In Conversation: Harlem’s Elry Jtsn Orbits New York on His Jet Set ‘Radio’ Soundscape

Elry Jtsn has been perched in his Harlem apartment overlooking Yankee Stadium for months ever since the quarantine slowed down the busyness of New York City. He was forced inside by Governor Cuomo and the closing of all businesses deemed “non-essential”, which provided him the same boredom that first led Elry to find his passion for beat making. Elry has been releasing a project in each month throughout quarantine up to this point, starting with a series of World’s Best’ mixes blending his top selections from today’s music over a new series of flips. The tapes span artists like 21 Savage, Chief Keef, and Pop Smoke over a motley of hallucinatory soul sampled beats. He can also be found creating his own universe on the [r.d] radio series. Solidifying the tapes’ satellite FM feel are Funk Flex drops dispersed throughout each installment as the legendary NY disc jockey hosts Jtsn’s sets.

Elry, born Jerald Smith, has also produced a trilogy of albums this year beginning with the collaborative project Blockwork Orange. Blockwork Orange is a full length 27-minute project featuring a collection of artists from Bb!, E.L.I.T.E, Porterhouss, Audubon, Gardner and Justice Yen who were all tapped by Jtsn for vocals over his bass thumping trap beats. Blockwork feels cinematic, taking you on a glide around the block, from the melodic unwinding of the hi-hats to E.L.I.T.E’s butterscotch flow on the track “Floater”. It later brings you to the otherworldly bounce of “One of A Kind (Paranoid)behind Jtsn’s strummed bells which play perfectly with the icy ‘one of a kind’ voice of Bb!.

(Blockwork Orange back artwork)

Diverging from the instrumentation we hear on Blockwork Orange, his follow up was a 12-minute beat tape titled Redrum. Redrum places you back solely into the mind of Jtsn. The beats on this tape draw from a grittier tonation, waning from top to bottom as a perfect reflection of the then barren city streets. Standouts 7th Ave” and “Fronto” loop dizzying piano keys and a somber violin mirroring the dreariness of the first month of COVID-19 lockdown.

Around the release of Redrum, Elry and Justice Yen debuted a single titled “Kill Switch”. Justice Yen’s deep voice and steady in the pocket flow fit like a glove on the vivaciousness of Elry’s production. Justice raps, “I’m playin’ with the guap no Play-Doh/ Yeah the gang come through better lay low/ We gon change that fitted to a Halo,” and every time he gets a handle on the beat he rides it the entire way without wasting a bar. “Kill Switchled to the most recent album Elry has released this year, Final 7, named after the seven chosen songs from a batch of studio sessions between the two artists. Every song flashes their chemistry as a duo. The seven tracks span 14 minutes, and in accordance with all of Elry’s work the short run time makes multiple playbacks a necessity. “Kill Switch Pt. 2was released as Final 7’s first music video, depicting Justice and Elry flexing over a dice game. 

The year isn’t over yet, and neither are the efforts of Elry who is continuing the [r.d] series with pt.6 that released last week and continued his trend of a project in each month. A to-be titled project is expected to be released later this month as well as a confirmed project titled “no opps” arriving right before Halloween. 

I’ve known Elry since high school, and hearing his development from early beats posted on Soundcloud in 2013 to the polished product his music has become through the years into this 2020 run inspired me to get on a FaceTime call to talk about his growth, mindset, and prolific output this year.  

GSC: The main reason I became interested in doing interviews was to ask artists who inspire me questions about their process. You’re the first person I personally knew who produced beats. And over the years I’ve seen you work consistently at it. So it was important for me to get this interview with you as one of the first people I looked up to in creating music. I always wanted to know how you got started?

ELRY JTSN: It started out of boredom to be honest. I ain’t have nothing going on in my life at the time. I just got fired from my job.

GSC: What year is this?

ELRY JTSN: This is probably like 2011-2012. I just graduated high school. I wasn’t doing shit. And I had a Macbook my mom copped me. I saw one of my boys making beats on a program called Reason. I wanted to be just like him. I saw him make a beat in front of my eyes and that was the coolest shit I’ve ever seen in my life. I had rapped to it. It was just jokes but the potential I saw in it was crazy. So I went home and I was torrenting a lot of shit back then. So I looked up torrents for Reason and started going from there. 

GSC: Who was the person who made the beat in front of you?

(Elry Jtsn and his lovely girlfriend)

ELRY JTSN: That was my boy Jedi P. He’s always made music. But that was the first time I got to be around him and see the process. It probably wasn’t even something he was taking that seriously. I just happened to be there that day and saw the process and that was the battery in my back because I always thought about it. I used to fuck around with like DJing but that showed me I could produce.  

GSC: After you downloaded the torrents, was he teaching you, was it self-taught just messing with Reason, or like YouTube videos?

ELRY JTSN: Man YouTube is my best friend. Honestly I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I didn’t know music theory or anything. I grew up playing the trumpet and shit but I never learned how to do music. It’s still a little difficult for me because music theory in itself is the basis of everything. But if you don’t know a 4-count and 8-count it’s just going to be a longer process. So at the beginning my shit was sort of scattered. But I love sampling so the first thing I figured out how to do from YouTube was sampling. Reason is fire for sampling, because you put the sample through a real machine, you have a whole studio in your computer.

GSC:  What were the steps to getting better for you because you’re teaching yourself through YouTube. Producing has always formed a mental block for me when I think about lining up individual sounds, but for you clearly not.

ELRY JTSN: I wouldn’t call myself a computer whiz, but I’m computer savvy. So a lot of the shit I needed to make my production better was probably a torrent away. Shoutout freedrumkits.net! If you were making beats back in the day you know about freedrumkits.net. I downloaded a Lex Luger kit and that became standard for me. Just trying to look for better sounds, and paying attention to what I was hearing to see why my shit wasn’t sounding like that. And I had to ask myself what do I want to do with this shit? Keep it as a hobby for the weekends? But when I had time it became spending 12 hours a day making beats. 

GSC: Putting in so much time to it, does it become work or is it still fun?

ELRY JTSN:  It’s fun when you’re trying to learn something new. It’s like the first time learning anything. Even a video game. Learning the maps, learning the guns, upgrading. It gets fun. I think the fun kind of peaks when you actually know what you’re doing because then it starts to look like work. For as long as it was fun, I was just trying different things. Sampling in different ways.

GSC: Was sampling the preference?

ELRY JTSN:  Nah. I just didn’t know how to do anything else. Anything I was trying to make from scratch didn’t have the sound I was going for. But for samples it’s interesting because I was getting them from YouTube and in the beginning you’re finding gold. But after a few years, in my head I felt like I heard every sample there is. So you have to find more strategic ways to find and flip samples. But sampling is fun, sampling is what made music to begin with. I’ll never give that shit up.

GSC: Speaking of sampling I remember hearing a song you put out in 2013 “Pyrex Stirs”. That beat sparked a lot of my interest in rapping. Can you take me back to that time and speak about going from learning to make beats to creating a sound you were comfortable with releasing?

ELRY JTSN: That was probably the song that made me think I could take this seriously. Back then it would take me like a week to make a beat because of this whole perfectionism thing that I try to stray so far away from now. But that’s a “Mr. Me Too” sample. Back then I didn’t fuck with acapellas so it’s amazing that YouTube had it on deck because I had no other ideas where to get acapellas. And that bar is so hard “Pyrex stirs turned into Cavalli furs”. I ended up shooting a video to that song. I paid someone $200 because I was like ‘Nah bro this is the song’. I believed in myself that much back then.

GSC: I’ve revisited that song for this interview and it still holds up.

ELRY JTSN:  Yeah that worked. At the time I thought it was amazing. I started using more acapellas in general and what really caught fire with me was remixes. Because at that point I was trying to make instrumentals that told a story, which is hard because people were like ‘I need beats I can rap on’. And I was like ‘you can’t rap on this?’ but I realized I was just making art for myself. So I figured the best way to display it was to put somebody’s words on top of it to show people it could actually be a song. 

GSC: You mentioned you made a video for Pyrex Stirs and I found an old video you did for Mrs. Wallace/ Just the Soul Now” and of course the new “Kill Switch pt. 2” video with Justice. I was wondering how you feel about videos as a producer.

ELRY JTSN: Videos are fun man. I wish I had the bread to do more but I feel like videos have to have a purpose. I’ve only ever shot two videos. “Pyrex Stirs”and “Mrs. Wallace”. Now I’m older, my production is better. So I’m trying to replicate what I did but on a better level. I had the idea of getting in a cab, walking the bridge, mad graffiti and shit. My boy Sage English shot that. Shoutout Sage. We met up and shot it that day and it turned out dope but it was more of an art piece for me. And I started to rethink because I knew people don’t just want to hear beats. That “Mrs. Wallace” video was right before I started diving into the remixes and I think that was my calling. Because I loved the samples, I loved the beats I was making. And some people like just instrumentals. I’m that way, but some people rather listen to an Uzi track they like over my beat. Because I can deliver the same product in a different way. So with that I realized I don’t need to shoot more videos, I figured my next video would be with an artist.

