J.I. on Almost Giving Up, Future collabs w/ Tego, Drake, Latinos in Hip Hop, Big Pun, 2 Pac, Eminem

Hard Knock Tv’s Nick Huff Barili sits down with J.I. the Prince of NY for in-depth interview. #JI talks childhood growing up in Crown Heights, hustling cds and books to survive. J.I. shares that 2 Pac, Big Pun and Eminem are his main musical influences and that he wanted to sample Big Pun’s “Its So Hard” but that some industry stuff got in the way of that happening. Three albums that J.I. thinks represent him the most include Big Pun “Capital Punishment”, Kendrick Lamar’s “Good Kid Maad City” and Eminem’s “Marshall Mathers lp”. One of J.I.’s favorite movies is 8 Miles and he shares that he had a similar moment to the battle scene when he was on the tv show The Rap Game. After the tv show ended J.I. got booed of stage which cause him to almost walk away from the rap industry and go work with his dad in construction. During the two year hiatus from Rap J.I. switched some things around and dropped what ended up being his first gold record “Need Me.” J.I. says that it was conversations with God that kept him on track even when he got kick out of his Mom’s house. As the interview continues J.I. lets us into his creative process and shares what it was like to see #Drake singing his songs on IG. J.I. says that he could see a future collaboration with Drake who he says is the Lebron of the Rap game. J.I. also talks about his first trip to Puerto Rico last year, where he hung out with #Tego Calderón, whom he might drop a track with in the future. J.I. also details how him and Myke Towers came together on the song “Spanglish” and how “Suficiente” and “Dakiti rmx” came to be. J.I. and Nick talk about the lack of a spotlight being placed on Latino MCs even thought Latino’s have been part of Hip Hop since its origin and how J.I. wants to break down the door for more Latin artists to shine in Hip Hop. Before the interview ends J.I. mentions that a track he is featured on with Dimelo Flow, Sech and Tyga is about to drop, that he is working on his debut album and that you can expect to see him acting in a big screen near you in the future.

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