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Deep Cuts: Jessicunt

Driven by percussive rhythms and powerful vocals, Jessicunt’s sound is strong and heady, becoming soft and malleable in the movement of the crowd. Her crowds are charged with energy unbridled. Reverberating against a bass that leaves ear-drums buzzing, Jessicunt builds harmony through the chaos. Though introverted in her own right, Jessicunt is emboldened behind the booth, fortified by the wall of sound she builds and scales with grace.

 

To her, music has been a means of strengthening identity and building freer ways of being. With early inspirations like M.I.A., Nicki Minaj, Kelis, and Venus X, Jessicunt’s main objective is to empower. In doing so, she expands the listener’s ears to new sounds and cultural pockets within the scene. Her own practice is fueled by travel, picking up sounds like Amapiano from South Africa, and the resurgence of drum & bass from the heart of London’s diasporic DJs. Her music remixes tradition and predicts trends to create a work that operates in its own time.

 

Jessicunt invites listeners to be bold, adventurous, and find a piece of themselves in each new sound.

 

Check out Jessicunt's exclusive mix and interview with office below.

Can you walk me through this mix, what were you feeling when you put it together? What are some of your favorite tracks?

 

I was feeling ANXIOUS AS FUCK. I was in London battling the birthday blues as well as general imposter syndrome and after several days at the studio, I still didn’t have a mix. After several hours at my homies crib, because I was tired of wasting my money, I STILL didn’t have a mix. It wasn’t until I got back to where I was staying after all the failed attempts that I sat down and thought “okay. what is this going to give?” I knew that when I listened back to this I wanted to feel like I was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. A timeless, borderless, hair-raising, sonic experience. From there I was able to weave together a pool of tracks I loved but it wasn’t until I got on the plane leaving London that I was able to record this mix. I was two cups of wine in with no regard for my seat neighbor and that’s when I dragged. I have more so a favorite section than individual tracks, and that’s the part from “INDIAN BOOKSHELF RIDDIM” all the way to “Punani (BAE BAE Edit)” at that moment I was living my fullest dancehall queen dreams.

 

Where do you find new music?

 

Anywhere really, you just have to be ready for a very long wormhole/rabbit hole, either of the holes. Depending on the genre, I will use certain platforms. If I'm looking for a very good hidden gem of a dub, I'm going to YouTube. For house deep cuts, I'm going to YouTube or even fucking Reddit. Places where the nerds gather are where the bops are, usually. For edits, I love Bandcamp and SoundCloud. I usually start with artists that I'm already listening to, and maybe people that they've worked with or featured because they tend to work within a similar world, or maybe one that's even better that they're trying to invite their fans into. But I love a good SoundCloud deep dive. You start with one track, go to the related tracks, go from the related tracks to the artists of the related tracks, go from the artists and the related tracks to the artists that they've collaborated with. And so on and so forth. There are just so many talented people out there, and you have to look past the numbers. So many of the greatest tracks have pretty much no plays. And a good DJ is not going to pass up a track because no one's salivating at the mouth over it in the comments, you know. So yeah, just I go through very extensive deep dives.

 

What makes your ears perk up, what makes you want to use something?

 

I will say, for playing out, I look for things that are percussion-heavy, or tracks that I can turn into something percussion-heavy, like the Rihanna track in this mix, “Woo” that's not very fast-paced. It is high-energy, but it's not fast-paced. It's not something somebody can shake their butt and break their back to but you throw those drums over it, and it's a whole different vibe now. So I think for playing things out, I look for  strong elements of percussion, or the opportunity to overlay another strong element of percussion. As far as what might go in a mix, I think the energy of a live set versus a mix can be quite different. For mixes I use anything that I can get into a groove with, even if it's slow. I love to find a good pocket for a mix. I know that you're not always going to be in a rambunctious setting, maybe you're at home, maybe you're commuting, I like tracks sound hypnotizing, almost monotonous, then maybe there's a break and I can slip a groove in, but not as out right, in your face as a track that I would play in a party.

 

Deep cuts versus fan favorites, where do you fall?

 

Okay, deep cuts versus fan favorites…I am a deep cut girl I can't lie. I find that I have a pattern of playing a bunch of deep cuts then introducing a fan favorite just for rewarding you for literally making it through that hell. Especially if you don't know any of the songs that I'm playing, I'm sure that's so annoying, but I usually know when it's time to introduce a quick popular song.

 

What’s your favorite thing to see in a crowd?

