Curators: Jdotinnacutt

When we last spoke with this gentleman, he was known as StarJit, he has now become Jdotinnacutt. But don’t be fooled, the growth goes far beyond a change in name. We talked about the differences in his music, the creative process, and his promotional methods among other things in this latest interview. 

GUNNERPHI: How did you become jdotinacutt?

JDOTINNACUTT: Just from conceptualizing, just trying to build and plan. Because, you can only do more. I knew I wasn’t gonna be a kid forever, and “innacut” that really suits me cause that’s how I feel, like right now I’ve got a hoodie on, I’m always just to myself.

G: So, Starjit was a phase, that was a time. and now you’ve evolved?

J: Yeah, evolving like a pokemon!

G: Listening to some of your new work, your flow has switched up. It felt playful before in the old mixtapes, now the tone feels more serious. The beats, sonically, have more bass, lower tones. How did you get to this point?

J: Being angry af by myself. I stopped caring about what people were thinking about my music. I just started exploring myself and what I want to hear.

G: Who’re you getting your beats from?

J: ElGatoThaKing, my other friend GloomyEnoch. I get my beats from emails.

G: The beat can dictate what kind of flow you come with. Do you feel like these beats did that?

J: I def, I would look for beats. I would already have a feeling when I’m going through beats. Other times, when I’m going through life I’m just like writing dumb shit, like I’ll write three bars or two bars and just leave it, then I’ll just have it somewhere. A lot of my stuff is just in my brain and I’ll put it on the beat. The beat doesn’t really make my songs.

G: So are you a writer or do you compose in your head?

J: It’s half. So if you listen to my new song “Where You Goin?”, half of it is written, and then sometimes I’ll keep feelin’ it and I’ll keep goin’ in the studio and rearrange the whole song off of what I just did. It’s all like puzzles to me.

G: What’s the next project? What are we going to get next from J Dot?

J: I just released this new EP, it’s called “Long Night, Short Days” it’s this phrase I came up with. It’s just longer nights, shorter days. That’s how it kinda feels. I’m tryna come out with some shit. It’s this new mixtape that I was conceptualizing, it’s called Indigo Child. I kinda see myself as an indigo child. Indigo children, if you kind of read into them, they find whatever system that’s already there, they’ll find it and break it down because they don’t like it. I see things that I’m not happy with. I wouldn’t even… conform, there’s no reason to conform, when I’ll just start doing my own thing.

G: When you say the system, are you talking about politically, the eduation system, the music industry?

J: All of them All of those. Every single system that’s out right now I don’t conform into it, and it don’t fit me, so I have to just find my own way, my own wave, and be jdotinnacut.

G: What is your creative process like?

J: Music is all I do, so I really gain a lot of anxiety. If I don’t see myself gaining, I start losing it, cause that’s the only thing I’m good at. So, I kind of feel like I’m just not doing nothin’ with life then. If I’m not doing music, then I’m not doing nothin’.

The first producer I mentioned ElGatoThaKing, we’ll sit down together and we’ll work on music together. He’ll mold the beat to my voice, and I’ll mold to the beat. That’s why it takes so much time wit that. I really want to make sure it’s perfect To be honest, I want to just get all the beats and go to a studio first. It’s a real tedious process.

G: I see you’ve done a lot of shows since we last spoke. It feels like your name is growing.

J: I want everybody to know that I’m not just a teen that’s rapping for fun. I really conceptualize, I eat sleep, wake up and breathe this. I’m really the puppet master, people think I go with trends or waves but I control a lot of stuff, for me.

G: What’s the play once you graduate?

J: It’s the music! I’ve been gaining a lot of infamy, because a lot of people tell stories about me, because I’m not around anymore. Those same peers are still listening to my music. I’m the cool kid who’s more out of reach now.

G: What do you do to spread your music? How do you reach back?

J: I do this by myself, it all comes from me. But help, even if it’s one percent it literally counts, because I need all the puzzle pieces in place. I don’t have a lot of money and I don’t force anybody to do nothing for me either, with that being said, everybody coming together to help me, that’s genuine, that’s all for the music. Everybody sees my vision.

To reach them, I just reach back out. I don’t oversaturate myself.

G: You said you didn’t like the feedback on one of your old mixtapes. Do you feel like you were deficient in one area?

J: I’m just noticing I have to be transparent. Like jdotinnacut, it started as a persona, but this is me. The music could be there. How are people gonna gravitate to you if they don’t know you? Like my face wasn’t on the cover.

G: So you want to be more personal going forward?

J: Yeah and a couple hundred people like it, a couple hundred listens, but I’m on a different kind of time. I need millions right now.

G: So what’s your approach on releasing music? It used to be all about releasing albums, now I see you put out smaller bits of music at a time.

J: I know the sense of everyday matters, everyday counts. So I feel like, why have a day where I didn’t grow? I didn’t gain one follower, not one listen. Stuff is getting better, everyday I get at least 100 listens. Everyday there should be some sort of growth. My method for releasing music, I try to tease it a little, I’ll post a little video or trailer. I’ll see the feedback for it. And I’m not shy to dm. A lot of other artists need to know how to push it, push it in a way that works.

I make sure I send it in the morning. I love the kids in school listening to me. That reminds me of how I used to listen to other artists. Release in the morning. If you’re an artist, release in the morning. Let a kid go on the school bus with the music. 

G: Where do you stand on social media? I see that you dm. What’s your strategy?

J: I archive. I have over a hundred posts in my archive. I’ll post and delete from my feed the same day. I feel like I just control everything. My friend who does skater videos, he did a video to my song called “Caution” so I’ma release that soon, and that’s gonna run up some more views. Then I’ll archive it whenever I feel like it. I really run up the numbers everyday. I don’t have a benchmark, but I just want to see the numbers move before I go to sleep. I just want to see a litte bit of growth.

You know what’s crazy, it’s always been a little thing with me. I wouldn’t say popular or nothing, people at least knew that I did music. Somebody seen me writing in my journal. I’m actually getting back to that. I’ve placed importance on writing music on paper, it’s like a different manifestation. A lot of artists need to learn about manifestation too. That’s a really big thing about making music. You have to manifest what you want. You have to literally wake up say in your mind “I want this” and then it comes to you like on some Law of Attraction, you can’t have no doubts in your mind about it. You literally just say “this is coming to me”, and you just put in the work behind it, but really you said it and it happened. I told myself I wanted to do shows, I told myself I’m gon’ rock them shows at that, and that’s just what happened.