Jahleel Fareal is a hip-hop artist based out of Austin TX. The musician has been releasing music on Spotify for over ten years and continues to put out stellar projects and features that expand his influence in the Austin hip-hop scene.
We got a chance to sit down with him and ask some questions on our mind.
Hey so first off how are we feeling about the show you just put on?
First and foremost tired. But, you know, most importantly humbled. Appreciate the opportunity. It means the world. I've been in Austin for 10-12 years and performing at Stubbs is a staple for any artist so having the opportunity to do it for SXSW was super incredible.
I heard you were the only Hip-Hop act to headline Stubbs this SXSW, how's that feel?
Yeah, I'm the only one on the act so I think that put a little a little weight on my shoulder a little bit.
And you brought a lot of collaborators out on stage, how was that for you?
It was pretty good. Those are all my close friends, we got relationships. All of them were doing stuff throughout the city already so it was kind of a no brainer to bring my friends out and have them party with me as well.
One of your most recent projects released was a collaboration, can you talk about that?
I came out to up the score. That's off the new project shout out to my boy Chief Saï from France. He produced the whole project but it's been getting great recession. It's real groovy - Southern funky style to it but more modern as well.
From my set, you probably tell like that I like older music so I like to implement that into everything and turn it more modern. The reception has been amazing for that project and it's just the beginning.
What kind of like, older music do you think influenced that project?
What became the start for how people first recognized me was I did a cover of the SOS band, that was the no one's gonna love you song towards the end that I did. That kind of started the wave of people attaching that older sound to me. So the Gap Band, SOS band, we listened to a lot of Loose Ends and stuff like that from the UK. I'm not gonna give too much, but those are some gems.
I liked the Steelers Jersey by the way.
I was getting a little hate from a few people but most people respect Polamalu period. But I wore that specifically for my parents and for my mom who is from the Pittsburgh area. She's here with me tonight -- my parents are. I also wore the camouflage pants because they were in the military so that was a slight nod to my parents. Then I had to change out and get to my own flavor.
Wow, so extra pressure performing in front of your parents huh?
My parents know what to expect. When I was overseas I lived in Korea for 2 years almost 10 years ago -- damn I'm showing my age so bad right now. Anyway they're aware of how I get down and they've seen the video clips I communicate with my parents often and send them clips after my shows and stuff so.
I did want to talk about South Korea man because you said that really furthered you musically, what is the music like in South Korea?
Yeah, so with South Korea man, it was like more like a artists development phase for me. I felt like because I didn't hear a lot of music back home unless I was in the club in South Korea, I got to try out like a lot of sounds to find my style. When I came to Austin, it was very easy to just hit the ground running and just have a lane of my own because I spent two years over there just constantly going at it. I had a really good group of friends that I would toss ideas off of and play music with daily. It kept me sharp.
Did you perform over there a lot?
That's where I like learned to walk the stage, get comfortable with. Korea really loves hip hop a lot, it's not like little crowds when you go surprisingly, even for their open mics. It was probably maybe almost 200 people every time so it was good practice to do it in front of a lot of people and I got good relationships with the club owners over there. It was a great experience. I'm trying to go back again.
I really loved all the props you used during your performances, what was the idea behind that?
It was a collab with my lady. She put in a lot of that work. Shout out to my lady for real she she did a lot of that For the most part, She's the brains behind all that marketing stuff.
So the money thing was my idea from the beginning and we've been doing that for two years to three years.
As far as the beach balls and the dice it was for this occasion. And it looks good on video. It's fun. Even though I feel like they lowkey didn't want dice thrown on top of them for a second day -- towards the end, they were constantly going up. I was like, "Oh, it's a party in here now. We rocked out."
Anything coming up we should be excited for?
Well, you know, I do have you know, some good tracks coming up with some great artists from the West Coast. Good underground artists. Maybe not like a big mainstream, but he's mainstream to me. I got a good a good feature on the way so we're gonna drop that video and song probably towards the end of April. Other than that, I got some other major arenas to fill and we'll be talking about that later.
