mad, crazy. Every time I hear it now, it still gives me that same feeling I had the first time I heard it from the first time, sick.”
JB’s close friends are all part of his musical team. I asked JB if he’s had any issues with mixing business and pleasure: “We’ve been friends for so long, it hasn’t come to that point where we’ve had any problems, but we always talk about it in theory, so I can understand how they’d react if we were in a certain situation. But, so far it hasn’t been an issue at all.”
JB also told me about his take on ‘industry friends,’: “You’ve got your friends then you’ve got your industry friends as well. It’ll feel like they’re your friend, but you’re not going to call him when something happens, it’s not the same type of friend.”
“It can be fake, my friends and I are good at reading people, we can tell whether people are genuine or if they’re doing it because they want it to look like we’re friends. Me, I don’t mind, I’m not salty, if you’re gonna act like you’re a friend, I’ll be like yeah cool man.”
Finishing up now, I asked JB what his plans were for 2020: “Just more music man. I have an EP I want to bring out, that’s for my UK and Dutch fan base as well, I’m trying to branch out. Obviously, everyone wants to be poppin’ in the U.K. but I’m Dutch as well, so I need to embrace that side.”
5 years from now, where do you want to be, what do you want to be doing?: “5 years from now, hopefully touring. That’s what I want to be doing, touring and being able to sell out headline shows every couple of months and have a sick couple of projects as well, albums and everything and hit number 1.”
So, there you go, some background on Jugg and Finesse biggest artist and rapper know as JB Scofield.
You can download ‘OK OK,’ via iTunes here.
And you can watch and listen to my personal favourite JB Scofield hit, ‘Aguero,’ below!
