JES B’s “Go Dumb” is a taste of the South. The song and visual is an ode to Florida culture and equipped with baddies, drank and all the ingredients needed to have what a lot of people consider to be a “good time.”
Hailing from Dade City, JES B is an upcoming rapper and entrepreneur who’s been grinding for more than a decade. Completely independent, JES is a firm believer in doing whatever it takes to achieve your goals and dreams, whether it’s hustling or perfecting one’s craft in the studio.
To date, he’s invested more than $200,000 in his professional music career— but the grind continues. Beyond the energy in his music, JES B’s personality is infectious. His positivity and intention to remain drama-free doesn’t go unnoticed, and his unwavering desire to put on for his city is much appreciated by the locals.
JES B has worked with notable rappers like Boosie Badazz, Mike Jones and even Future, but that doesn’t even begin to touch on the heat he has forthcoming.
AllHipHop spoke with JES B in downtown Los Angeles during his one day in the city. He discussed his roots in Florida, connecting with Boosie Badazz and Mike Jones and how he got a Future verse.
AllHipHop: Being from Dade City, Florida, what was that like growing up?
Jes B: Dade City, it was a lot of love growing up when you were little. Everybody knew everybody, everybody showing love to everybody. We stayed in apartments called Lake George Apartments. Every house had seven, eight people in them. Two, three bedrooms, had seven, eight people. It was all close-knit. It was violence here and there. But when you in it, you don’t even know until you step away from it. Like damn, I lived there? But it was a lot of love in Dade City. I still f### with my people in Dade City. Hey, I’m taking it to the top.
AllHipHop: What was the moment you fell in love with music?
Jes B: When I was little man. My granddaddy was in a band called Daddy Dave Band, so I was seeing that. My cousin named Tyrone before he passed away, he was a singer. He was always seeing through the house with a broom. I’m like, I could do that. Not really sing, I want to do music. That’s what really made me fall in love with it, my family.
AllHipHop: Top five artists all time?
Jes B: Michael Jackson, too cool. [laughs] James Brown. I like Eazy-E. Cali, ya dig? Who else do I like? Ice Cube. Not only just rap, the entrepreneurship. I love that, that’s what I do. And one more… Trick Daddy. Florida legend, I f### with Trick.
AllHipHop: What kind of entrepreneurship do you do?
Jes B: I do a couple, little bit of everything. Whooty-woo. When I say Whooty-woo, that’s off camera. So we got that. I got a couple box trucks, put some people on the road. Got a couple of tax offices. Just hustling.
AllHipHop: How’s the independent grind?
Jes B: It ain’t easy. You spent a lot of money.
AllHipHop: I saw you invested more than $100,000 in your music?
Jes B: What? That was then. S###, I’m probably $200,000 now. You got to though. Everybody wants to be a rapper, but what you gon’ do to really get to that next step and to get people to hear you? I invested a lot of money into my music. Investments, staying focused. Stay out the way. It’s easy to get caught up in say a n*gga hating on you or something. Boom, you tricked off the street. I’m just trying to stay out of it, stay positive and keep pushing forward.
AllHipHop: What was the moment you realized you could do music for a living?
Jes B: Me and Ball Greezy had a show in Tampa at this place called Green Gators. I’m on stage rapping and all the girls are singing my songs. I didn’t even know they knew my song, I’m like oh s###!
AllHipHop: What song was it?
Jes B: It was a song called “My Shawty.” It’s an older song, I don’t even think I put it out. It was a local song. It was a song talking about girls. I was with Ball Greezy and he’s coming with the girls, so I wanted to match his energy. They were singing in the crowd. Me and my boy, he looked at me and I looked at him. Oh s###, I could do this s###. That was history after that.
AllHipHop: Was watching “Go Dumb” last night, you were going crazy!
Jes B: Go dumb, it’s going dumb! You see how they do it in Florida? I had them turnt up. The energy like I was telling you about, everybody having fun. We’re going dumb, and I’m spitting hard ass Florida bars. People can relate to it, the world can relate to it. Not just Florida. We all can go dumb and have fun.
AllHipHop: Talk about connecting with Boosie, how’d that happen?
