Words By: Soren Baker
"Look at this," Jt the Bigga Figga says on a March morning in his Hayward, CA residence. The Bay Area rapper / producer /director/ engineer / author pulls out a crumpuled Dec. 10, 2004, bank receipt. The balance: $0.28. "I'll never forget that."
Even though JT is among Hip-Hop's biggest independent stars,he was close to financial ruin as recently as a few months ago. Hip-Hop heads around the country may not know much about the staggering 100-plus albums the lanky, six-foot-four-inch CEO has put out, the numerous DVDs he's released or his instruction manual for aspiring artists / entrepreneurs, but his work ethic is now beginning to resonate in the rap community. JT's two albums with overnight sensation The Game, 2004's untold story and 2005's West Coast Resurrection, have finally earned the independent king a spot on the national radar.
"I'm the Put-Your-Owhn-Shit-Out Man--whether it's a DVD, movie, album, book or whatever," says JT as he mobs around his native San Francisco handling a variety of business and personal matters. "That's so inspiring to people that just want to make it. They know that they can do it too, but maybe they didn't have the jump-start or know the way. But then they hear about me dropping a tape every month."
With business finally straight on both Game albums, JT's bank account now boasts a six-figure balance. But he's already back on his hustle, readying the June release of his next solo album, the double-disc Who Grind Like Us?
"Fig is like one of the only people in the Bay Area that is holding it down on a nationwide tip," sats Charlie-O, a local producer who worked with JT on Untold Story. "People got albums and they sell some units, but there's very few people from the Bay Area who have albums in stores that's 100,000, 150,000 strong... He's holding the torch right now."
JT calls his Fillmore neighborhood "Teh Harlemof The Bat." It was once an area rich with Black pride, a place Black doctors, construction companies and lawyers called home. But in the 1970s, Fillmore was targeted for urban renewal and many of its wealthy Black residents were forced out. Opportunities soon dried up, and by the early 1990s, the area's projects were flush with crack cocaine.
Yet Fillmore residents retaied a fiercelyindependent spirit, partially because of the abuse of gangs. "In Fillmore everybody had a sense of pride of being their own man," JT says while whipping through the neighborhood's streets. "That's why a lot of fights would happen. Everybody would think that they're their own man and that, 'You can't tell me shit.'"
This spirit led to the vibrant independent rap scene in the Bay Area, whose early success stories include Too $hort and E-40. By 1992, with the scene steadily exploding, JT was 19 and had been in and out of juvenile hall for a string of cases, from robbery to drugs. Looking for direction, he had been reading the Nation of Islam's The Final Call newspaper and was impressed by their message to do for self.
"I learned that our talent is like oil, diamonds, gold," he explains. "You've got to mine that shit up out of you. You don't even know what you can do until you try."
JT then fully switched his hustle from the streets to the rap game. In June 1992, his first release, Putting It on the Map, hit the block. After building an impressive buzz, JT signed a deal with independent powerhouse Priority for his Get Low Records in 1995. But the relationship soon fell apart, as JT, by his own admission, took on too much responsibility, acting as the rapper, producer, engineer and label head for his releases. The quality of the music suffered, and by 1998, as Bay Area transplant Master P was working a similar label deal to ascend to stardom, JT no longer had his.
But in true hustler fashion, JT quickly rebounded. In Quick succession, he recorded independent albums with Daz, Yuckmouth, The Otlawz and others. In 2003 he released his selfpublished book, Black Wall Street--The C.E.O. Manual.
JT would eventually lend the Black Wall Street name to The Game, Whom he met in February 2002 at Hip-Hop conference in Los Angeles featuring Russell Simmons and Minister Louis Farrakhan. Impressed by the Compton rapper's mic skills, JT, who had already released a score of collaborative projects, swiftly flew The Game up to the Bay and recorded between 30 and 40 songs with the hungry MC.
In order to hype up his new artist, JT released QB 2 Compton, which featured Game alongside previously unreleased Nas verses. Less than a year later, Game signed to Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment. JT's relationship with the rapper soon soured over $12,000 in bills JT claims Game refused to help pay with his Aftermath advance. So, after recording an album with a then unknown artist, JT was stuck with music he had no leverage to release and bills his protege wouldn't help him pay.
"It made it real ugly for me," JT says of that dark time in his life when his other recordings weren't garnering much national interest. "I was Game's first fan. Didn't nobody know who he was. They came and got Game from me. I'm the one that put Game next to Nas Escobar on a mix CD thatmade him look like he was the next thing coming. So once he got G-Unit, my mouth began to water."
In late 2004, with the buzz surrounding Game growing, JT put out Untold Story, an album that boasted the early Game recordings. JT then turned to KOCH Entertainment for Distribution, which re-released the collection as a deluxe edition with a DVD. JT says thr label initially refused to pay him from the album's sales, which led to his financial strain. Nonetheless, the success of Untold Story increased JT's standing in the music business and led to his current deal with distributor Navarre (which also distributes C-Bo, Raphael Saadiq and others) for his latest release of Game recordings, West Coast Ressurection.
JT keeps the crumpled bank receipt as a reminder of how tough things can get. And as he gets dressed and maps out another day of promoting himself and his company, he is happy to be back on the grind. It's where he wants to be.
