Eze Jackson EPK

“I’m working, I’m great/I’m tryna get straight” “Be Great” ‘A lor bit o’ right/A lor bit o wrong/A lor bit o’ free style/A lor bit o’ song” “Just a Lor Bit”

When the youth of Baltimore gathered before City Hall in a recent Black Lives Matter protest march, the song played over the PA was Eze Jackson’s “Be Great,” from his recent sixth album, Fool, and it was a fitting choice. After all, since his arrival at the age of nine with a single mother from New York, Jackson has made the harbor city his adopted home, launching a music career that included three albums fronting the hip-hop collective Soul Cannon and three solo albums, with a five-song EP, Goals, about to be released.

As founder, creator and chief visionary of the burgeoning entertainment and media company EPIC FAM (Every Person Is Coming From A Memory), a collective of local talent, Eze is committed to supporting the Baltimore artistic community with a creative support system. As Baltimore Magazine put it, “It’s hard to envision the Baltimore music scene without Eze Jackson.”

“You drop me off in this city and I’ll get you where you need to go,” he says. “We’ve been through so much here, but there are no barriers on the underground level. The energy happening here is feeding me. Baldamore always tends to support its own. This city can show the world how we can survive and thrive together. This is a very safe space, a community unlike anything I’ve seen in the world.”

Jackson’s role model are the regional rap scenes that originated in New Orleans (Master P’s No Limit and the Williams brother’s Cash Money), Houston (Geto Boys and Rap-A-Lot Records), Atlanta (OutKast and Goodie Mob), Detroit (Eminem, Black Milk and Guilty Simpson) and Staten Island (Wu Tang Clan), with a special nod to films like State Property (with Beanie Sigel) and New Jack City (starring Wesley Snipes and Ice-T) and the Native Tongue bands like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Leaders of the New School and Poor Righteous Teachers.

Through six releases since beginning his active recording career in 2014, Eze Jackson’s music is a similar melting pot, influenced heavily by his hip-hop heroes (among them The Roots and Wu Tang Clan), but also seasoned with what he calls Baltimore’s own native Old Bay spice, ranging from gospel (“Be Great”), dancehall (“Desire Fight”), quiet storm R&B (“Walk with Me”) and hardcore (“Gimme That”) to street corner doo-wop (“Thank You”) and EDM (“Un-Apologetically Black”). “Just a Lor Bit” is an homage to Baltimore’s slain rapper, Lor Scoota and a nod to the way locals pronounce “little” or “lil.”

“This city has all kinds of hip hop, with its own aesthetic,” explains Eze. “Baldamore don’t give a fuck, know what I mean? Take it or leave it, like it or not, we’re gonna keep doing this. We’ve enjoyed being in this bubble until now. But I want to take this music everywhere. I want the whole world to see and hear what we got here. This is America’s best-kept secret.”

Eze recorded both Fool and his latest EP, Goals, at the city’s own highly regarded Lineup Room, a world-class “premier” recording studio. For Fool, Eze looked to a different local producer for each track, making sure each song was distinct, though the whole album stands up as a single coherent piece. The songs spotlighted such local talent as Qui Qui Martin as his duet partner on “Walk With Me” (a high school classmate of Eze’s who moved to Los Angeles and was lead singer of the R&B girl group Isyss, signed to LaFace/Arista), Apex the Genius and Street Scott (“Gimme That”) and Chase Ultra (“Forgive Me”), along with the harmonies of Patrick Forte Harrison, Tim Green, Joi Crater and Josh Stokes (“Thank You”).

Raised by parents with drug problems – his father, a painter and singer, was a member of the Muslim Five-Percent Nation, while his mother, a poet, was a Christian and native of Baltimore – Eze had his first encounter with police at six years old when they broke down the door of his New York City apartment and placed him, his two younger sisters and younger brother in foster care. “Un-Apologetically Black” an aspirational song of empowerment, deals with the terror of being pulled over by the police. “Maybe this is the stop/that’ll end my life.”

With his messages of pride and unity, Eze Jackson knows this is the moment for his music and his work in the Baltimore creative community to finally flower. Joining the Navy at 18, he’s traveled around the world, toured the U.S. and opened for hip-hop idols, from Rakim, The Roots, Mos Def, Talib Kwell, Beanie Sigel, KRS-One, Cormega, Jay Electronica and Redman & Method Man to the Wailers, but he keeps coming home to the place he knows best.
As a trained actor, Eze was a theater major at the Baltimore School for the Arts and has been involved as “Ezewriter” for a variety of multimedia film, TV and stage projects.

“Music is the soundtrack to our lives,” says the father of three young daughters. “I need to do this to fulfill my own responsibilities. Without it, I can’t help anybody. My music talks about us as a people.”

“I like to offer an escape from people’s lives for the 30 to 45 minutes I’m on-stage. And if you take the time to come to see me, I’m going to give you a little bit of myself, too. Everyone can relate to what I’ve gone through. We’re here right now in this moment, so let’s figure it out and enjoy ourselves as we do it.”

“This life is what we make it/Where we take it” “Thank You”
“Creating is so much like life,” concludes Eze. “You set out doing one thing, and maybe it doesn’t turn out right, so you head on another path that takes you somewhere else.”

Eze Jackson is here, right now. Baldamore is ready for its close-up. And so is he.

EPIC FAM · FOOL

“Gimme a Track” single w/video is from the upcoming EP “Goals”

“Be Great” song & video is from the “Fool” LP

One of the most iconic, indispensable voices in Baltimore music is undoubtedly that of Eze Jackson. Over the last decade, the hip-hop frontman has been a dogged creative force for the local arts scene—putting on powerful performances as an MC through solo projects and his powder-keg alt-hip-hop group Soul Cannon, uplifting up-and-coming artists through the Bmore Beat Club rap series, constantly collaborating, and always speaking honestly about black inequality and empowerment. His recent “Be Great” was played over a loud speaker as marchers knelt in unity on Monday’s youth-led protest.
Baltimore Magazine