Stockton rapper EBK Jaaybo is playing Roblox with his brother. He’s so deep into the game that he’s initially distracted from our conversation on Zoom. I ask him if he’s an avid player. “No, I’m not,” he says. “I don’t know, I’m just playing right now because I’m on an ankle monitor.” At the time, he was on house arrest after a March car stop in Stockton where he was arrested for possession of ammunition, possession of a controlled substance, driving without a license, and violating his probation. He had been home less than a month from a one-year stint in San Joaquin County Jail for illegal gun possession. During his time away, the Stockton rapper had gone viral with “Boogieman,” a sinister hit that he says he doesn’t even like (“I really didn’t put no effort into making it”).
Regardless of how he feels about the record, the fanfare elevated him into one of the West Coast’s most intriguing up-and-comers. He recently garnered a co-sign from Snoop Dogg, who nodded an emphatic “yes” when streamers Zias and B Lou asked if he “fucked with Jaaybo.” There’s a belief among EBK diehards that Kendrick Lamar calling himself a “certified Boogieman” on “Not Like Us” was a reference to Jaaybo reintroducing the term to hip-hop parlance.
While so much of the West Coast rap discourse centers on LA and the Bay, EBK Jaaybo and his EBK comrades, such as EBK Young Joc as well as the late Young Slo-Be, have been making a name for Stockton, a city located an hour east of Oakland. “[There were people] rapping before us but I got niggas knowing us in the UK,” he says. “They know us and they slappin’ us down there.”
Jaaybo raps with a hunger and specificity that helps him excel in the so-called gangsta rap scene. And his sense of humor douses jest over images that probably shouldn’t be funny. On “Homebody,” he raps, “Janky nigga, turn my sweater inside out, I’m finna spin in this / Spent a bag on it, I’m gon’ slide and wear this bitch again.” His appeal harkens to the disclaimer at the beginning of the Starz series Black Mafia Family: “a lot of this shit may have actually happened.” But Jaaybo’s vulnerability is laid as bare as his menace on songs like “Death Bedz,” where he raps, “I’m only human, I got feelings and I cry too / They keep tellin’ me move away, but shit, I tried to.”
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Since coming home Jaaybo capitalized on his buzz with “F*ck Everybody,” an incendiary track that aims at his rivals. It’s the kind of track that appeases the underbelly of rap media more focused on beef and authenticity than music. He’s self-aware that such songs, ripe to be exploited by YouTubers linking lyrics to real-life issues, “does more harm than good.” But he also expressed an inner conflict, realizing that some of his fans enjoy his violent content. “My music do the bad and the good,” he states, juxtaposing tracks like VonOff1700-featured album single “Exposing Me” with the vulnerable “Shilo.” Some of his fans find his music chilling, while he says others have told him they find him “healing.”
Jaaybo has been honest that his music reflects a very real gun violence epidemic that he’s still trying to “make it out of.” In an all-too-common hip-hop tale, legal troubles are threatening to dim his star before it rises. He’s currently incarcerated for the ninth time in his life; weeks after our conversation, Jaaybo was arrested in Arkansas on gun and drug possession charges. As of now, his custody status notes “US Marshal or Federal hold detainer,” hinting at post-arrest federal intervention. Poised to join NBA Youngboy on his upcoming MASA (Make America Slime Again) tour, his name was removed from a recent re-release of the tour’s flier. His album, Don’t Trust Me, which is releasing on Friday, was crafted in just 20 days as a triumphant comeback. But now, his future seems up in the air.
Nowadays, with high-profile artists repeatedly being targeted in sweeping indictments, it’s worth wondering if there’s a way “out” of criminalization as a rapper. Jaaybo is the latest would-be phenomenon clamoring for a proper rap ingress, hoping for stardom before the justice system, or would-be enemies, keep him from fulfilling his potential. He spoke with Rolling Stone about his winding journey towards rap stardom.
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So, you just came home, and then you got caught up in another situation. I’m just wondering, where’s your head at right now? What’s on your mind these days?
A nigga trying to stay on the right track, but it just be… It be hard. A nigga one foot in, one foot out, right now. A nigga love the shit that come with this music, but man, I’ve been gang banging my whole life, so I’m at that transition phase, and it’s hard for a nigga. But I’m going to get it right.
What are some of the shifts you want to make in that journey?
