It’s safe to say that Jdot Breezy is becoming a household name in the rap industry. Every track is accumulating millions of listens across streaming platforms and there is nothing in his way at this rate. Although he is finally settling into his newfound fame, his life hasn’t always been easy. Jdot grew up with his mom and sister in Jacksonville, Florida. His dad was in and out of jail and he wasn’t really present throughout his childhood. He’s been rapping since he was 11-years-old, and has privated videos on YouTube that he swears he’ll never let anyone find. Jdot and his friends would listen to underground rap, and are particularly into the Detroit scene. He gained inspiration from artists such as Veeze and Babyface Ray, who were underground artists when he Jdot started rapping. This influence shows in Jdot’s immense use of Detroit-stylized beats in the bulk of his songs.

Before we get into the story of Jdot Breezy, it’s essential to fully understand the roots and backbone of his music. In short, over the past few years, Jacksonville has not been an easy spot for rappers. There are two main sides to the beef which include Spinabenz and Youngeen Ace, and their posse known as the 187 Boyz/ATK and Julio Foolio who belongs to KTA. The beef stems from a viral song called “Who I Smoke,” which features artists Spinabenz, Whoppa Wit Da Choppa, Yungeen Ace, and FastMoney Goon going after Julio Foolio, dissing his dead acquaintances. The song remixed a popular 2000’s pop song called “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton, which likely contributed to the track's virality. It isn’t often that you’ll hear artists talk down on the dead over an upbeat tune. Julio Foolio responded with a track entitled “When I See You” which sparked ongoing violence between both parties.

Jdot Breezy started hanging around them when he was around 18, but he had been somewhat associated with the group since he was a child, even though they claim they didn’t know who he was until recently. Jdot was always the youngest in the groups that he hung out with. Back in the day, Jdot’s mom was best friends with another woman whose son lived where Spinabenz’ was from in the Eastside of Jacksonville. Jdot would visit them back in the day, and this was when he met Spin and with other members of 187 Boyz when they first started rapping. At this point, Jdot was an innocent kid with no gang affiliations. He stated in an interview on No Jumper, “I wasn’t on no gang sh*t.” Jdot says he recalls these interactions with the group amazingly because the 187 Boyz were trying to make something of themselves that he hadn’t seen much throughout his upbringing. At the time, Jacksonville didn’t have anyone making it out of the city, and no one had the spotlight. The music scene was dead. It gave him hope: “If they could do it, I could do it.”

Jdot Breezy played lots of football in high school. People belittle him for playing sports in his past, claiming that he isn’t what he rapped about because he used to play sports. However, Jdot wouldn’t let this get to him. He said in an interview with Say Cheese TV, “I ain’t ashamed of saying I played football. I done won a state championship, you feel me? That’s something you should be proud of.” People who never tried to be something in their past will always try to make fun of you. At this point, it was as if people were trying to say that rappers are supposed to, ultimately, do nothing else in their life before rapping. On top of this, many rappers used to play street ball and other sports as kids, but, Jdot fell in love with football and it helped him to stay out of trouble throughout his early years.

There’d be times when he hadn’t had food in his house, which would push him towards relying on the street life to make ends meet. He’d see people on street corners selling drugs who could buy anything they wanted. He thought to himself, think “Why can’t I do that?”. This clearly started to have an overbearing impact on his life. Just after winning the state championship for football during his freshman year of high school, Jdot was sent away to a level eight program resulting from an armed carjacking charge. It was at that program where he really started rapping, and would rap for anyone who was interested. He’d call people from home to tell them that he was serious about rapping when he got back from the program. When he returned for his Sophomore year, his team won the state championship again. He started making songs and gained some buzz. All of a sudden, boom, he was locked up for a gun charge. Luckily enough, Jdot was back and ready for his senior year, telling his coach that he “was done with that sh*t.” His coach responded, “You either gonna pick one, or one gon’ pick you.” As soon as he was released, he dropped a track called “First Week Out” with his ankle monitor on. Before he knew it, the song had 400,000 views on youtube.

