KJ-52: Doing good, got the new record out, got the baby on the way, getting older, y'know? You know it's been a big shift. I was looking back - I've done five records. Five records. It's almost at the point where I don't have to prove myself. I mean, I still do, you know? Fifth album - only because of the way the music business is right now, it's like the first album again.

KJ-52: Because it's like a changing of the guard. In seven years, a whole new generation of kids has come up. So y'know, I have to go back and prove that I'm still relevant to those kids. But, at the same token, it's a different generation of buyers. Kids today are like: "Well I deserve to have this music." Y'know? It's not like a privilege. Y'know what I mean? My age, maybe a little younger, we were like, it was a privilege to have a record. You waited for that release date, and you couldn't wait, and you wanted that CD, and you opened it up, and you read the liner notes, and you experienced an album. (John: Yes!) It wasn't like, 'let me go get "Laffy Taffy" off iTunes for .99 cents.' But that's the mentality of kids now.

KJ-52: It’s like going from experiencing the record, to… (John: It’s the “gotta have it now attitude”) It is. And it’s not going to change. If anything, that will be the norm. (Amy DiBiase: Call it the generation for immediate gratification.) It is. I mean, it’s not even that. I remember watching stupid MTV all day just to watch the one rap video they were going to play, late at night, and now it’s like five seconds to go onto Youtube to watch a video. *Laughter* You know what I mean? Like, literally. (John: At least you save time!) It does, and I love it, I’m an iPod guy. I’m a technology dude, to the "T," but it’s a different mentality. Trying to convince the kids to buy CDs. That’s why I say I’m on my fifth album but it feels like my first album. It really does. Because of that, I know I need to go out and hit the road, just like I used to, I gotta grind it out, I’ve got shake hands, I’ve gotta kiss babies. *Laughter* I have to do all that stuff again. Really, I do. Because, seven years ago, that kid that is 15 now, seven years ago was 8. Those kids that are 10, were 3. It’s a totally different mentality.

KJ-52: It's true. I don’t mind, I mean, my whole life has been an uphill battle, so I’m like, "I’ve totally been here before." But at least you want to be like, “Oh good I can relax… oh man, I can’t!” *Laughter* You’re like, “Oh I don’t have to cut the grass today. I can let---oh I gotta cut the grass today. Ok fine, I’ve been cutting the grass all my life. I’ll go cut the grass again.” But it’s literally like that.

KJ-52: Honestly, I’ve been reading in Isaiah, chapter 40, and everything there is like God saying to Isaiah, “I’m with you, I’m here for you.” It takes on this whole new personal perspective, like God’s saying this. It’s very personal. And man, it’s just been rocking my world. Like everything in the industry, is falling apart. And I finally felt that this record, when I went to try to do things for the last seven years that I could usually do before, and they’re like “We can’t do that for you” because the budgets are slashed. I mean, it’s not even that my label is doing bad. But because we’re under the whole umbrella, we have to feel the brunt of every other label that’s doing bad. It finally started hitting me, I’m like “Dang!” You know? You get a little comfortable, and you realize, it’s like you’re a new artist again. Which, you know, if you would have told me when I’m on my fifth album that, this is my ninth GMA... (John: Really?) It’s my ninth GMA. I was very blown away. (John: That's crazy)

KJ-52: Yeah, I mean, you’re like: “Can I get someone to do the dishes for me now?” I have to go do the dishes. It’s weird, but coming here now, being with some of the guys that have been my contemporaries, or guys I knew way back when I first started, that are still coming here, doing their thing, these are the same guys who, five, six years ago, we would all just sit around, no one would stop when I would talk. And now they stop, and I have this like, bevy of Yoda wisdom to give, y'know? People would actually stop me and really want to hear my opinion, and they would be like “Well what do you think of the state if Christian hip-hop?” I’m like, who really cares what I have to say? But people are really interested. Those things to me, I’m like, "Woah. What happened? How did I get to this point?"