"Look at this," Jt the Bigga Figga says on a March morning in his Hayward, CA residence. The Bay Area rapper / producer /director/ engineer / author pulls out a crumpuled Dec. 10, 2004, bank receipt. The balance: $0.28. "I'll never forget that."
Even though JT is among Hip-Hop's biggest independent stars,he was close to financial ruin as recently as a few months ago. Hip-Hop heads around the country may not know much about the staggering 100-plus albums the lanky, six-foot-four-inch CEO has put out, the numerous DVDs he's released or his instruction manual for aspiring artists / entrepreneurs, but his work ethic is now beginning to resonate in the rap community. JT's two albums with overnight sensation The Game, 2004's untold story and 2005's West Coast Resurrection, have finally earned the independent king a spot on the national radar.
"I'm the Put-Your-Owhn-Shit-Out Man--whether it's a DVD, movie, album, book or whatever," says JT as he mobs around his native San Francisco handling a variety of business and personal matters. "That's so inspiring to people that just want to make it. They know that they can do it too, but maybe they didn't have the jump-start or know the way. But then they hear about me dropping a tape every month."
With business finally straight on both Game albums, JT's bank account now boasts a six-figure balance. But he's already back on his hustle, readying the June release of his next solo album, the double-disc Who Grind Like Us?
"Fig is like one of the only people in the Bay Area that is holding it down on a nationwide tip," sats Charlie-O, a local producer who worked with JT on Untold Story. "People got albums and they sell some units, but there's very few people from the Bay Area who have albums in stores that's 100,000, 150,000 strong... He's holding the torch right now."
JT calls his Fillmore neighborhood "Teh Harlemof The Bat." It was once an area rich with Black pride, a place Black doctors, construction companies and lawyers called home. But in the 1970s, Fillmore was targeted for urban renewal and many of its wealthy Black residents were forced out. Opportunities soon dried up, and by the early 1990s, the area's projects were flush with crack cocaine.
Yet Fillmore residents retaied a fiercelyindependent spirit, partially because of the abuse of gangs. "In Fillmore everybody had a sense of pride of being their own man," JT says while whipping through the neighborhood's streets. "That's why a lot of fights would happen. Everybody would think that they're their own man and that, 'You can't tell me shit.'"
This spirit led to the vibrant independent rap scene in the Bay Area, whose early success stories include Too $hort and E-40. By 1992, with the scene steadily exploding, JT was 19 and had been in and out of juvenile hall for a string of cases, from robbery to drugs. Looking for direction, he had been reading the Nation of Islam's The Final Call newspaper and was impressed by their message to do for self.
"I learned that our talent is like oil, diamonds, gold," he explains. "You've got to mine that shit up out of you. You don't even know what you can do until you try."
JT then fully switched his hustle from the streets to the rap game. In June 1992, his first release, Putting It on the Map, hit the block. After building an impressive buzz, JT signed a deal with independent powerhouse Priority for his Get Low Records in 1995. But the relationship soon fell apart, as JT, by his own admission, took on too much responsibility, acting as the rapper, producer, engineer and label head for his releases. The quality of the music suffered, and by 1998, as Bay Area transplant Master P was working a similar label deal to ascend to stardom, JT no longer had his.
But in true hustler fashion, JT quickly rebounded. In Quick succession, he recorded independent albums with Daz, Yuckmouth, The Otlawz and others. In 2003 he released his selfpublished book, Black Wall Street--The C.E.O. Manual.
JT would eventually lend the Black Wall Street name to The Game, Whom he met in February 2002 at Hip-Hop conference in Los Angeles featuring Russell Simmons and Minister Louis Farrakhan. Impressed by the Compton rapper's mic skills, JT, who had already released a score of collaborative projects, swiftly flew The Game up to the Bay and recorded between 30 and 40 songs with the hungry MC.
In order to hype up his new artist, JT released QB 2 Compton, which featured Game alongside previously unreleased Nas verses. Less than a year later, Game signed to Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment. JT's relationship with the rapper soon soured over $12,000 in bills JT claims Game refused to help pay with his Aftermath advance. So, after recording an album with a then unknown artist, JT was stuck with music he had no leverage to release and bills his protege wouldn't help him pay.
"It made it real ugly for me," JT says of that dark time in his life when his other recordings weren't garnering much national interest. "I was Game's first fan. Didn't nobody know who he was. They came and got Game from me. I'm the one that put Game next to Nas Escobar on a mix CD thatmade him look like he was the next thing coming. So once he got G-Unit, my mouth began to water."
In late 2004, with the buzz surrounding Game growing, JT put out Untold Story, an album that boasted the early Game recordings. JT then turned to KOCH Entertainment for Distribution, which re-released the collection as a deluxe edition with a DVD. JT says thr label initially refused to pay him from the album's sales, which led to his financial strain. Nonetheless, the success of Untold Story increased JT's standing in the music business and led to his current deal with distributor Navarre (which also distributes C-Bo, Raphael Saadiq and others) for his latest release of Game recordings, West Coast Ressurection.
JT keeps the crumpled bank receipt as a reminder of how tough things can get. And as he gets dressed and maps out another day of promoting himself and his company, he is happy to be back on the grind. It's where he wants to be.