Jdot was truly at his breaking point. He got kicked out of his house after going at it with his mother and started living with his cousin who he calls his brother. They are now on good terms, but back then it was chaotic not only between Jdot and his mom, but also him and his sister. School and the streets collided. The school resource officer allegedly overheard a student claim that someone was trying to act tough and saying that “Jdot better not come out the gate (of the school)” in front of the officer while acting like they were armed. The resource officer then relayed the message to the front office who called the police and had Jdot picked up from school. Jdot was sitting in the auditorium watching film with his teammates when he was called on the intercom. His coach told him he had to go and come back as quickly as he could because the team had a game tomorrow. He walked into the office where he was met with his parents alongside ten police officers. His phone gained signal and was blown up with messages saying “Jdot, don’t go out the gate.”

The principal told him that “there was a threat made against you. I need you to get off of the school premises. We’ll let you know when you can come back to school.” One month goes by, nothing. Two months go by, nothing. Though he was told he could go back to school, Jdot had missed too many days and wasn’t allowed to attend class for the rest of the year.. The moral of the story was that this was the last straw for Jdot. The school was trying to push him to attend an alternative school to get a GED. This was the last straw for Jdot, he already had no interest in school and the only thing that pushed him to graduate, football, had been stripped from him. Jdot said “f*ck it.” School was not for him.

Before going to prison for his gun charge, Jdot was on good terms with both sides. It was while he was in prison that all of the Jacksonville gang violence started to go down. By the time he was released, all hell had broken loose in terms of who had issues with whom--and cool was cool with people on both sides. Jdot looked at the situation as “I am cool with everybody, they are beefin’ but I ain’t beefin’.” Jdot knew that he would have to pick a side, and this, once again, was one of the reasons why he had to stay home from school. People on both sides would go into the school and make threats about Jdot, even though he wanted no part in it and was done with the streets. He hadn’t even been rapping about the streets yet; he had only dropped his one song. No disses. Nothing. The incident with school impacted him to the point where he now technically was rumored to have gang affiliations and it made it impossible for him to get a job. His only option was rap. He had no mentors, it was just him and his brother, Ralo, who had his fair share of street life.

According to Jdot, he never picked a side, he was forced onto a side. After his gun charge, people told him things like to not mess with someone because they didn’t mess with them. Jdot wasn’t like that. If that was the case, he wasn’t going to mess with either one of them. Ralo had grown up with Youngeen Ace and all of his boys. Additionally, Jdot grew up with Ksoo (Youngeen Ace’s shooter) and his brother because their mothers knew each other. They were godbrothers and godsisters and only lived two streets apart. Jdot had moved out of Jacksonville at this point and bought an Airbnb. His name was going around, and his friends were telling him to stay where he was to avoid altercations. It was at this point that Jdot worked on his first album, Creation. He went to the studio every single day to perfect his craft. It grew boring but he knew what he had to do.

Around this time, Jdot started losing his homies to gang violence. One in particular that really hit him was losing Leeky. It really hurt him, and he’d thought about how only a few days prior to his friends’ deaths they’d been riding around on their bikes talking about life. Eventually, over a year ago, Julio Foolio featured a female artist named Lotta Cash, dissing one of Jdot Breezy’s deceased friend Leeky in a track called “Pop Out.” She didn’t know Leeky personally. There was no retaliation for over a year, and suddenly Lotta Cash was shot. Jdot hopped on an Instagram live and went after her. People were angry even though he was doing the same thing that she had done prior to her demise. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, bad attention is still attention.

From here on out, it was Jdot’s turn at bat.

“No Name Droppin’” was my first Jdot song, and it has left an everlasting impression on me since the first listen. The wordplay, flow switches, and diverse tones that Jdot utilizes throughout the song show why he’s turning heads as of late. Moreover, every single line has meaning and there are quite a few that I had to dissect myself. For example, when Jdot chants, “They say diamonds losing value so I might just keep the gold,” he is referring to diamonds' poor resale value whilst pointing to his gold grills as a subtle flex. It’s a breath of fresh air to see a buzzing artist who ensures that they don’t waste verse. Another alluring component of Jdot’s music is what I like to call his “sensory details.” I’ve noticed that in most of his songs, he’ll include segments where he describes interactions in detail. In the track, he raps, “b*tch, take this d*ck h*e just keep it down,” and goes more and more into detail. These portions stand out because they slow the song down and listeners feel encapsulated by the scenes described by Jdot. The whole point of this track is for Jdot to prove that it is possible to diss other artists without including their names after the whole fiasco of consecutive name-dropping between ATK and KTA. He illustrates this at dozens of points throughout the song. Some of the claims he makes are so unhinged that I truly had to question if he exaggerated them or if he is perhaps truly psychotic. There is no chance that he “[shot] this b*tch for four minutes.” Or is there?

