J. Stalin: Sicker With It than Most

Don’t let the fact that SID (Shining In Darkness) is J. Stalin’s 14th studio album intimidate you. Given Noisey’s target demographic, you probably opened this article with the intention of getting up on a new face on the scene and now you just feel stupid for being so late to the party. So take solace in the fact that the Bay Area is full of successful, prolific, talented rappers and it’s very hard to keep up from a distance.

As a matter of fact, the very good SID is a decent jumping-off point for the vast Oakland scene, a good mix of frowny-face gun raps, lush 80’s synths and function jams that come off like hyphy with a harder edge. New fans will find grounding in appearances by E–40, IAMSU! and Too $hort (spitting the rare verse that isn’t about bitches on “Fuk That”), while getting to know Oakland mainstays like Shady Nate, Philthy Rich, Tha Jackah and Husalah. Plus you have to respect Stalin’s ingenuity, pulling a rap name from the annals of history instead of drug lore.

We caught up last week to talk about his history, the strange reach of Oakland rap, and his love of soft rock.

Noisey: How did you get started rapping?
J. Stalin: I always loved music … when I was a kid, I was the kid out of all my friends that had every CD. Like you know there’s one kid that’s got all the video games, one kid’s got the basketball and the football, I was the kid that had all the CD’s. I had CD’s my other friends couldn’t even listen to. I had Too $hort tapes when I was like seven. My auntie used to buy the CD’s for me, not my mom and my mom would be like “where’d you get that from?”

But I started taking rapping seriously when I went to jail. When I was 16 I got busted for selling drugs, I got busted with 35 cocaine rocks on me. I went to jail, I was in juvenile hall and I just started writing, trying to kill time. When I got out of jail, I was on probation. I don’t know if you ever heard of DJ Daryl but he produced “Keep Ya Head Up” for Tupac … him and my older brother that passed away, they were childhood friends. Daryl still lived in the neighborhood, so when I got off probation I had seen Daryl on my lunch break at school, I asked him if I could come to his studio one day.

Now, I had a curfew … I would get off school at 3 and I had to be home at 6. My probation officer kept a strict leash on me so he would only let me go to certain places after that, like the library. But he would let me go to studio. That was the only place I could go and be out past my curfew.

So that kept you focused.
Yeah.

Did Daryl link you with Richie Rich?
Yeah Richie came to his house and heard a song I had recorded and then he asked me to work with him on his album [2002’s Nixon Pryor Roundtree] … that was the first time I ever wrote hooks for somebody and all that. Daryl moved to Vegas, but I had started goin’ to The Grill where Rich and them recorded anyway.

Who else was recording at The Grill?
Mac Dre, B-Legit … that’s where I met E–40 for the first time.

Where’s The Grill relative to West Oakland?
That’s in Emeryville, five minutes from where I grew up. Man, it’s crazy, they put a little city [Emeryville] right in the middle of Oakland. You’d be in Emeryville, you cross the street to the left into West Oakland and to the right you’re in North Oakland. It’s mostly businesses. not too many houses. Pixar is there.

How did you first learn about Joseph Stalin?
I did a paper on him in 11th grade! I had to do a big-ass essay on him, I read a few books on him, one about his time as a dictator and one about the young Stalin, about how he came up.

You’re from West Oakland and your stuff is more on the thuggin’ side, but Oakland’s also made so much poppier stuff. Is West Oakland more typified by the hard stuff and East Oakland more poppy?
When I was coming up, we called dudes from East Oakland pretty boys. West Oakland was more grimy. The difference between a West Oakland dude and a East Oakland dude is, say they’re both rich, the East Oakland dude would look rich. The West Oakland dude wouldn’t care.

So it’s kind of like Harlem compared to Brooklyn?
Yeah.

But your sound and the Livewire sound, but that’s the sound of West Oakland.
Yeah, my sound is West Oakland for sure.

Can you explain how Bay Area rap and especially your type of Oakland shit got these isolated fan bases in Kansas City and Ohio?
It’s the midwest, period. Like MC Breed from Detroit, he been coming to Oakland. I don’t know if you heard of Rich the Factor … Rich the Factor is from Kansas City but he was living in Frisco for a long time. He went to Kansas City and just kept in touch with people. I don’t know how it started, but they say the mob been goin’ out there … like the music mob, the mob sound – E–40, The Luniz, all of that.

So it goes back to the 90’s.
Yeah.

How old is Rich the Factor?
He hella old! Like 40’s.

[Editor’s Note: Later on, we figured out that Oakland’s status as a west-coast manufacturing hub probably attracted workers from the auto industry in cities like Akron, Toledo and across the Rust Belt. As people went back to visit their relatives over the years, the music traveled too.]

How have you seen Oakland change over the years? Is it getting better, is it still pretty rough?
It’s still pretty violent but everything is remodeled so it don’t look grimy. If you’re not from there, you might think you’re in a good area … but you can change the appearance but you can’t change the people.

