By Benjamin Joe

(Image above: Jazzie Jay. Photo by Benjamin Joe)

Jazzie Jay, aka Jaylah Duncan is back from L.A. with some new sounds and a new single. Widely known from the Buffalo hip-hop scene, she said this new single is one of six-tracks that she made while on the West Coast

Duncan said she didn’t really start rapping until about five years ago. At that point, she was attending classes at SUNY Buffalo State University as an independent studies major in performing arts, learning a lot about hip hop, including the famed hip hop pioneer DJ Jazzy Jay. She started putting up her playlists on Soundcloud.

Now, fresh from a fall visit to Los Angeles, Duncan, 25, has released “Leftovers (Freestyle in LA),” which can be found on Youtube and on other streaming media and she has returned to Buffalo to play shows and lay down the blueprint for the next chapter in her life.

In a recent interview in a downtown coffee shop, Duncan talked about her life: Her move to Charlotte, N.C., from Buffalo in her childhood, her culture as a person who was raised in the Nation of Islam and within the Baptist Church simultaneously, her triumphant return to the Queen City in college and her fundamental wish to go abroad for a few years and conquer cities worldwide.

She also shared more about her second stage alias: “Da Bad Guy.”

“I was always a bad guy as far as somebody has to be it,” she said. “I got to break the bad news to you. I got to hit it with a bad note. But also it became a thing in the community, especially like this fake ass, weird ass art music scene. I always ended up being the one at fault for s**t.

“I don’t even know what I did. I don’t do nothing to nobody. But when s**t happens, it’s always like, ‘That’s because Jazzie did this, that and the third …’ It’s like what? But now I say, ‘Yeah, it is because of me!’ I’ll take that credit. I did do it. Anything y’all think I did. I’m the super villain, I’m the bad guy.”

Duncan said that a lot of her lyrics, and attitude, come from a place of deep anger. She said she was an angry kid, but that she thinks she’s found a way to positively channel that energy through her music.

That’s one of the reasons that creativity is so important to her, she said.

Some tracks to listen to? How about both Volume I and II of “The Hoodrat Playlist?” (Volume II can be found here) Described by Duncan as “party music” and “nostalgia,” it hits the beat like a metronome, putting out rhymes and rhythms for a wide audience.

Contributed image

She said she’s also using “The Junkie Filez” (with the “go.org” video found here) as a place to upload all her songs, taking from new and old alike of her compilations and working with different producers.

Duncan also said in terms of collaborations, she appreciates a producer who challenges her talent, not delivering the same beat over and over, but facing her with new music and ideas where her creativity can grow.

And that’s what Duncan says she is really about. Whether it’s music, art — she curated her own art show in a project called the “Junkie Art Kollection” — or fashion or film, she’s constantly got her nose to the grindstone.

“It’s this or nothing else,” she said.

Duncan doesn’t give any favors though. Describing the journey she and other Buffalo artists and musicians are on as a relay race, she’s frank about her aspirations to win.

“I can give you the baton and hope you win the race, or I can keep running and win this s**t for all of us,” she said. “I’m not holding any doors open for nobody.

“When it’s time to bust through that door — and now we cracking that code — there’s no way I can’t be there. You can’t erase me. And that’s my biggest thing. I tell my friends to get on their s**t. Because when they’re coming for me, they’re coming for me.”