An Interview With Charlotte Curator Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon

One of the unintended benefits of interviewing artists over Zoom is getting a voyeuristic glimpse of their studios and workspaces. Some are messy by necessity or bad habit, while others are pristine temples of gear. But what's especially satisfying to see are the curatorial touches, the ephemera and totems hiding in plain sight that spark conversations and provide insights.

Affixed to Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon's wall is the stuff of a makeshift moodboard–a vision board, perhaps–cutouts culled from fashion magazines, populated by the likes of Erykah Badu and Zendaya, showcasing designers such as Alexander McQueen. Previously the space had hosted promotional shots and stylized advertisements from old hip-hop magazines including Ozone and XXL as well as culturally adjacent publications like the notorious Don Diva. "My daughter don't need to be seeing all that," the Charlotte-bred rapper quips of those former occupants.

At 32 years old, Ogbon naturally has different priorities, personally and professionally as well as creatively. He's actively thinking about his Jewelry Rap brand, to be sure, but his progression musically seems logically front of mind with the late-January release of As Of Now, his full-length debut for Lex Records. It comes after a considerable and uncharacteristic gap between projects, arriving two-and-a-half years since I’ve Really Never Been Better capped off a prodigious early/mid-2020s run of self-released Bandcamp-led efforts that contained the Navy Blue-produced standout Beautifully Black.

"I used to release three projects a year," he says of his prior approach, which came to an abrupt close as a prerequisite for working with a new label partner. "Signing with Lex exclusive, anybody who knows what that means, you can't go on your God Fahim dump."

Sealing the deal mere months before I’ve Really Never Been Better dropped also gave Ogbon a chance to reflect on how he wanted to move going forward. "I had an album prepared to turn in, but I really wanted to think about it like, do I want to give people the same project that I've been giving them, or do I want to grow? Do I want to diversify my sound?" Though his public output appeared to halt, he stayed actively creating. "I was working every day, but more strategic."

A deliberately varied set of songs, As Of Now serves as a reintroduction both to and for Ogbon, presenting his current incarnation to those pandemic day-ones while allowing himself to demonstrate his expanded capabilities to new audiences as well as a certain audience of one. "I just took a lot of risks with this album," he says, citing Ye's Yeezus as direct example and indirect inspiration. "You know what space we're in, as far as this indie underground sound, so I wanted to use this as an opportunity to really take a leap."

During this time, he traveled and relocated on a number of occasions, to Atlanta and Columbus, Georgia, to Florence and Darlington, South Carolina, and to his spiritual second-home in New York City. "I put in a lot of work in Charlotte, like six, seven albums, a hundred shows out here, and I never really felt the love until I went to New York," Ogbon says, citing a Brooklyn show booked by Sidewaalk Kal as particularly impactful. "Starker came through, Brainorchestra came through. A lot of people came through and showed love and let me know like, yo, you got love out here."

He reverently refers to the city as hip-hop's cultural mecca, rattling off tri-state greats from Dipset to Redman as early influences on his own sound. "When I started rapping, I wanted to make New York sounding music," he admits, and he paid homage to that tradition on his two-part project Seventy-Fifth & Amsterdam. "Once I found out about the Top Shelf Premium side of it, that's when everything really opened up. As long as you real and you say you are who you are, New York is going to support."

Among the overt differences present on As Of Now is Ogbon's intentional break with the so-called drumless production style that often defined his previous projects. "I first found out about drumless hip-hop through [the] producer Michaelangelo," he says, recalling that he subsequently reached out to buy a beat from the Boston beatmaker as well as a verse from rapper Estee Nack. "I don't want to look like I'm stealing what's going on. I want to be validated by the people who's really doing it."

Aiming to retain that authenticity while broadening his style for As Of Now, he connected with a wider range of producers than ever before, including Chuck Strangers, jesusmagazines, and Zoomo as well as the aforementioned Navy Blue. Though cognizant that some fans might be taken aback by his newfound deployment of triplet flows over uptempo instrumentals, he felt a need to switch things up.