GSC: I wanted to bring up videos because from the times I spent at your crib music videos were always on the TV so I knew you had an opinion on videos. I wanted to ask about the “Kill Switch Pt.2” video.

(Justice Yen and Elry Jtsn in “Kill Switch Pt. 2 Music Video)

ELRY JTSN: We made “Kill Switch” earlier in the year and just dropped it. We didn’t know we were going to make a project. We talked about it here and there. But honestly in the past three months we started writing out songs we were going to do. We decided “Justice Tyson” was going to be the single. That was the first song we did. The project started from a studio session where I cooked up maybe eight beats. And I sent all of them straight to Justice Yen. I didn’t even keep them on my computer. And he sent me back four songs, and in those songs were “Justice Tyson” and “Kill Switch pt. 2”. And he wanted to do a video for “Kill Switch pt.2”, which at that point didn’t even have a name. It was all just JusticeJtsn. Shoutout to Justice he had everything on deck. He was super prepared. We had also shot a video for We Outside” but the director didn’t give him the footage, so it was a dub. Me and my brother drove out to the trap house for the video shoot, we shot it. Everything is great. It’s like a month and a half later…no video. So if you want to know why more videos don’t come out it’s shit like this. We hit up the nigga that shot it, and he’s like ‘I don’t edit videos no more. If you want the video edited I gotta send it to my boy’. So the video almost didn’t come out. 

GSC: I’m now realizing how effective it is to have any kind of visual accompanying your music. Some people just want to listen to music, but visuals make it easier to give the music a chance.

ELRY JTSN:  A video can do a lot for songs. You have to understand how a lot of people receive their music. Even a clip of a video can lead you to a song. I learn about songs through Twitter all the time, and it’s usually from a clip of a video. A music video is amazing if a song is even worth listening to. A perfect example would be my son Since99, he has this song called Immaculate. I only heard about that song through the video and I found the video on Twitter. It’s one of those songs I only enjoy when I’m watching the video; it’s not necessarily something I would be listening to.

GSC: You touched on it a bit, but I was interested in the process for making and recording Final 7 and your relationship with Justice Yen.

Final 7 Artwork

ELRY JTSN:  Justice is an organic real ass nigga. We started making music two years ago. I think he just followed me on Instagram. One of those random internet friendships, but I take those internet friendships seriously. Those are the closest friends I have sometimes. I just started sending him beats. And one of the first songs he sent me back was so fire to me. It never came out or even got mastered, but at the time I never heard anyone sound like that on my production. It got more serious when I wanted to put out Blockwork Orange. That’s when I got better relationships with the artist I wanted to work with. Me and Justice had “Storm is Coming”andWe Outside”. I put out “Storm is Coming” as a loosie leading up to my project and Justice had released his project “Die Now, Live Later 2” in January and I had two credits on that. So we already had some fire going and we decided to drop the first “Kill Switch”.  The relationship is still pretty new, we only met for the first time at the video shoot but we’ve chilled a thousand times at the studio after that, knocking out mad tracks from “903 Steppers”, “Send Him to Heaven” , and  “Yenk-47”

GSC: I agree the chemistry he has over your production stands out heavily in all the tracks you’ve released together. So it makes sense that it ties into the personal relationship. 

ELRY JTSN: We still have so much shit that’s going to come out. I feel like this is still so early for us as a duo but just this year we’re kinda showing what we can do. When the artwork came about we knew we were going to narrow it down to 7 songs so the title became Final 7. It was a project I had in my head because I was a fan of when Metro did it with 21, so this is my stab at that. Which is cool because it’s a genuine relationship. I fuck with Justice the long way. When we’re riding  together smoking we don’t even be talking about music we talk about life. We’ll get to the music when we get to the studio. 

GSC:  When you meet someone for the first time and can have that comfortability it’s a different connection. 

ELRY JTSN:  I was with my brother, he was with his boy and we started lighting up dope. 10 minutes later we’re shooting the video together like I’ve known him forever. We FaceTime a lot too. So that interaction is even important. Because this is the closest I can get to seeing somebody or being in the same room. I wake up, call my nigga Justice to see what he on, we talk for 20 minutes and go about our day. And I like that he’s vocal, he’ll tell me what he doesn’t like. And he be trying different shit, like “Yen Veteran” I didn’t think he would spin on something like that. He raps what he’s really about, he gives a lot of himself on the track.  He’s amazing. 

