Today we’d like to introduce you to James Bishop.
James, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
We’ll take it ALL the way back to when I got inspired to make beats when I was 17 during my senior year in high school in 2005. One of my best friends (shout out to Bell Boi) and I were in a Japanese class at U. City High and we had to make a project he used some really dope custom music for his own project at the time and it caught my attention.
I asked where he got that from and he said he made it himself on this program called Fruity Loops (now known as FL Studio). Unfortunately, I didn’t have the best computer, at the time, until I went to the now-defunct ITT Tech that same year in September and got a laptop from them and found a cracked version online of Fruity Loops 4 to use since you know, broke college student stuff.
I learned how to make beats on that and I just ran with that honestly. One of my other best friends from high school was rapping locally at the time (shout out to my bro Delontate) and he basically helped me on how to make beats for people to rap on and I went from there. For the most part outside of some help over the years from different people on how to use certain functions and mixing techniques, I’m about 90% self-taught with making beats.
I still use FL Studio to this day (of course an official version). Ironically that same year in 2005 because of Tha Carter album by Lil’ Wayne (who I also was a big fan of back then), I got my inspiration for my producer name JBJR (my initials and suffix) from the song “BM JR”.
I had a Three 6 Mafia-type sound when I started since I was (and still am to this day) a big fan of theirs until about maybe 2007 or so when I was watching Adult Swim on Cartoon Network and heard J Dilla beats being advertised for his “Donuts” album via the short commercials they had called “bumps”. One beat in particular (Welcome To The Show) was the beat that made me start to sample.
I self-taught myself that and was remaking beats I heard by Dilla (RIP), Kanye West, Nujabes (RIP), 9th Wonder, and Pete Rock to get a feel of it and then started remixing them to have my own flair. Wasn’t the best stuff in the world at the time but hey, have to start somewhere right?
Fast forward to ’09 and one of my parents’ next-door neighbors at the time rapped (my man Champ Johnson) and connected me with my now good friend, the local producer Trifeckta, at one of his events at The Loft via one of his boys E. He told me about these beat battles that took place in The Grove area at Atomic Cowboy, so I decided to go one night to watch one of his battles to support and instantly fell in love with the whole thing.
He introduced me to who also became a good friend of mine, DJ Who of Basement Sound System DJ, who was hosting the event. I asked how to get in the battles and signed up for the following one and lost that battle, but it was expected since I was new to the whole scene at the time but I got a lot of love on my stuff from different people in the crowd and I just started going to the weekly events until I started to win more consistently.
I got into Hip-Hopper’s Holiday battle that summer of ’09 and I came in 2nd in that battle to Trifeckta himself but received MASSIVE love from everyone in the crowd when I beat the reigning champion of the beat battles on a whim (shout out to my man Ben Bounce) and that’s how I became known for real within the local scene for my beats.
From there, I worked with local rappers over time like Rockwell Knuckles, Indiana Rome, Tef Poe, Doughboy STL Jonezy, Ducky Hines, Woo Child, Legend Camp, Jus Time, etc. Eventually, when the event Fresh Produce STL became a thing in 2010. I was the 3-time champion from 2011 to 2013 and then I retired from battling locally but still did some beat battles online and did a lot of networking that way via Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
I’m now the Head Judge for all of the Fresh Produce events, both in-person and online, and have been since 2015.
Due to that networking, I eventually met and became cool with comedian Jovan Bibbs and he introduced me to the crew of the podcast Straight Outta Locash. I was a guest on one of their episodes and they were pretty amazed by how much I knew about geek culture since I ALWAYS was a comic, anime, and gaming nerd. I built a relationship with those guys and eventually, we made a spin-off podcast cast for geek culture called “The Lando Cal Experience”.
That introduced me to the podcasting world at large as a podcaster and not just a listener. From there, I eventually created a podcast for the Fresh Produce events called “Fruit of The Boom Podcast” and now I’m also a part of another podcast called “The Casual Fighter Podcast” with my longtime friends Bell Boi, Zerobeat, and Epidemic Phaze, which is dedicated to the world of fighting games.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It was definitely some work involved, for sure with doing beats and podcasting.
When I was battling, I was using broken and limited equipment since I only had so much to work with at the time financially. This was a blessing in disguise since it did teach me alot about my own creativity and being able to make lemonade out of lemons.
That drive and my networking skills got me in positions where I was able to upgrade my equipment through various sources like my good friend Matt Sawicki of Suburban Pro and my good friend and producer Brian Hughes aka B-Money, who now works for Sweetwater.
At this point with making beats for artists, I still do now since it was a kind of struggle doing it before I started putting work on sites like Soundcloud and BeatStars and networking with not only local artists, but artists all over the country and some even internationally.
For podcasting, it was an easier transition since I was able to go to home studios of friends like DJ Reminise from Straight Outta Locash and professional studios like Suburban Pro. I had to find my groove on how to make sure to have meaningful conversations and interviews and found it was best to just go with the flow and still stay true to myself.
I now do more podcasting on Zoom, due to the times and advances in technology, but I still do in-person recordings to this day.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
When it comes to my beats, I think what really set me apart from a lot of the producers in STL was the fact that I sampled with a soulful sound but made it very modern-day and used very intricate and precise chopping techniques that I just picked up on just listening to J Dilla, Kanye, and 9th Wonder more than anything else.
I really became known for that within the local scene since I found a way to make that my own. I REALLY like to sample since I can make original beats all day but it’s something about taking an older sound and transforming it into a whole different composition that really sticks with me.
I really grew from that with quality and consistency and now I want to get into more TV and film scoring with my original work. I have my own brand for my work called Just Beats, Joy, and Rhythm, LLC.
I would definitely say, I’m most proud of the impact that I helped bring with Fresh Produce STL from being a former competitor with my sound to now being the Head Judge and podcaster and helping put together these events and how it’s bringing together alot of producers that range from beginners to veterans, especially within the STL area.
The community aspect of that and the positivity it brings (especially with the many fans of the events) more than anything else is what really makes doing it worthwhile. That event helped made me who I am today as both a producer and podcaster since I never would’ve met any of the people I know today without competing in that and networking my butt off 13 years ago.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
Well, a big thing that helped me win a lot of my beat battles back in the day was listening to one particular soundtrack: Street Fighter 3: Third Strike. That’s my all-time favorite fighting game and the soundtrack on that? AMAZING.
What made me study that was the way a track played during a round and then would remix itself in the next round. That taught me how to keep people guessing about my beats and how to be more creative with them at the same time. I recommend anyone that makes beats to listen to that soundtrack. You will learn so much from that.
A major reason why I did succeed and am still able to succeed is definitely my beautiful wife Erica, who stuck by my side throughout all of my ups and downs and spoke nothing but encouraging words towards me. Having someone like that in your corner is paramount.
I will always love her and appreciate her for that alone.
Contact Info:
- Email: jbjrofficial@gmail.com
- Website: jbjrofficial.beatstars.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/jbjrofficial
- Facebook: facebook.com/jbjrofficial
- Twitter: twitter.com/jbjrofficial
Image Credits
@skatesocks and @freshproducestl
