Brooklyn rapper Jay Bel is setting himself apart from the rest of the borough with his hazy, lush sounds, like on his new track "TransEuro." He's currently prepping his debut LP, Bohemia, for May and today, he drops the Jimi Tents-featured, slow-burning ode to an on-and-off love. Bel is only 19 years old but him and his crew, SleeperCamp, are slowly making waves on the scene.
Growing up in Brooklyn with split parents, Bel says he used music to escape and keep distance from his personal problems. His dad put him on to Mos Def, a Tribe Called Quest, DMX and more but it was when he linked up with his SleeperCamp crew that he fell in love with music. "I love squad. Squad is essential to me. Squad means everything," he told Complex over email. "In middle school me and my homie Zay use to freestyle to the Clipse ‘Grindin' beat every day at lunch and people began calling me a rapper; so I stuck with it.” He ended up getting kicked out of college during his first semester, and that's when he took rapping seriously. "Once I got thrown out, I knew it was a sign to make music my entire life, I had no other choice," he says. "I just want to change shit with my music, nothing more and nothing less. With Love. Music. Art. Weed & Pizza.”
Grab a bowl and a slice, and stream his new track below:
