A Jailhouse Interview With EBK Jaaybo
Calling from San Joaquin County Jail on the eve of his 21st birthday and his biggest project to date, Stockton firebrand EBK Jaaybo has a lot on his mind.
Image via Ramal Brown
Steven Louis will not migrate Slack to Teams, he has no idea what any of those words mean.
The hottest breakthrough rap act in California is once again locked up. This is the first time that EBK Jaaybo has been charged as an adult. It’s also the first time that he’s been incarcerated with a charting single to his name. But everything else is numbingly, perversely par for the course.
The arrests began when he was 14 years old. A series of gun and burglary charges first sent him into perdition, a punitive sentence for a child mired in poverty and grappling with the murder of his father. At 21, Jaymani Gorman is now serving his seventh stint behind bars. He's developed a routine, the self-described "dance moves" to cope with confinement. Once again, lyrics and video stills are in a California rapper's case discovery files. Jaaybo has dealt with California’s gang enhancement penal code so many times that he can recite it word for word. To paraphrase another historically great rapper ensnared in the state’s cycles of bloodlust and jealousy: it’s regular but it's definitely not normal.
EBK Jaaybo is the consummate artist for a country undergirded by violence and a society starved for unvarnished truth. He hails from Stockton, once the owner of the nation’s highest foreclosure rate and still the largest American city to declare bankruptcy. He is the human incarnation of Omar Little in the courtroom, rendering a shotgun and a briefcase as functionally indistinguishable. He’s one of the sharpest and most thrilling rappers alive right now, yet unlike most of his caliber, he seldom raps about his own rhyming prowess. Syllables get drawn out with snide enunciation before collapsing into frigidity and superboosted bass.
On “Apocalypse,” one of his first hits, Jaaybo puts together “Glock lifter,” “shot sender” and “mob member” with the attentive aggression of a gangland kingpin trying to teach stage direction. Schemes are tripled up with careful density before being unceremoniously dropped for a new, equally tangled rhyme. It’s gruff and chaotic, AAA/B cadences that feel like prime Steve Francis contorting to finish a self alley oop over the opposing center.
His breakout hit “Boogieman” is a singular oddity for viral music, one of the most unlikely social media smashes of this generation. The pressurized bass damn near rattles a phone screen, synching on the down beat with borderline arhythmic key smashing. It’s blemished jet-black anti-pop, a gladiator’s theme for the year 2100, with Jaaybo “dropping bangers with no hooks again”. Somehow, it has reached the “hot women doing choreographed dances” part of TikTok.
Jaaybo’s mushrooming popularity belies the music’s cruelty and vitriol. The opps are not faceless; in fact, entire songs like “Fly Exterminator” and “Had Enough” are smirking, blood-soaked dedications to a Stockton rival set. Some songs, like the searing emo banger anthem “Do Not Disturb,” are compression chambers for pain and trauma. Others, like the Beabadoobee-sampling “Death Bedz,” feel like reconciling with broken pride – “they say I’m valuable but move like I ain’t worth a cent”. It stings every replay.
The latest project, a 21-track collection called The Reaper, is mostly what he calls “straight-up street shit.” He’s aware that this energy works counterclockwise to his rehabilitation efforts, but he seems content to let his listeners sort out the contradictions and the discomfiting intersections. The motifs are strange and unique if not chillingly hyper-specific. Jaaybo loves firearm switches and vector clip magazines, he’s spinning like a tornado and eliminating rivals with a fly swatter. The ski masks are still on the ground. Conspicuous silences in the middle of verses still create gaps for things left unsaid. There are no features here, just raw and unforgiving menace.
We connected with Jaaybo from San Joaquin County Jail, where he gave his first official interview since going back down for illegal firearm possession by a felon in January. The night before his 21st birthday, Jaaybo spoke with righteous defiance and a hardened familiarity with solitude. Again, no part of the carceral experience is new to him. But Jaaybo shares a clear and motivated vision of what his future holds. Jaaybo sees a mansion for his kids to grow up in, far away from Stockton; they’ll never know what their father’s Nightingale block looks like, or how it feels to have their heads on perpetual swivel.