 

I love a good rave girl, main character moment. When there's someone in the middle of the dance floor or maybe off to the side, and they're just getting their life, they may not even be dancing with anybody, but you can tell the music is literally taking over every fiber of their being. That's what I love to see. I also love to see people making out in the club because that would literally never be me, too many germs. But I love that for you guys. I'm living vicariously. Ultimately, just seeing people being their full, unfiltered selves, within reason. I love to see people at the height of their personalities. Like, if you're that friend who's kind of anti and it's just gonna be like, off to the side being anti, I kind of love to see that, but times a billion. If you're the social butterfly friend, who gets drunk and then goes and makes an entire new group of friends. I love to see that too. The only thing I really hate to see in the club is people making other people uncomfortable. People making people feel generally unsafe. I also hate name-dropping in the club and people taking pictures of everything they do. I personally don't care for certain vices. But at this point, we should not be photographing every time we see somebody take a bump or like do some K. Like it's not for the finsta every time, you know. I love to see authenticity. I hate to see discomfort, overzealousness.

So what did you listen to growing up?

 

Growing up, I listened to a lot of Soukous music, Highlife, Afrobeat, Afro beats– because there are people like Fela, but then there’s people like Wizkid and Burna Boy. I also listened to Dancehall. I was very diaspora-focused, because, my parents came over relatively young, so they were trying, I believe, to hold on to certain elements of their culture. Because of assimilation, there were a few things that would slip through, like my father was obsessed with Michael Jackson, both of my parents actually. So we were listening to Afrobeat and dancehall and all these things. And then occasionally other things would slip in like "Funkytown" I forget who sings it, but it's like, “why don't you take me to Funkytown,” stuff like that. It was very much immigrant, but that's also trying to assimilate in a way, so it was weird. Even in the car with the radio, my mom, would maybe listen to the radio the first 10 seconds we’re in the car, but then she would just put in a CD that we had heard a billion times.

 

It wasn't until fifth grade for Christmas, I got an mp3 player. I had begged and begged and begged and I got it. My brother's computer was the only computer I had access to in the house. So I just connected it, and downloaded whatever I could before I could get caught. It was like Jay Z's second Blueprint, and a bunch of Lil Wayne. That's how I got into Lil Kim and Biggie. I took it way, way back, and started researching. And you know, from that moment, I kinda was able to identify more with what I was hearing outside, I was able to connect with kids because I could listen to what they're hearing, I could hear what they're listening to. And at a point, I lived in Langley Park, which was predominantly African and Latin immigrants. So then, if it wasn't Afrobeat, and it wasn't Hip Hop, it was Reggaeton. So my sonic world started to kind of cement itself from that point. That coupled with like, the pop and the random funk and all these things that my parents would slide in. So it was weird, I heard so much from a young age. But certain things didn't get introduced until later.

 

Ok–can you explain the Afrobeat, Afrobeats distinction? I feel like so many people don’t know that and just use them interchangeably.

 

So Afrobeat is more so an overarching genre and identity that encompasses Western & Central African music, jazz, highlife and funk. The more popular regions are Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon. This sound is also much older than Afrobeats and its most notable pioneer is Fela Kuti. Now - Afrobeats is an umbrella term for contemporary West African popular music. So when you hear Afrobeat, think Fela Kuti and Manu Dibango. When you hear Afrobeats, think WizKid and Davido.

 

What are you listening to now?

 

Yeah, fast forward till now, I think my sound is just an amalgamation of all of these things. I'll play the hip hop, play the afrobeat, and now that I travel so frequently, I'm exposed constantly to different cultures. I'll throw in the jungle. I’ll throw in the baile funk. Fuck, you know, I'll throw in the Parisian trap that I heard these kids singing along to the time I was there. They all play a part. I've been able to build this world where it's almost like we're constantly traveling, where we've never really arrived.

 

Where do you want people to arrive through your music?

 

I want people to arrive at a state of pleasure, confusion, introspection, maybe even a bit of sadness but overall - euphoria. I want them to feel how you do at the other end of a shroom trip. The experience that I strive to create is one that's out of body. I always want for people to be changed. Honestly, whether it's for the better or for the worse is totally up to them. But I want them to come out of the club, like "I don't know where the fuck I just was, and I don't know what we're doing after this, but like, I need more of that." Because I would have to say my favorite feedback is a person saying, “You gave me everything.” I am well-rounded and I am chaotic. And I honestly kind of like for that to come out. I like for people to have headbanging whiplash moments where they're like, “No was that this over blank, like, that's insane!” And I want people to just kind of re-approach the way that they interact with and perceive music, or even songs that they've heard before that are being presented in a new way. So yeah, I just want people to come from a site of experience that I lead, and be changed and transformed completely.

I just want people to come from a site of experience that I lead, and be changed and transformed completely.

This piece is part of a three-part series profiling the NYC music scene.

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