"I'm really a Southern based artist, so there's been a bunch of flows and beats I've always wanted to do," he says. To that end, he tapped Tennessee dynamo bbymutha for "360 Photo Booth" and hometown hero Deniro Farrar for "King Of Charlotte (I Feel Like Trolling)." The latter, a momentous trap team-up between two of the city's most prominent rappers, comes after years of relationship building and mutual respect.

"Deniro is one of the first artists in Charlotte who took it there, and then DaBaby came up after him and took it there," he says. (Fun fact: Ogbon and DaBaby went to high school together.) "Deniro for real was that hip-hop artist who was always outside hustling their music, And he has that street element to him too, so he's known in the community more than for his music." He remembers buying The Patriarch off of him on CD at a store near where he used to live as a teen. "Then I seen him at church one time; Deniro was in there selling his music. This lady, she tapped him, like, hey, did you bring the CD? I said, yo, this man is hustling!"

Eventually, the two connected properly, with Farrar inviting Ogbon to a Dreamville-styled rap camp session, taking over a Charlotte multi-studio space with a number of different producers and rappers. It proved an educational experience for him, one that continued when the more experienced artist shared advice with the younger one in the lead up the Lex signing. Given this, it seemed only fair that Farrar be part of the actual record. "When I was making the 'King Of Charlotte' record, I just heard his voice and I shouted over to him, like, man, could you put some vocals on his record? And he was like, yo, no problem. So he did the hook for it."

Even with that serendipitous experience, there were others who didn't answer Ogbon's call. While he doesn't appear to pressed about it, he can't help but wonder what As Of Now might have been with their involvement. "A lot of this album is a lot of people not responding back to it," he says. "Because if a lot of people would've responded back, we don't know what kind of album we could've had.

"We could have had a hip-hop classic."

AJ Suede, Psydeye

(buy it / stream it)

Joining a sample-free hip-hop tradition that includes fellow rapper-producers as Kool Keith and RZA As Bobby Digital, the Seattle-based AJ Suede steps into a strange new lane for his latest self-released project Psydeye. Admittedly, he's openly ventured into psychedelic and mystical places before, but on tracks like "Disjointed" and the inspired/inspiring "Drawing Bored," he's a veritable merry prankster, with a greater understanding of acid rap than Chance ever had. Lush, immersive synths feature heavily into the mix here, playfully threatening to overwhelm his intricate bars on "Spinninagain" and "Troublesum." This sonic saturation only makes the constant nature of his vocal delivery more compelling, his words anchoring the listening experience on "Lefted Alone" and "Wii Up." Midway through, the instrumental interlude "Burial" conjures dungeon synth grandeur and trippy Tangerine Dream sheen, while the closing "Electric Grill (Outro)" waves good-bye as a spaced-out lullaby with TB-303 type bass squelch.

Skip The Kid, Mean Gene Ringside Series 3

(buy it / stream it)

Pennsylvania beatmaker Skip The Kid launched his Mean Gene Ringside Series back in 2023, its first two volumes of WWE-inspired productions featuring verses by mask-on spitters like Action Figure 973 and New Villain. For this third installment, the boom bap bruiser proudly and enthusiastically displays his pro-wrestling fandom with some throwback naming conventions and ample assistance from underground emcees such as Jules Clay and Mourning Run . Clearly well versed in the Superstars era, Queens rapper The REbel Sky calls back to classic matches and doles out nostalgic culture nods on "Lou Albano." Long Island luchador Gustavo Louis brings cocksure energy to the bell-ringer "British Bulldogs," while fellow tri-staters Patty Honcho and Knowitall goes in on standout "The Undertaker."

Three new tracks to snack on...

CRIMEAPPLE & Evidence, "Dr Scholl's"

Len-Dor & Travisty the Lazy Emcee, "It’s Like That"

Chyna Baejing & Boneweso, "HELLOKITTY (feat. THEHIDDENCHARACTER)"