He reveals that he’ll be back home in four months, with plans to tour and make new music. He says that he misses his fallen soldiers and his father Rary, but no longer believes that physical presence is the measure of company. As he sees it, he’s never going to “die by the gun,” but he also doesn’t think he’s living by it any longer.
(This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.)
https://open.spotify.com/album/5DyuTZUXgZBk40wy03M17o?si=BLntUBZPTWecmmEgEMK5BA
What’s going on, Jaaybo?
EBK Jaaybo: I’m feeling good, bro. I just got my package. Kool Aid, the ranch flavor Doritos, stuff like that.
What are you more appreciative of these days?
EBK Jaaybo: The little things. Honestly, just waking up. And the fact that fans are still supporting a n–. I don’t get caught up in the bullshit. I’m thankful for this Kool Aid especially right now, because it’s like 100 degrees here, on G.
You say that a lot, either on tracks or in conversation. On the G, 2100 block, Nightingale, all that. Why do you think it’s important to rep like that?
EBK Jaaybo: For me, I can never forget about [EBK] Mad Max. Free Mad Max, bro. Free [EBK] Lil Play, free [EBK] Lil Sleaze, free my manager Dada, on Southeast. It gets real political, real golitical, but I had to put the G on my back. Everywhere I go, the hood is with me. So, if I talk about the G so much, blood, then the people listening are gonna damn near start worshiping that shit, like it’s holy. If I have to let the world know about my brothers and the members on every song, then that’s really all it is. It’s my responsibility. I’m the landlord of Nightingale. All of us are from the same neighborhood, so it’s on us to uplift the community and keep the name powerful. I never feel like I’m bigger than the G, because nothing is.
What would you say are the codes and values that the G lives by?
EBK Jaaybo: Look, we push Every Body Killa. The courts want to label us as a gang, or some street terrorists. But we feel that EBK is just a way of living. Killa mentality, like we’re up on everybody. We believe it’s us against the world, blood. We preach loyalty, but honestly, we know that everyone has a lil bit of a snake mentality in them. That’s nature, we just don’t hide that fact. Loyalty is cool and all, but in this world we’re living in, it ain’t enough. You won’t survive that way. But if you think like EBK, there won’t be too many holes for the snakes to slither through. You can’t trust n—-, blood. We do not leave any room for backdoor activities. We’re on some fuck the world shit, because all we have is the G.
Like so many other recent cases in the rap world, you have two sets of enemies: the people in the streets that want to see you dead, and the prosecutors using your lyrics to get you in prison.
EBK Jaaybo: For real, blood. Both sides hate young n— that stand on business. That just comes with the territory, though. The same shit happens in the business world. Shit, I’ve done bought chains and the jewelers are telling me that they have opps, that they have competition to handle. So it’s everywhere. They say we glorify violence, but in reality, we all do. On blood, we’re the ones who actually rap about it, but everyone in this world has enemies. Everyone in this world has malice and aggression in them. Everyone moves the way we move. We just do it publicly.
I do like having some n— that aren’t on our type of time, some nerd friends, because they can open up doors that my gangsta friends can’t get through. You don’t have to live the life I live to be on the kinda time I’m on. You really ain’t gotta be from a hood to do some gangsta shit, and you don’t have to go to jail a thousand times, blood. That’s not what it is. In reality, snitch n— kill n—, and they; not gangstas at all. Anyone can throw salt in the game. But being from a block does not make you a gangsta. I’ve seen my momma do some real gangsta shit, and she is not a gangsta. You feel me, blood? This shit in you, not on you, as they say.
What’s your thought process as you turn 21 years old and drop a 21-song project?
EBK Jaaybo: Dead homies, I’m really excited, because I’m a 21 baby. That’s in me spiritually, blood. I’m very excited.
But is it weird to celebrate all this while you’re still locked up?
