Jus Now is Making Cultures Clash with Blends of Soca and Drum & Bass

The duo bring influences from opposite sides of the globe together to create an all-inclusive sound.

Jus Now
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Jus Now

Daily Discovery is a feature that highlights a new or recently discovered artist who we’re excited about. See the rest of our Daily Discoveries here.

With each passing day, the task of placing new music in a category or genre feels far more difficult than ever before. The ability to discover music from all over the world with just a few clicks opens up music lovers today to a whole new world of influences. The direct result of this are more artists feeling naturally inclined to blend and fuse opposing sounds until it creates something new. 

Production duo Jus Now is a prime example of this genre-bending blend. With opposite cultural and musical backgrounds—Sam Interface is a producer and DJ from Bristol, while LAZAbeam is a percussionist and producer from Trinidad—the duo work together to create a new sound that feels inclusive to everyone.

The release of their Cyah Help It and Alone EPs on Jillionaire of Major Lazer’s Feel Up Records stands as further proof of their effort to push the sound forward. Without a specific genre to tie them down, their music seems boundless. As wider audiences continue to accept sounds that may be foreign to them, Jus Now is ready to provide the soundtrack for this global party.

Being from separate parts of the globe, how did you guys get started?

Sam Interface: We met in Bristol at a drum & bass rave. Keshav (LAZAbeam) invited me to come and stay with him in Trinidad for Carnival season in 2011, and we started making music together, for fun really, usually in the mornings whilst hung-over after a big fete the night before. It was all very laid back to start with, just having fun experimenting with new sounds. We probably didn't start taking Jus Now seriously as a project until 2013 when our first EP came out.

LAZAbeam: We both had quite different upbringings both musically and geographically, but we do share a love of bass music. I'm the son of a Trinidad & Tobago Ambassador, and have lived in a few different countries. My dad was a musician before he got into the Foreign Service and music is one of the ways he would connect with other diplomats so for my whole life, I've been lucky to jam with musicians from all over the world. 

Although I have been drumming since before I could talk, I started producing when I was about 14 during our post to Miami. I'd always wanted to go to Bristol as a kid because of acts like Roni Size, Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky and the lore of these characters in shaping the sound of the UK underground. During 2008 I was on a European tour with 3Canal from Trinidad and I got my chance then. Sam and I linked up a few years later on one of my subsequent trips. I've been living between the UK and T&T ever since. I used to be really into Drum n Bass and although Jus Now has created something completely different and new, it's fitting that those circumstances lead to our encounter. 

Your music essentially blends genres and cultures, wider audiences are opening their ears to these kinds of sounds. 

Sam Interface: It does, it feels like a really exciting time for music and especially the type of sounds that have a huge influence on what we do. I love the fact that afrobeats, dancehall, soca and Latin flavours are having such a huge influence on popular music at the moment. There are some really interesting fusions happening in both underground and mainstream music.

LAZAbeam: I think it’s inevitable that as cultures continue to intersect through music, the palette of music as it's digested in general begins to broaden. We're definitely a reflection of the globalisation of music, but in a way that we hope transcends any particular trend … We definitely feel as though one of the great human equalisers is the primordial sound of drum and bass. 

What artists would you say you're inspired by?

Sam Interface: I have very broad tastes, I love all kinds of music and I can be inspired by anything from Katy Perry to Ennio Morricone. I guess some of my biggest influences are late ‘90s - early 2000s DnB especially Dillinja and everyone from the Full Cycle crew, Timbaland, Kanye West, DJ Premier, Lil Silva, Mark Pritchard and Jamie xx are probably my favorite producers of all time. 

LAZAbeam: Over the last 3 years I've listened to almost exclusively Russian classical music. Prokofiev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky capture a grandeur, simplicity and as we say in Trini, a 'Dreadness', that really inspires me. I also grew up playing in rock bands so I'm inspired by the aggression of metal and the Seattle alternative movement in the ‘90s. Calypso comes from my land so I'm heavily inspired by its forefathers like Lord Kitchener, The Mighty Sparrow, David Rudder and Ras Shorty I, the creator of soca. 

Your Alone EP was released via Jillionaire's Feel Up Records, how did you begin working with him?

LAZAbeam: Chris [Jillionaire] and I have been friends for years. When he used to run a spot called 'Corner Bar' in Trinidad we spent a lot of time together and he ended up helping to manage and assist in my development in the early days. We used to play together at parties with like ten people in them. Now he's in Major Lazer and I'm in Jus Now. Fam is fam and we're glad to be taking the sound of T&T to the whole world without apology. 

The lyrics to your latest single "Alone" describe wanting to not be bothered, but the rhythm feels very party-ready. Why did you choose to fuse these moods together?

Sam Interface: I love Juxtaposition in music, especially melancholy vocals over energetic beats, maybe that’s a Bristol thing I don’t know? You can def hear that in classic Bristol records from people like Massive Attack, Smith and Mighty, Reprazent etc. On another note though, I feel like although it has that somber feeling, “Alone” is still a party song. It’s about freedom, breaking away from the normal grind, I think Chalmer [John] is having his own little party on this track.

"Alone" has a great Afro-soca rhythm, while tracks like "Y.E.A.H." sounds like a mix of grime, garage, and EDM. Are soca and afrobeat becoming more popular in Bristol, and electronic sounds crossing over to Trinidad?

LAZAbeam: This is definitely the case. When we first started putting records out as Jus Now, crowds would react totally different in Trini than they would in Europe. We've stayed our course in putting out stuff that has our unique collision of these two aesthetics, Drop vs. Groove, and we've been joined by other dope acts around the world doing a similar thing. The way music is going right now is right down our street. 

What do you want new listeners to know about you?

Sam Interface: I think the most important aspect to Jus Now is cultural exchange. It started out as simple as Bristol and Trinidad and we have both learned a lot from embracing each other’s cultures, and hopefully made a positive impact. We recently spent some time in Brazil, enjoying the build up to the Salvador Carnival and collaborating with some incredible artists over there. I feel like in this day and age there is so much anger and fear mongering in the mainstream media about people from other parts of the world and their cultural differences. We need to embrace each other’s differences, learn about them and celebrate them.

What are your plans for the rest of the year and into 2017?

Sam Interface: We have tons of music ready to be released, there will definitely be another EP on Feel Up very soon, it has just been mastered. The Brazil project I mentioned earlier will hopefully find the light of day one way or another early next year, there may be a full length LP, or maybe just more EP's, we are not 100% sure yet. On top of that lots of shows, hopefully visiting a few new countries along the way. We have been doing quite a bit of production for other artists as well so watch out for that too. I think 2017 will be a busy year!

LAZAbeam: We've been quite busy in studio, having recorded in Brazil, Trinidad and the UK and we're ready to start rolling this stuff out. The pendulum in music might just be swinging in a direction that suits us right now and we're very eager to get this stuff out to more ears. We love playing abroad as well so looking forward to the travel to come. We've been doing an obscene amount of collaborations with artists recently and there will definitely be some interesting surprises in the next couple of months! We've also teamed up with a developer called Indigisounds to create Trinidad & Tobago's first comprehensive percussion sample library for Kontakt, which is available right now.

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