KJ-52: It is weird. And it’s sad to some degree, because you see a lot of my contemporaries dropping like flies, y'know? I mean, I went to the Rooftop last night, and it was pretty packed. I’m like, "this is pretty good, cuz I could remember six, seven years ago, there’d be nothing like that." That it’s actually happening, but then I think, we can all pat ourselves on the back, and then go, we’re all still in bad shape. (John: Yeah. But there’s been progression.) There has, I can even see in the five, six, seven years that I’ve done it, it’s definitely changed. But we’re still---I mean, I don’t really blame the industry though. I blame the artists. I really do, I think it’s the lack of the artist not providing the product.

KJ-52: Right. Well there still needs to be somebody who’s a champion, somebody at the higher up, some of the gatekeepers need to go, "let’s give this a shot." But I unfortunately feel that some of them said "let’s give it a shot," five years ago, and the ones they gave a shot dropped the ball. And it just reinforces that stereotype that Christian rap doesn’t sell, they’re hard to work with, they have bad attitudes, they’re not thankful, y'know? So I don’t know. It puts me in a position now, where I’m like, well I’m getting into the production game, well, why don’t I have a label? Why haven’t I found an artist? Why haven’t I put somebody out? And I honestly can’t think of anybody I wanted. Like if you were to hand me a label right now, like, "here you go KJ, here’s your label." I would be like, "I think we need to put a compilation out first, cuz I don’t have anybody. There’s nobody I can think of that I’m excited about." Maybe I’m just jaded, but y'know?

KJ-52: But that’s a period, you know? Labels now are struggling. They’re all running, hurting. Everyone’s getting their profits slashed, and the business model is gone. The idea of a big bloated CD manufacturing is gone. They can’t afford it anymore. They have to look at it like, okay, we sell downloads, ringtones, and we sell videos, it’s like a media thing.

KJ-52: Well yeah, they’ve gotta keep the lights on. Granted too, they’re a victim of their own self, their own greed because they jack CD prices up to 15 bucks, because it costs more to make the CD. Well the prices fell on CDs, you’re still making a profit. *Laughter* You could have lowered the prices a long time ago.

KJ-52: Yeah, it's crazy.

KJ-52: Well because I was doing it myself, I had to figure it out. Like I didn’t really have a process, you know what I mean? So the difference was, now you know you make a beat for somebody and take it from there, it’s easier. Now, I’m going “Ah, I just killed myself making this track, now I’ve gotta go and actually write lyrics to it too?” So a lot of it was stockpiling tracks, like I kept stockpiling tracks, I would just make beats constantly. Constantly making beats, just not stopping. So I’d go back and be like, “Ah, I really like this beat.” If it makes me write immediately, I usually know it’s going to be a good song. But sometimes I would do a track, actually a lot of times I would do a track, and then I would sit on it, and I would obsess over it, and then I would go, “I think I can make that beat better.” Like some songs went through literally four different versions of it. (John: Really?) Yeah, some were five or six versions, cuz I kept going, “Alright how do I make this better? Maybe if I tweak this here. Let me see what my bass player adds to this. Let me see what Liquid would add to this.” You know? All these different things, to finally get it to here I felt like, I can’t make this any better. So the main process would be: do a basic track in reason on my laptop, then listen back and go “Do I like the bass line?” If I don’t like the bass line, I go to my bass player and say “Well what can you add to this?” Then I listen to what he would do and I’d go “Okay, that was pretty cool. I think I like my original bass line better,” or whatever. Or go to Liquid, “Hey, what can you add here?” And then sometimes he would do something and I’d be like “Hey dude, I was messing with it again, do you think you could go back and add a chord here?” He would be like, "yeah I know." I’d call him back, by the third time he’d be like, “Yeah I know, just get it sent, send me the track.” *Laughter* He’d be like, “Yeah, you changed it again, didn’t you?” So, same with him, same with working with Pete Stewart. He would be able to finish off the guitar ideas, like the last time. (John: Really?) Yeah, Pete did all the guitar stuff, except for the stuff Aaron did. Pete did the guitars on “In The Garden.” He did the guitars on “You’ll Never Take Me Down.” (John: I don’t think we ever got the liner notes.) Ah, yeah Pete did all the guitar work except Aaron Sprinkle’s stuff. I hadn’t talked to him since the Peace of Mind record. And I got his number from Todd, and asked “Hey, are you doing anything with him?” He’s like “No, I talked to him briefly.” I literally just sent him a text, “Hey Pete, I don’t know if you remember me, we did the Peace of Mind project, I’ve got a few tracks I need to be played, what do you think?” We talked on the phone, we never stopped talking. He was like, “Yeah man, let’s do some stuff” and I think he did a great job. He really added a lot to it.