GSC: I first heard Justice when you sent me “Storm is Coming” and then again on Blockwork Orange. His track stood out a lot, so when I got to sit with a full project of songs it really cut through that it wasn’t just a few good songs there’s a real connection there. On Blockwork Orange you also introduced me to Bb! His songs on the album are so fire I thought having him on the intro was perfect. 

ELRY JTSN: Talking about internet relationships. Bb! was   following me on SoundCloud. Because I was heavy on the remix shit and I gained a lot of my core fans from that. He makes beats, but he sent me a track of him singing and I was taken back. You know when people send you music, when you get around to it, if you like it you like it. If not you go about your day. I was trying to do Blockwork at the time. And when I heard that song I was like, ‘Nah bro I’mma need you to get on some of my shit’.  I have to give him even more credit because not a lot of people were sending tracks back at the beginning. So I was about to just say fuck it. It wasn’t until the project came out that some of the artists understood what I was trying to do. I hit Bb! on some late night shit. I was probably high like, ‘Yo bro don’t even worry about sending it back, I might not even do [the project]’. And  he responded telling me he had just finished “One of A Kind (Paranoid)”. He  sent it back and it was amazing, so I was like how can I tell him it isn’t coming out when he   has this to share with the world? That was the best thing that could’ve happened. That gave me the gas I needed. I sent the intro to Bb! and got it back in two days. That song took me to another place. Shoutout to Bb! we got more shit coming. I haven’t met him yet, he lives out in LA. It would be nice to meet these people.

GSC: You meet people over time from these online interactions. Whether it’s music related or otherwise. But when you meet them the relationship you’ve built almost always carries over in person.                                                                                       

Elry in the studio

ELRY JTSN: Whether it’s a feature, or even getting a beat from somebody you’re getting their energy. So if it clicks so well that you can make a good song together, it’s going to work in real life. You attract a certain energy and these artists saw what type of time I was on. And that’s good because I don’t want this music to sit on my laptop forever. Blockwork Orange was a chance for me to put artists I know onto each other. When I put it out, I had artists tell me they need to work with the other artists. They’re on the same project so they can finally get in tune with each other. It was a cool opportunity to be the head of that.

GSC: On my first listen I was trying to find out who Bb! reminded me of. He’s so different your brain tries to find something to compare it to and I thought of Baby Keem but his sound is so much his own. 

ELRY JTSN: Yeah it’s like you want to label him so bad. But that’s the perfect thing about him is you can’t do that. And a lot of the people I work with are going to give you bars. So while the tape has a lot of bars he comes through with the melodies. My girl thought of Toro y Moi when she heard him, I would say Travis Scott and you’re saying Baby Keem. He’s labeless.

GSC: You mentioned bringing artists together on your album and I wanted to know the motivation behind creating these flips and mixes? Because you put time into them, they aren’t personal. You’re making them to share with the world.

ELRY JTSN: Everything comes full circle. You asked me in the beginning how I started making music and I told you I lost my job. Unfortunately due to COVID I lost my job again, but out of bad things so many good things can come. Being stuck in the crib I had nothing going on. It’s a weird transition from getting up going to work 5 days a week to being told not to go to work, just stay home. It was my saving grace through this shit. To keep sane and feel like I was doing something everyday. When I do the quarantine mixes that shits fun because I can put you onto an artist you don’t know or a song from an artist you do know. Growing up people would ask me for playlists or new music. So I figure why not share what I’m listening to? When it comes to flips it’s songs I really like and just putting them over other beats. I’ve been doing it for so long so now I’m just giving effortless flips. Cause I’ve done these trappy flips, like when I flipped Mask Off’ but now my flips are laid back along that “lo-fi beats to study to” realm of music over the top 10 songs you might hear on the radio. 

GSC: Can you speak about the radio series?

ELRY JTSN:Radio’ has been fun. People listen to it, and some people expect it. I’ve gotten commended on the consistency. It was never supposed to be a thing that I kept doing, I named it part one just to keep it open. SoundCloud took it down because of ‘Toosie Slide’,and people started hitting my phone asking about it because that was their workout or travelling music. In these times everyone’s been able to give what they can, and if I can give people music as a gift every month, who doesn’t want that? I know people that don’t use streaming services so they might miss out on a Blockwork Orange or Final 7at least you can have a radio series. I’m going to continue doing it as long as I can. Probably incorporating R&B flips.