EBK Jaaybo: I mean, like, no. Honestly, bro, there’s a lot of people in my life that aren’t here to witness it either way. There’s a lot in this life shit that you can’t physically see happen, but you know it’s happening on the outside. A n— ain’t gotta be there physically to know that I’m doing something special. I could be locked up, or in Paris, or dead and gone, and this shit’s gonna happen no matter what. They can’t stop the glow, so I don’t look at it any type of way to not be out there for it. What I will say, a n— gotta change this pattern. I can’t keep letting the same shit happen to the point that I’m always watching from the sidelines. I should be in the game, blood, there’s no reason a n— on the bench. That’s elevation, and growing up.
How do you think the legal system has treated you thus far in your life? You’ve now been tried as both a minor and an adult.
EBK Jaaybo: This prison shit, they don’t wanna see a n— go home. They don’t want to see us have money, or actually get out and prosper. But I’ve learned that you need dance moves in here. A n— has dance moves, left, right and all that. If you have dance moves, nothing can keep a n— in a real predicament. I’ve had to run a couple fades. No Ls this time, but I’ve definitely taken a few Ls in the past, I ain’t gon lie.
Do you think the system is making an example out of you specifically?
EBK Jaaybo: For sure, bro. I went down for a pistol. My codefendants got 30 days working on the outs. Like you said, this is my first adult case. And they were trying to give me four years, on blood. I do think they’re making an example out of me, cuz a lot of n— with their first pistol charges are getting out or at most doing a year in the county. On blood, they sent me straight to prison! And they made me take gang enhancement shit. They definitely fucked a n— over based on who I am. But this can also happen to any n— with a record. I’ve had a record since I was 14, so they can label a n— a gang leader. Bro, I’m just a human that came from the struggle. All I’m doing is rapping about my life and trying to make it out. I ain’t been convicted of any serious crimes, and they can’t really judge a n— until they got the proof. They’re trying to make an example out of me, yeah, but they ain’t trying to see a n— any smarter or any more aware for the future.
California’s gang enhancement policies are especially bogus, in my opinion.
EBK Jaaybo: On blood, but the good news is that it’s getting harder to actually prove. I got my first gang enhancement at 17. This time, no one on my case pleaded to anything gang related. I can’t be a gang member by myself! The law says it’s gotta be me and at least two other “gang members” going in together. The n— I was with this time, they’re not even from my hood. So in all reality, I never should’ve taken any gang enhancement shit, I was just trying to get home, you feel me? The laws are definitely changing here, so it works a bit better for the inmates. They know that this is modern-day slavery, and that they’re for sure making money off this. On Southeast! That’s why you gotta have dance moves, like I said. A n— ain’t hop off the porch just to end up in jail. You don’t plan to come in here. That shit ain’t bool, dead homies.
How do you keep from going insane, with all that considered?
EBK Jaaybo: I’ve been doing this, bro. I first went to jail at 14, blood. Then I went to juvenile hall at 15 and did two years. Got out at 17, was only out for a few months, went back and did two more years. Getting out last year was how I was able to drop my biggest music and get that platform. Then I caught the case with Verde Babii and them. Bailed out, then had to turn myself in. All those times, blood, I was by myself. A n— has learned how to walk this road alone. There are some roads you have to walk alone. It ain’t gon break you or make you, if you get used to being solo and facing obstacles by yourself. That’s all it is. If you can’t handle that, you need to find a different occupation.
On blood, anyone can shoot a gun, all you gotta do is move your finger. So unless you don’t got no fingers, anyone can kill a n—-, dead homies. That’s not what makes a gangsta. It’s about standing on all 10. I haven’t been crying or beating myself up. I can get in my head sometimes, but a n— need them moments, blood. That’s the only way to learn from mistakes. The only thing we’re promised is life and death, and a n— number will be called one day no matter what. It may be natural causes or it may be by a bullet, but either way, karma is real. So you gotta just take this shit like a man, bro. It comes with time, and I’ve prepared myself mentally for that. I’d still rather be here than in an RIP post.