KJ-52: Sure. They were all based on real stories, real letters. But I didn’t want to take one letter and just exploit it. So I took a cross section of a lot of the letters. It’s really as if you were to go read my letters, that would be a cross section. (John: I believe it.) But I wanted it to show all different types of kids. You know, like the good church girl, to the non-church kid, to the semi-church kid, y'know? And everything in between. And I actually then, to finish it off, actually had actual fans be the voices on there. Four of the kids that are on there at the end are in, I have a hip-hop production class I teach at my church. (John: Oh really?) So it was really a combination of putting them on it to talk, and to add those parts. So, it was like my way of addressing those things without having to come out, and go “Cutting is wrong, cutting is bad. Don’t do cutting, it’ll make you sad.” *Laughter* Y'know what I mean though? It was a way of going, "here’s an example," and the kid’s are like "yeah, that’s me." So that was it.

KJ-52: Thank you. That was the only track I didn’t write the music for. Like I had a friend of mine, who works at Nike actually, do the piano riff. I produced it, did everything around it, but he just sent me this piano riff, with all this other stuff, and I’m like "dude, that is the song I’ve been trying to write." And I literally sat up in the middle of the night at two, three in the morning, and wrote the first three verses of it. Just wrote it out.

KJ-52: *Laughs* Yeah. Well, yes and no. No, it wasn’t because it was everything I wanted to say. It was hard because, I thought this is like ammunition for everyone that doesn’t like me. Cuz it’s like, “See I told you he was that way!” Y'know?

KJ-52: The original idea of the song was going to be called “No Regrets,” cuz it was talking about all the things I regretted. But saying, "well I don’t regret it anymore cuz of God," but the hook just didn’t work. So that’s when I flipped it to "can I be honest," cuz honestly, a lot of it, whether you take it away or not, a lot of it has to do with the Christian music industry. It was my way of saying, even not just that but the church, that we are so geared towards making everything perfect. We’re so geared toward this “Oh hey how are you? Oh I’m great, praise the Lord, how about you? Yeah, I’m just blessed man.” And going home, and your life is a mess. And I think too, the fans could, maybe say "yeah, that’s everything I’ve wanted to say, but I can’t say it." I’ve always been kind of transparent, but I figure it’s time to go, cuz The Yearbook was about seeing the last year of my life. That’s what I feel. I got the point where I can open this up and people will still respect you for it. So that’s what it was. It’s probably my favorite song on the record. Cuz I liked the way the music turned out. Everything I was trying to say - whenever you try to say something and you finally say it the way you wanted to say it. But again, it’s one of those songs the kids who actually buy records could care less about, y'know? They just want to hear the goofy fun stuff!

