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Meet Slim Jeff

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Slim Jeff.

Slim, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve been in love with music since I was a child. I grew up listening to an eclectic mix of genres — lots of oldies, soul, classic rock, rap, r&b, jazz, etc. My parents were a big influence on my taste in music. My dad built wall to wall shelves that held hundreds of vinyl records. Pops was listening to all types of music spanning from the origins of jazz to contemporary hip-hop, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Last Poets, Elvis, Snoop Dogg, Naughty by Nature, everything. My moms used to play Lisa Stansfield, Maxwell, Freddie Jackson, Aretha Franklin, etc. I was blessed by their expansive taste in music.

I grew up in Leimert Park, which is pretty much the center of LA’s Black Arts community, so my exposure to music and art was constant. My earliest memories of music were the drum circles that happened every Sunday at Leimert Park. I also remember seeing Herbie Hancock live at the World Stage when I was a kid. All the jazz greats passed through Leimert Park. My pops interviewed Horace Tapscott and was friends with Billy Higgins. I had much more of a tolerance for jazz than the average elementary kid, but I also loved what was happening in hip-hop in the early ’90s.

I saw the LA Riots with my own eyes. I saw the response from the hip-hop community. I kinda fell in love with hip-hop during the emergence of West Coast gangster rap. My sister and I used to watch this video-by-request station called The Box, and we used to watch MTV’s Yo MTV Raps and the musical performances on Arsenio Hall and In Living Color plus all the hip-hop culture on the great black sitcoms of the 90s like Martin, Fresh Prince, Living Single, etc. we watched them all. I was being exposed to hip-hop through tv and what I saw on the streets.

I lived down the street from a famous underground event called Project Blowed where acts like The Freestyle Fellowship and Aceyalone used to rock. So my music education was well rounded through my family, tv, and the community. I think I wrote my first rap in 3rd or 4th grade. I used to take mainstream rap songs and change the words to make the raps funny then I would perform the raps for my best friend over the phone or other kids at school. This was around 1992/1993. At that time hip-hop was releasing classic album after classic album. I thought it would be like that forever.

Fast forward to college where I started my journey into music as an indie rapper around my sophomore/junior year. I attended UC Irvine from 2001-2006. In high school, I was focused on sports, and I didn’t spend much time writing raps. In college, writing became therapy because I was dealing with a lot. My mom died of cancer in between my sophomore and junior year, my dad died less than a year afterwards, and I became a father not long afterwards. All that happened between the ages of 19 and 22 years old.

After my daughter Jaiden was born I was focused on family and put music to the side. I wouldn’t pick it up again until three years later. I met producer Coleman Trapp, who was staying in El Segundo at the time, and his crib became ground zero for developing my sound as an artist. A few years later, I moved to San Pedro and was introduced to producer 80beats. He and I have been cooking up music ever since.

We released a mixtape called Better Late Than Never in 2014, and that project is a classic to us because of how raw it was, and because of how long it took us to complete. It was basically my life story on tape, unfolding as we were recording. Those were rough times, I had been working on music for years up to that point, but I felt like I had many false starts. So actually releasing a project felt wonderful. Like a weight off of my shoulders. But I knew it wouldn’t be real until I started playing shows.

I knew I wanted to distance myself from what was happening in mainstream rap at the time. And being that I always had such comfort with jazz music I decided to only perform my music with a live band. I reached out to a jazz drummer I went to college with by the name of Brandon Roberson, and he put a band together for me. I’ve been playing with a variation of those guys ever since, kind of like a rotating band at times. But my mainstays are David “Gx” Kirkwood on keys, Dominic Matthews on bass, and currently Jay A. Rose on drums.

In 2017, I met singer Lori Lechien who completed the band. I haven’t released recorded music in a while, but I play live often. Recording projects takes me a long time, usually a few years. I like to experience life and then record as life is happening. All of my music experience as an indie artist led me to artist management. I managed visual artist Rob Hill from 2013-2017 and in 2018 I switched focus to music management. I’ve been representing hip-hop producer Jansport J since March of 2018. He’s produced for acts like Snoop Dogg, Ty Dolla Sign, Hit-Boy, Dom Kennedy, Ab-Soul and many others.

That experience inspired me to start my own artist management agency, Palm Village. I picked up indie rock act June West, funk rapper Cadillac Freeze, Alpha Pup Records act Samurai Guru, and began managing long time collaborator  80beats. The mantra for Palm Village is “palm village worldwide.” I plan on Palm Village being home to an eclectic range of  artists. Palm Village is the culmination of my music knowledge passed down to the next generation of indie acts. Stay tuned.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The road has been challenging. I’ve been on my own since I was 19 years old. I’ve had to figure out how to generate income from my passion. That in itself is difficult. I had to do things wrong many times before I figured out how to do things right. I never had a music mentor. Dealing with the death of my parents, parenthood at a young age, and the navigating LA’s unforgiving music scene environment.

Struggling to pay rent and make ends meet because I rolled the dice on my adult life chasing my dreams. I feel like I got off to a late start with music and didn’t discover it was my passion until I was around 25. Struggling to stay consistent, battling depression, and just going through the ups and downs of being independent.

I remember I was working with this wiz kid engineer who took on what was supposed to be my debut album. We worked for nearly a year on the album, only to have him drop the project for a larger opportunity. That pissed me off, and I carried it as a chip on my shoulder for a long time.

I remember when I was 26 my girlfriend at the time broke things off and told me she didn’t think I’d be successful at making music. We pretty much haven’t spoken since. It was hurtful to know that someone who loved you didn’t believe in you. I carried that as a chip on my shoulder too.

I was working in Hollywood as a club promoter for some years and although I had hundreds of incredible nights partying with celebrities and beautiful women it left me distracted and unfocused on my music. It wasn’t until 2012 when I decided to rock my first show at The Mint LA that I started to understand my potential. There were so many people that came out to support and from that point I knew it was worth the fight.

We’d love to hear more about what you do.
As an artist, I think I specialize in blurring genres through the live experience. There weren’t too many rap bands around LA when we started and not a lot of venues that were accepting rap acts. I’m seeing that change slowly, and I like to think I had influence helping venue owners and managers understand that rap is not all stereotypes.

Venues like Harvard & Stone were never accepting of rappers on their stage, but I’ve played there with my band, and the crowd loved it because it wasn’t what they were expecting. I’ve shared the stage with more indie acts than rap acts, and I’m continuing the blend genres through the artists I manage. Music is for everyone.

What were you like growing up?
Growing up I was always more invested in sports than music. I was always a chill kid. I was very intelligent and a class clown simultaneously. Never got into much trouble outside of school. I loved to play video games, basketball, baseball, build bikes, and hang with the neighborhood squad.

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Edrina Martinez, Nika Kaiser

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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