Artist: Jair Dynast
Interviewer: Alexander Fruchter

Jair Dynast had a passion for basketball. Perhaps it took up too much of his heart, as he was forced to give up his hoop dreams due to a cardiac condition. He quickly turned to his other passion, Hip Hop, and began to focus on making music. His songs and subject matter had a political bent, and he quickly gained a reputation for producing realistic street poetry. His full-length debut album is titled V.IA.L.E.N.C.E., which stands for Vicious Ignorance Amounts to Little Except Negative Consequences N' Expression. SoundSlam linked up with Jair to get the scoop on the meaning behind the title, and the man behind the music.

SoundSlam:: You played college basketball in Texas, are you from Texas originally?

Jair Dynast: Nah, I's a Bajan... I was born in Barbados. My moms brought me to North America. From there I picked up a basketball, earned myself a scholarship, and ended up heading to a JUCO in Texas as a stop off on my way to D-I(Division One), but God had other plans for me and halted my basketball career. And here I am...

SoundSlam: When you had to stop playing basketball, you started to pursue a rap career. Were there any other options?

Jair Dynast: Yeah, there were options but none that I was passionate about. Coming up basketball was my passion and next to that I was passionate about Hip Hop. I remember my n***a Burger, RIP, once told me. "If you work at something you are passionate about you'll never work a day in your life." He was one of those well-respected heads from my turf and those words always stuck with me. I talk about him on the album on a song called "Change." "Playing pool in a club one slug to his chest death came/Our problems is deep rooted tell me when they gon' change." There's more to his story than that but yeah I'm digressing.

SoundSlam: On "Vicious" you talk about a "crab" mentality. Can you explain that a bit, what motivated that song?Jair Dynast: Yeah, I've seen and bin privy to a lot of bulls**t situations. Sadly, I have to say the verses on "Vicious" are motivated by true events from my turf. Basically, since slavery we have been a divided people, psychologically trained in the art of self-hate. Differently, we as human beings hate each other. We divide ourselves into these groups based on color and/or race, creed, financial status, etc. and proceed to persecute each other for not being a member of what's perceived as the "superior class." Follow me? I wanted to do a song that touched on all this but for me just to throw together a bunch of metaphors talking 'bout it wouldn't have the right impact. Certain cats would think I'm preaching or some s**t so I just talked about some "real s**t, ain't nothing sweet like what sugar coat." Of course, I had to throw in a bit of fiction to illustrate the point 'cuz you can't be baiting up man's lives like that, you know. Thankfully, the song has gone #1 and made the impact I had hoped it would make. So thanks to all the DJs for seeing my vision and supporting! Bless.

SoundSlam: What is "Vicious Ignorance" as opposed to ignorance?

Jair Dynast: It's malicious ignorance, seen. It's like ignorance with a malicious intent. 'Cuz a man can be ignorant to many things just due to lack of knowledge or experiences. That ain't his fault, he just doesn't know. But the ignorance I am talking about is when man's dem doing things based off hate. Maliciously attempting to hold a man back, s**t like that. For instance, there's a rumor I heard where a certain video channel wouldn't add certain artists' videos to rotation stating "the track is too intelligent for the viewing audience". If that's true, that would be an example of malicious ignorance. Yah feel me?

SoundSlam: Do you feel that Hip Hop simultaneously bolsters and thwarts the vicious ignorance that you're talking about?

Jair Dynast: No. Hip Hop is our culture and the culture as a whole is not even remotely about that. It's the individuals that seek to turn the culture into a commodity that bolsters this malicious ignorance by showing the masses only one view of our culture. To outsiders or newcomers to Hip Hop and rap music, it could look like that - if all they know is what they are fed by these conglomerates that control how the public sees our culture. Hip Hop is much more than what we are fed. For example, this radio personality named Tony Snow had this to say about Hip Hop and I quote: "then you have the idiotic culture of hip-hop: You have people glorifying failure. You have a bunch of gold-toothed hot dogs become millionaires by running around and telling everybody else that they oughtta be miserable failures and if they're really lucky maybe they can get gunned down in a diner sometime, like Eminem's old running mate." He is obviously an outsider commenting on what these conglomerates have fed him. Are we cool with this? Don't we think it's time we re-educate these people about our culture?

SoundSlam:Would you categorize your music as esoteric?

Jair Dynast: Nah, my music is not made for a select few. It's made for any and everyone who wants to enjoy it. My music is all about inclusion not exclusion. If I were making my music in that manner, I would be doing the very thing I am trying to combat and defeating my own purpose (laughs). The records I've recorded many people can relate to on many levels. Most of them are my personal discussions on things like love, loss of life, betrayal, politics, unity, street life, racial profiling, loyalty and more. I mean, I talk about an unplanned pregnancy situation. I know you know how many young people out there can relate to that, men and women. The music couldn't be esoteric as these are all things that happen to all types of people on the daily.

SoundSlam:To write the way that you do, you need to read. What are some of the writings that inspired you?

Jair Dynast: I guess this is bad to say but I have to be honest with you, I couldn't name a writing that inspires me. I'm not big on reading books. My life is too busy to sit down and read a whole book. The only books I'm reading per say are magazines like XXL, The Source, Elemental, etc. 'cuz they directly have to do with my career and where my life is headed so I wanna know about what's poppin' in Hip Hop. When I was playing ball all I read was Streets & Smith, The Sporting News and Slam. I think you are referring to my vocabulary and I think that's due to being raised by well-educated West Indian parents. Plus, I am fortunate to be college educated - even though I didn't read much there either (laughs)... All about them Coles Notes man (laughs). I guess I paid attention in class. Most the s**t they teach you is boring as hell and pretty useless. But they have created an exclusionary society where you can't live comfortably without that piece of paper. So kids, go to College, endure the bulls**t, discover your niche and set about to make your mark on society. Let's see if we can't improve on this s**t!

P.S. If your family can't afford to pay for College, do a bunch of Google searches on Scholarships, Grants, Bursaries and financial aid. It's all out there - they just don't publicize it often - that's my little public service announcement (laughs).

SoundSlamWho are some of your musical role models?

Jair Dynast: Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and The Mighty Sparrow.

SoundSlam: For many people, this interview is the first they are seeing of you, what do you want them to take away from this?

Jair Dynast: That Jair Dynast is a regular Hip Hop head trying to live up to his name by doing some irregular things in Hip Hop music.

SoundSlam:What is up next for you?

Jair Dynast: Continuing to build awareness for Jair Dynast, getting out and touring, etc. plus, I'm in the studio recording my next project and producing records for a stable of intelligent artists from eMultimedia Group.