KJ-52: Yeah. Well originally, that was going to be the name of the record. It was going to be called Honest, and I played the song for my pastor - and I originally had a different title for the record - and I played him that song, and he said, "You should really call your record Honest, cuz that’s what you’re being." I talked to my pastor then about opening up that little part of you, that nobody wants to see… but then The Yearbook just sounded cooler. *Laughter*

KJ-52: Kevin, for me, we toured together on the Kutless tour. He’s just a cool dude. He’s like a country boy man. A country boy, from Knoxville. I just always appreciated him, he’s a sweet guy. He’s fun. We went running one time on tour, and I just like ditched him in the background. We always had that special moment. *Laughter* So the original idea was that Aaron Sprinkle was gonna produce the rock stuff on the record, and I was just gonna produce all the hip-hop stuff. Then Aaron’s wife had some health problems, and it was looking like he wouldn’t be doing anything on the album. So I was getting desperate. I actually, this is kind of funny, because I figured nobody would think I could produce a rock song, I produced the track. I actually produced it, and I told them Aaron did it. *Laughter* I lied to everybody. (John: Are you serious?) Because I wanted an honest opinion. So I asked them, "hey I got this track from Aaron, what do you guys think?" They’re like “This is amazing! This is the best song on your record!” I’m like, you liars! I did it! You wouldn’t have believed me if I did it! *Laughter* You just proved it! Now you’re stuck! You can’t say anything! And so when I was done with the song, I could really hear it. I just heard Kevin on it. So it was a win-win situation. I just really heard Kevin on the song. And Kevin’s like, "yeah man let’s do it." And he just came up in the studio, and cut it. The Emery one, was much different actually. You can hear the musical difference, between me producing a rock song and Aaron producing a rock song. What Aaron did was he had the music from me and he gave it to Toby, and he’s like, "Yeah, Toby’s a big fan of yours." I’m like, "For real?" He’s like, "Yeah, he’s a big fan, you guys should do a song together!" I’m like, "Emo? With hip-hop??" I could maybe see Kevin, that made a little sense, but emo and hip-hop? And we never talked on the phone. Ever. It was all through instant messanger. We just chatted. I was like, "Hey man, I got a couple song ideas, and he went to lunch, and he came back from lunch, and demoed some stuff in Garage Band. I said, "Number 2 sounds great!" He went and cut it, and we were done! Like that was it, it was that simple. It’s funny, because rock guys are the easiest ones to work with. I’m serious, the guys who deserve to be divas, and deserve to have big heads and to be a pain are the easiest people to work with. Whereas, the rappers, who have no right to think that they’re anybody are the most single-handedly hardest people to work with. It really makes no sense. But I’m telling you, Kevin came in all nonchalant, into the studio, did his thing, and boom! He’s done. It was like he has every right to be a rock star, and he's not. (John: I love people like that.) Oh me too! I get people who give me a hard time, "why don’t you put more rappers on your record?" I’m like, "Dude, if you only knew. You don’t understand. Never mind, I won’t even go that route." People are like, "why are you always doing these rock songs with these people?" Uh, because first of all, it’s easy, and people actually buy the songs and like them. It is what it is. But yeah, the song with Emery, I was like, "I don’t know if this is going to work. Even when I got the song done, I was like, "This is so far extreme, he’s screaming? He’s screaming on a rap record!" I really had some doubts, I was like, we have got to take one of these songs off. I mean, I don’t care if you take my song off with Kevin, just take one of these rock songs off, cuz it’s too much rock on the record!! They’re like, "No, it’s cool, kids are going to like it, they’re really gonna like it." I’m like, "The kids are going to HATE me." *Laughter* I really was like that. They’re going to hate this song, they’re going to hate me. And it’s like the best single I’ve had, out the gate. It’s literally the best rock single I’ve had. It might be the best rock single. It makes no sense. Even the hip-hop heads are like, "I’m feelin’ that Emery stuff man." Nothing makes sense anymore. *Laughter* I’ll accept the rock award at the Doves next year. I’ll be like, "Yes, thank you, I always thought this would work. Thank you." *Laughter*

KJ-52: You know, I can think of a lot of guys when I first started that not necessarily I worked with, but some of the earlier pioneers of Christian hip-hop, the guys that really paved the way, that really deserve the Dove awards, and never really got the credit. Those were the guys - like the old Sugar Hill Gangs, they never got any props for it. Those are the guys that made an impression to me, because when I got saved, coming out of that into Christian hip-hop, that was a big deal for me.

KJ-52's latest album The Yearbook is available now!