Jes B: My dawg Boosie. Got connected with him through my dawg Hotboii. He set it all up, set the feature up for me. I was telling him a couple months before the feature: “bruh my money straight. I need the feature with Boosie. I want to do it already.” He said “when I call you, be ready.” He called me out the blue one day, it was 12 o’clock at night. He said “Boosie in St. Pete, wassup?”
We was in the car. St. Pete an hour and half, we didn’t give a f###. We in the car, we go to St. Pete. I shoot him the cash he wants. Boosie’s like, “I like this n*gga.” You know Boosie loves that cash. I gave him cash, I gave him a bag of weed. I gave him a bottle of Hennessy. I gave him some gifts. He’s like “oh that’s a real n*gga.” He made a track and he heard my track. He’s like, “Okay, I’ma go hard.”
I heard other artists, Boosie gave him a trash verse or he rushed it, because he does so many features. He went hard on my song. He did his thing on it.
AllHipHop: Did you grow up listening to Boosie?
Jes B: Yeah, we all did. We didn’t have no choice. We all definitely jammed to Boosie, Trick [Daddy], JT Money. All them boys, we locked in. Especially Florida. Even though he’s from Louisiana, that’s still the South. I definitely grew up listening to Boosie.
AllHipHop: What about Mike Jones? That’s my guy.
Jes B: That’s my dawg! We got the song “Conor McGregor” that’s about to come out. Similar to the Boosie thing. A promoter named Devonte, he in Cali somewhere. He hit me up and said, “Hey, Mike got a show in Tampa. I know you want to do a feature with him.” Same thing: “Is your money good?” Pshh, always. Or I’m on child support [laughs]. Kinda. The money alright. I work, here and there.
AllHipHop: How many kids you got?
Jes B: Eight, I think? Maybe seven. Eight (counts). Let’s go eight.
AllHipHop: That’s a lot!
Jes B: Eight? They said if you have 10 kids, you can get off child support. Is that true? Can you look that up for me? [laughs] I need you to look that up for me.
AllHipHop: How would they get support then?
Jes B: That’s not my problem. Of course, I’m still gonna do my job. I got eight kids. I do for my kids though, so it’s cool.
AllHipHop: Back to Mike Jones…
Jes B: Boom, funny story. They’re like “do the feature with Mike, they’ll give it to you for this price.” Oh yeah? It was a lot cheaper than I thought. They’re like “hey JES B, question. Could you pick him up from the airport?” [laughs] F### you mean? I’m a rapper n*gga, I’m not no Uber. They’re like “nah, pick him up from the airport.” I picked him up, we clicked it off.
We started hanging out that day, we did a song. It was good vibes. Later that night in the club, we were in VIP together. Every time he got to show in Florida, I pull up on him. We rock out in real life. All these songs are coming out this year. A lot of this new music is not even out yet. I It’s called “Conor McGregor.” The hook go like this: “watch how I move, watch how I dance.” Hey!
AllHipHop: What about Future? How did you tap in?
Jes B: I guess a promoter, you know how they do deals? “Hey, I’ll pay you this plus you owe me a verse. A 16.” So he did something like that with Future. He said “yeah I got a 16 bar verse with Future. You can pay me, and it’s already cleared through the label.” I want a fresh one from Future, I want to be face to face. He’s like “That’s 60 grand,” I’m like nevermind. [laughs]
I’ll take that one right now, so it happened that way. I bought it from them. It got it cleared from the record labels, it was cool. People asked me, “did you meet him? I be wanting to say hell yeah, that’s my n*gga! But nah. [laughs] It wasn’t the timing right? The timing wasn’t right. Soon though, they gon’ hear me. Either way, they gon’ hear me.
AllHipHop: What did you want fans to get from your story?
Jes B: That you can be from a little town like Dade City. Even if you ain’t got the support of your city like you want it, you want to still take the f### off and blow the f### up. Still don’t have any hate or resentment in your heart, be like “oh f### them.” You could be small town and blow up. Put it this way, I’m from Dade City. You watch football? The Championship game was Washington versus Michigan. The quarterback’s from Dade City. Now he’s a superstar from Dade City.
AllHipHop: What’s his name?
Jes B: Michael Penix. He’s been in the league, playing college for six, seven years. Now he’s a superstar. You got to keep grinding, and that’s my story. You keep grinding, you gon’ get it.