GSC: Where did the name Elry Jtsn come from?

Elry’s namesake

ELRY JTSN: I just needed something. It gelled well because my name starts with a J. So people could just call me ‘Jtsn’. I dropped all the vowels and it looked clean on paper. Originally I had a different name which was just my name backwards how my Instagram is. But nobody could pronounce it. Shoutout to whoever told me to change it. I always found the Jetsons cool as fuck, I always have the conversation about how the Jetsons aren’t appreciated in pop culture the same way the Flintstones are. They have the movies, they have the cereal. But the Jetsons live in the sky, they had a robot maid, a cool ass family. I just thought it was cool and it wasn’t taken. 

GSC: At some level every artist wants to be recognized for their work, by their friends, family or otherwise. Does achieving a certain level of recognition play a role in your motivation for music?

ELRY JTSN: I’m just in competition with myself bro. I used to be big into hoping my mom likes this shit, or my boy likes this shit. But when I put shit out, I hope somebody who’s never heard of me hears it and it blows their mind. I want that when I do anything, because you remember the first time you heard any artist and you were blown away. Even if you’re not in love with them now you think about when you heard that song that did it for you. I’m going for that first impression. It’s big with music. If the first song you hear from someone isn’t that good it doesn’t do well for you listening more. It’s usually their best song that first comes across your radar.  I would hope that when you listen to anything I’m releasing you get the feeling it’s up to par. 

GSC: What influences you outside of music?

ELRY JTSN: When I’m not making beats. I be watching mad movies. I’m such a movie buff. I don’t get much inspiration from video games, those are more just to pass the time. That’s more of a reflex thing and like problem solving. I be watching mad TV shows too.

GSC: What’s your favorite movie right now? Not the “best movies” just your favorites right now?

ELRY JTSN: I can tell you the last movies I watched. In no particular order: Casino, Fever Pitch with Drew Barrymore and my guy Jimmy Fallon, Taxi with Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon again. Silence of the Lambs, Leon: The Professional, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. I saw that in theatres and run that back every chance I get, I can watch movies over and over. That’s why this list is so all over the place. Panic Room shoutout Jodie Foster. The Sixth Sense, and Unbreakable that’s what going on. Random ass movies.Inspiration can come from anywhere. 

GSC: They don’t necessarily bring inspiration but which games currently have your interest? You tweeted that you wanted to buy a PS2.

ELRY JTSN: All sorts of games bro. I didn’t get the PS2 because they want like $100 for that. Most games that I wanted I was able to cop on the PS4 like GTA. I wanted Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and they want bread for that too. I have the first one on an emulator on my computer. I like The Last of Us. Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Switch. I don’t get inspiration from games because that’s my escape from everything, from life, from music, even having to think. The more access I get to older games the happier I am, Max Payne 2, Splinter Cell, Manhunt niggas don’t even know about Manhunt. 

GSC: Have you performed any live beat sets?

ELRY JTSN: Nah. I don’t really feel like I’d want to do it.  I’m kind of shy. I think that plays into it. But it would be more of what the people wanted. If people wanted to see me live on some KAYTRANADA shit then sure. It would be cool some day. It would be more or less my flips, but even for beats I’d want to expand my discography first because I wouldn’t play my old shit. I guess now I’m working on building my library to do that.

GSC: I’ve watched a few live streamed sets since moving out of New York and with COVID cancelling most live shows, even through a screen I still think that live performance energy can be felt.

ELRY JTSN: I would probably even get into doing it on Twitch. That could be in the near future. Kenny Beats streams are always dope, or my guy Knxwledge. Live streams also give people the opportunity to do whatever they want in their own space. It takes the pressure off of being in front of a lot of people. If it was to happen it would probably happen like that. Possibly, in the next couple of months.

GSC: What role does Harlem play in your music?

ELRY JTSN:  Shit it plays a lot into who I am. You’re from Harlem. It’s just a part of our character. A lot of the things that I sample are true to me. I’m putting myself into my art so anything that can be specifically Harlem pops up in my music. I probably over did it earlier in my sampling days. I gotta put Harlem on the map. It’s literally my home. Shoutout to New York in general. Same with rappers any artist wants to put on for their city, even if the city doesn’t know them. I’m going to always put on for my city in general.

GSC: How has your process changed from when you started to the current day?

