Jonaze

We pride ourselves on originality. Sitting there at Restaurante Pirata with Gusto, I was blown away; I have never seen anyone exude more originality than Jonaze. His rhymes take you through time and space...he is DOPE. He's been working with the band Gran'Mah (Leo, Migz, Luizinho, Rojah, and Dito - buncha cool cats with a taste for chilled out dub), they are totally DIY - which I dig - but more importantly it's got a message we're rallying around - 'Be Different'.
He's working on an autobiography that is soon to come out, I took a sneak peak and it looks very interesting. This guy has more talent than most of us can stomach. It's a shame that most people with minds like his are wasted because of our lack of recognition.

Before we got to Pirata, I watched the member of DRP drop a few lines with the band. And I was amazed. He left my mouth open in admiration. Only Jonaze can specialize in hip hop, yet still fuse it with dub, but crossover to make it sound mainstream, yet still not sell out, but still be harder than the hardest, hardest hard can get! I wish music like this got steady rotation. Damn shame what lower standards have done to "mainstream" hip hop here in Mozambique.
So naturally, i asked him, "How do you do that? How do you come up with your material?" And for a second I thought he was going to come up with some clever answer like most hip-hop artists do, but he didn’t, he just laughed and said "I don’t know, sometimes it's a process, you write, you rhyme, organize it, put some thought into it, and other times, like you saw today, it's based on pure whim. I just pick up the beat and flow with it." Flow with it...and that's exactly what I did. Flow with the dub sounds by Gran'mah, and lyrical rambles of Jonaze.

We also talked about the golden age of Hip-hop, and the influences it had on Moz, and personally, him. "Hip Hop's gotten far too fickle nowadays." He said, " Real still recognizes real, and a lot of this music nowadays is real unfamiliar."
As the conversation went on, Gusto asked him "So, what do you have planned? What are you gonna do now?" Jonaze made it clear that he is focused solely on his education, and music is secondary to him, but it still very much his first love. He’s going to work on finishing up his autobiography, and he'll also make sometime to collaborate with the Gran'Mah, much to my content!



Early Hip Hop was better because it was in its childhood, and like children, had a natural sense of wonder and power. Right now, it’s grown up to adolescence, where it rebels against its predecessors and only cares for immediate satisfaction. I think pretty soon, it'll finally hit maturity and absorb all the previous eras of hip hop, culminating in the best music ever. And I think these guys are headed that way. That’s my theory anyway.

G'Day, lights out, heart open, eyes closed.