These days everyone wants to be a rapper.
These days everyone wants to be a rapper. Okay, maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but in London that’s definitely what it feels like. Thing is, Jay Carteré isn’t just a rapper.
He’s a jack of all trades. As well as being a rapper, Jay is also a producer, singer and studio engineer. On top of these musical abilities, Mr Carteré is pretty good with a camera and owns his own filming company, CoolCut Films.
While fulfilling all of these roles is stressful, it allows him to have full creative control of his musical output. Plus, the fact he does everything behind his work is pretty appealing. For example, check out this Frankenstein-esque video for ‘Mary Shelley’, a track taken from Jay’s latest mixtape, Caesar Augustus.
Caesar Augustus
Caesar Augustus is Jay’s 5th rap mixtape, released in September 2013.
For those of you that fell asleep in history, Caesar Augustus aka Gaius Octavius was the heir to Julius Caesar. Once he was in power the land was peaceful, prosperous and progressing.
It’s clear that Jay Carteré’s set himself up follow in Caesar’s footsteps as a young leader. Throughout the mixtape we see Jay flaunt his ambition, feed his ego and delve into a range of real life topics we can all relate to, from growing up to getting girls.
On the musical side, I’d say Jay created the perfect balance between more lyrical tracks and his more hook-orientated songs about girls.
Jay’s definitely got a knack for writing great hooks. One song that effectively showcases his songwriting abilities is ‘Side Chick’, a song Jay employs to explore the idea of boredom in a relationship and the need for something different.
The verses are really well crafted to tell the story and the smooth hook just ties it all together. The song holds a little more substance than Jay’s other (more sex-driven) songs about girls as it’s describing a more real and emotional scenario, but that’s all part of its appeal.
The Future
I call Jay a rapper out of habit, but he’s been experimenting with other sounds and genres. After the release of Caesar Augustus and the start of a music production degree, Jay found himself mesmerised by the catchy synth lines and infectious melodies of dance music. The new project will be out later this year.
While I’m enjoying the videos from Caesar Augustus, I’m also curious to hear what he’s been working on.
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