Jdot Breezy has a couple of dynamic duos in his artillery. One of them being his connection with fellow ATK-affiliated rapper GMK. I’ve been following GMK’s come-up for a couple of years now and am intrigued by their newfound bond. The fast-paced rhymes from GMK paired with Jdot’s ability to inflict a sense of slow motion on any song in its wrath are powerful and not easily achievable. In my opinion, songs that are consistently fluttered with machine gun spat-out statements get repetitive after a while, even though they leave me mesmerized at first. I don’t know what it is - I just simply can’t follow them because there is so much information to digest all at once. It’s ideal when artists allow consumers to have time to catch up while listening. GMK’s music gives me Philly vibes and I compare him to a deceased rapper named Lil Snupe. Something about their music always has me correlate them with one another. My curiosity makes me question why I enjoy this song. Normally, I’m not for the classic murder murder kill songs. However, Jdot and GMK’s pure talent and clever lyrics keep me fascinated and thirsty for more. Especially the way mix their lyricism with mentions of crime. For example, GMK screeches. “I’ma give you one more chance when you hear this song you know you cuttin’ it close,” meaning that if his ops respond it’s over for them.

J4 Krazy caught my attention after his duet with Whoppa Wit A Choppa named “Tek It” where he remixed a viral hit called “Tek It” by American indie pop duo Cafuné. The beat dropped blissfully destroys my eardrums every time I hit a set at the gym. J4 Krazy shines on “Bring It On” and is able to keep up with Jdot which has previously only truly been done by GMK. The three are becoming the DC trinity of Wonderwoman, Batman, and Superman in terms of rap. Every line of the song has like three different meanings. Every time you listen to the track you’ll pick up on something new that you hadn’t heard before. Their descriptions are so in-depth that the fact that he is able to spit them out while staying on beat is hard to fathom. Like when Jdot raps: “I’m committed to this murder sh*t locked in like it's a marriage, diss me in a song and now ya partner casket you gon’ carry, did his ass wrong talkin' out his neck then he got buried."

Jdot’s tone is inconspicuous throughout this single. It’s obvious to the listener that it’s him after the first few words. During the first half, he uses a menacing cadence and is straight to the point. Whereas in the remainder of the song he demonstrates his versatility by slowing the track down and using a more calm, down-to-earth tone. Furthermore, Jdot’s rhyme schemes make me want to pull out one of those charts that used to be used when comparing Eminem and Machine Gun Kelly’s diss tracks to each other which displayed the complexity and simplicity of every line’s rhyme to an extent. The bulk of many individual lines have multiple words that rhyme with one another (e.g. “Bag on his head for that bread get his brain snatched). This allows the flow of the song to feel much more authentic and once I picked up on it once, I started noticing examples throughout every song.

Jdot’s newest song “No Movie” is the perfect depiction of his one-in-a-million flow and wordplay. What I’m trying to get at when mentioning his flow is that he switches it after every few lines. Once you get used to the flow he’ll change it. And then change it again. I believe that the fact that you can’t get comfortable while listening to any of Jdot’s tracks is the appealing factor that keeps listeners on their toes. At the end of the day, it’s all about keeping music consumers interested. There are countless methods Jdot utilizes to do so. I believe that every statement has a purpose in his music. The abundance of (should have been) throwaway lines that artists leave in their songs is debilitating, not to mention all of the repeated lines that have been recycled all over the industry. What’s absurd to me is Jdot sticks to this during every single song in his discography, never wasting a line ever since his first released tracks dating back to 2019.

Make sure to check out Jdot’s new album “Don’t FWM Later” below, and follow @_jdotbreezy_ on Instagram and @jdotbreezy1 on Twitter!

Written By Eli Grehn

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