Was it like they had towers and they knocked them down or did they just rebuild everything?
They just rebuilt everything. I go to some cities and it looks like the same shit’s been there since the 1800’s. Oakland ain’t like that. Everything’s new.

Going back to talking about growing up being into all types of music, I seen you in interviews talking about Prince and 80’s music … what’s your favorite 80’s records?
Let’s see … Prince my favorite artist but my favorite 80’s record is “Saturday Love” [by Cherelle and Alexander O’Neal]. “Erotic City,” “17 days”—that’s a Prince song but it wasn’t on an album. “Tell Me” by SOS Band. I saw Prince twice, saw him at the Paramount in Oakland and I saw him at the BET Awards. I ain’t been to no rap concerts though, that’s crazy! I been to a lot of rock concerts … last rap concert I went to was Jay Z and Mary J. Blige.

What you been into lately rap-wise?
Been listening to Rick Ross … I like YG’s album, I like the way it’s put together, how the skits go with the song. They took Dr. Dre formula. What else I been listening to?
Michelle, his Publicist: Soft rock!
Stalin: Yeah, I fuck with soft rock.

What kind of soft rock are we talkin’? Like Yacht Rock or Matchbox 20?
Oh, Matchbox 20! I been to see them in concert twice! I been to see Rob Thomas in concert, James Blunt in concert! What’s my new song, the one I went crazy over in the airport? It’s one word that starts with an ‘s’?

I got no idea.
Michelle: It’s not Train is it?
Stalin: No, not train.

I feel like you’d love Train though. That’s that dentist office music.
Nah … this what he be sayin’ in the song … sings “I’m better off now than I ever was with her …” Is it Staind?

It can’t be Staind.
I gotta pull it up for you before we leave. [To manager] Yo, call my baby mama!

Oh you just had a kid right?
Yeah, he’ll be three months on the 17th. But hold up, she got it in her phone because I sent it to her like “listen to this.”

OK but back to rap … YG’s album is very gang-centric. Does Oakland have a gang probem?
It used to be neighborhood shit but the youngsters, they just coming up with their own little clicks. There’s a gang called, like, Money Team, they just took Mayweather’s whole shit.

But they aren’t affiliated or anything?
Nah, it ain’t nothing real, it’s just little clicks. But it used to be neighborhood territory to where, you were from where you’re from and if this person’s from over here, y’all couldn’t be cool. but now it’s like … people from East Oakland, West Oakland, North Oakland are all like … “Gas Team” and shit …

You’d think that would be better … is it less violent?
No it’s way more violent. The youngsters … like you say, we was crack babies. These kids is growin up now, they’re ecstasy babies. They’re worse.

You would think that would make them peaceful, like they’d wanna just hang out and dance and shit, nah?
I mean … remember when ecstasy got real big in the urban area – everything hit us late, white people been knew what ecstasy was, but everything hit us late. Imagine all these fuckin kids and young people that just got high and had sex and had babies off ecstasy. Like, “Oh shit I’m pregnant, I don’t even know who the daddy is. I was high off ecstasy.”

So it’s more about people being wild reckless and having a lot of babies …
Yeah like, two people made a baby high and when you coming down off ecstasy you’re like … “Damn, I slept with her last night?”

I don’t mean this in a bad way at all, but you can hear the poppier tracks on this album.
Yeah, I just tried to do more, like, uptempo music. My biggest hits have been uptempo songs. My fans like when I rap over that shit even though it aint necessarily my favorite type of shit to rap over. My fans really like that shit. So I just wanted to get back to the essence of making music for the people instead of making that music for me.

Tell me about the name of the album, #SID.
It came from my cousin who passed away … I got his name tattooed on my back, his name was Sidney but we called him Sid. I wanted to dedicate it to him but I wanted to find an acronym to go with the name. But I felt like shining in darkness, that’s a good way to describe the music scene, you feel me? It’s a lot of independant people in Oakland that’s making a lot of money but you don’t really know because there’s not a spotlight shinin’ on Bay Area music like that. It’s coming back now, but for the most part we just over there shining in darkness.

I know you been grinding independently for a long time and you got a fan base that’s gonna ride with you regardless, but were you looking to get a radio hit this time around and expand a little bit?
Nah I was just trying to make something they could dance to. Instead of always making some depressed music.

What’s your favorite shit to rhyme over if not the uptempo shit?
I like samples a lot … I like mob shit, I like piano-driven music. Like soft rock! Saxophone is like my favorite instrument.

Piano and saxophone … do you know about Yacht Rock? you ever heard Michael McDonald?
Yeah he’s saucy, he sounds black!

You fuck with Steely Dan?
Nah.

You’d love Steely Dan. They’re super soft but all their songs about dealing heroin in the 70’s.
Yeah I’d fuck with that. Yo I found the song!

[Editor’s Note: The song in question is “Nothing” by The Script. I had video of Stalin singing along with the YouTube but Instagram ate it.]

Skinny Friedman would like to distract you from the fact that you can't spell "Skinny Friedman" without "EDM." He's on Twitter - @skinny412

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