ELRY JTSN: For one I don’t use Reason any more. I switched over to FL in 2014 and it’s been that since. I use Logic for a lot of my flips. Anybody who got a Mac has a chance to use Logic, get into it. A lot of people rock with Albeton I’m not here to get into any DAW wars but I like FL because of the simplicity. The same way I loved Reason for it’s organic feel, the process on FL is seamless. Making a beat in five minutes is very possible.  I don’t want it to be rush work, but I don’t want it to be ‘perfection’ either. And now I already know what I’m going to make before I make it. Before I used to let the beat find me in some sort of spiritual way. I’m a lot more sure of what I’m accomplishing because I made the guide book on myself already. 

GSC: What do you envision the next steps looking like in your growth? 

ELRY JTSN: I want to keep stepping out of my box. I want to keep the radio consistent, but next you’re probably going to hear me on my own beats and shit. Stepping up as an artist. I’ve done it in the background, but having everything I have now you’re going to hear something from me. I’m also trying to do more R&B flips, that’s what that untitled tape is. And that last thing you’re just going to have to see. Playing the producer role working with more artists in this upcoming year, because while building another project would be cool I want to work on other things in the meantime. Justice has so many other songs we could drop another tape. Like I said there’s so many other things in the works, you’re going to hear me regardless. 

GSC: You mentioned being reserved personality wise, but also expressed wanting to do more to expand creatively. I’m wondering if you feel beats do enough to communicate your sense of self-expression?

ELRY JTSN: Yes and no. A lot of the time the attention gets taken off if I’m making a beat for somebody. I have to understand it’s never going to sound the same. I’m enjoying the little tweaks that I’m putting into the beats, but that attention gets taken away when you’re listening to the rapper. With me releasing my own music or trying to take the artist standpoint there’s some way I can always give people all of me. Doing Redrum this year, that’s all me. It was a perfect contrast to Blockwork Orange because I get to do whatever I want. I make beats people can rap on, then I switch over to flips, then I switch over to other stuff. If anything I found the perfect balance. 

GSC: What was the process for Redrum? You released it within 2 weeks of Blockwork Orange. Was the idea just to keep coming back to back this year? 

ELRY JTSN:  I only was trying to please myself with that shit. I made those beats in like two weeks. You’re sitting on beats and thinking, “Why not?” Giving people what would easily just be stuck on my laptop. If you know the process of music you know you’re not going to hear half the music that’s created for whatever reason. I can’t tell you how many Young Thug songs never came out, so with Redrum what could’ve never come out I just put it out. 

GSC:  Does making music feel stressful or cathartic for you? Or does it feel like just leveling up for the next part of the skill tree?

ELRY JTSN:  It is just leveling up for me at this point because I don’t put pressure on myself. It’s weird because a year ago if you asked me these same questions I probably would’ve had a different answer. Putting pressure on myself to sit down and do something that was meant to be fun in the beginning is kind of crazy. If it’s not working that day don’t force it, don’t touch the computer. You’ll be surprised how often I have beat block, where I won’t make anything for a month. Sometimes you overwork yourself and get burnt out. At the beginning of quarantine I was doing just that and I was getting stressed. When you force shit it’s so obvious, it’s like you’re trying to put on a show. When you’re forcing 50 beats 47 of them probably sound the same. And if you’re making that many beats you have to do the legwork to make sure they get heard. Otherwise they just sit on the laptop. You can make one beat a month and if that beat gets the right placement you’re set for life. Look at Old Town Road, I doubt YoungKio was making 50 beats a week. He was probably working at a healthy pace. I don’t buy into that producer mentality of having to always be making beats. I applaud the person who makes one beat a day and sells 10 beats a week.

GSC: How would you describe your sound? 

Elry Jtsn  It depends on what you’re talking about. I can give you different vibes I don’t feel I have a particular sound to describe. I like so many different types of music. The fun part is knowing I could make whatever I want. If I decided to make some Indie rock I could just because I know it can be done. I couldn’t really describe it to be honest. 

GSC:  Upcoming projects?

ELRY JTSN:  More personal music from me. More flips you can expect that from me for the rest of the year. Less trap shit too. I feel more at home doing the flips. I listen to the radio when I’m just around the crib cleaning up. I want to give people samples. Radio 6 is out now!

GSC: Any last words?

ELRY JTSN:  If you take anything from this, just do it at your own pace. And if you want to support, give the music a listen on Bandcamp.  

You can follow Jtsn on Twitter, Instagram and SoundCloud. And stream Final 7, Blockwork Orange, and Redrum on all available streaming platforms.

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