I want to be able to just let all this shit go one day, just be regular after all this shit. You feel me? I ain’t going to lie, as of right now I’m in it, but I got an exit plan. I’m trying to get there.
What do you feel like you learned the most over the past couple of years?
To enjoy freedom. Being able to do the little shit, to open doors, nigga, and throw clothes on. I done did a lot of jail time, so it’s like, over the years I learned how to enjoy the little shit, and learned that money don’t mean anything. I enjoy the little shit in life. Because once that shit get revoked from you, you ain’t going to care about the money, you going to be caring about the little shit like just seeing the trees and. In jail, you can’t do shit like that. Sometimes you don’t see the stars.
How did you navigate in, like you said, this controlled environment where you could only do a limited number of things?
I read books.
What did you read?
I read a lot of Stuart Woods and James Patterson and shit. Hella urban books and shit. I was reading books every day, writing music and shit.
Did you get those books from the library? Did people suggest them to you, or…
You have books in there. It’s going to be books in your unit. It’d be a library in there or you just have your people send you some. I was doing all of them, going to the library, getting books, I was reading the books that was in there and I was having people send me books.
Do you feel like there are any books that you learned a lot from, particularly?
The urban books. Some of them. But a lot of them be not realistic. Sme of the urban books, though, how they be ending, they all end the same way. I’m learning something from that. In all the urban books, the nigga [who’ll] be on top or in the streets, he die or go to jail. In every urban book, don’t none of them niggas last. It’s crazy. They do that in every urban book, so them books for surely teach you something. It just depends on if you take the message or not, or if you just take it as, oh, this shit just a book.
What do you think is most unrealistic?
Some of the shit that they be writing about it, some of them is just crazy. But it be some of them that’s accurate though, that I could relate to. It just depends. It’s what you take from it. It just depend on the type of mindset. Some niggas could read a book and it’d be a strong quote in there, because them writers put quotes in there that’s supposed to touch the readers if motherfuckers really pay attention. But it’d be a simple minded motherfucker reading a book, that’s just reading it for the violence in the book, and not getting none of the secret messages they putting in the book. But it’ll be a motherfucker that’s a little woke and that’ll read the book and it’ll really be some shit in there that’d be like, “Ooh, he onto something.” So it really just depends on what type of person you is. I want to make a book.
Oh yeah? What would it be about?
It’d be an urban book.
So the different approaches of reading a book, where, like you said, some people receive it surface level, some people take the lessons from it, how much do you think that reflects in your craft as a lyricist?
I could put together a song and when people listening to my music, they’re envisioning it in their heads. Like, fuck me just rapping about it. I’m rapping my story without even having a sit down. Because it’s easier for me to sit down and tell you my story, but it’s people that done listened to my music and they know about my whole life, just off the music. So I know I could write a book. If I could make people picture that with two-minute songs, why I can’t make them do it in a book that’s going to be 300 pages or 200 pages, 100, whatever? I know I could write the book. I know the music play a big part in what I can do, as far as shit like that. I’d write a book, for sure.
When you’re free, do you feel like you’re going to stay in Stockton?
No, I’m gone. Parole just tripping because I violated. But once parole’s done tripping on me, they’re going to let me leave. A couple more weeks.
Do you have stuff lined up that you’ll be able to do once you’re able to leave home?
Oh yeah, I got hella shit lined up. I just need them to let me do my thing.
So I know you’ve been working on the project. What’s that been like?
It’s done. Just finalizing it, mastering it. That shit done, though. For sure. It’s going to be called, Don’t Trust Me. It’s going to be a good song. I mean it’s going to be a good album, for sure.
Can you take me into the meaning of the title?
Just because we live by the code. You could trust me if you my brother, but if you’re not, you can’t. And it’s like, we live by that a lot, so I feel like it just makes sense that that’s my album name: “Don’t trust me.” That’s what I live by. Don’t even do it. I ain’t going to do nothing to nobody, though. But don’t even trust a nigga. Don’t even come over here playing with me.
How many of the songs did you write while you were inside?
Nah, a few of them. Not a lot, though. Not no more than five songs.
What was it like getting back into recording when you came home? How did that feel?
It felt good being able to just be free. Smoked some weed, just hopped in the booth, made a banger. Hopped in the booth, made “Biggest G.”
Do you write your lyrics or do you write them in your head and record them?
I don’t write, I just be thinking and I be humming shit, thinking this shit all through the week, and then I go to the studio already with shit in my head, because it’s bars. I be thinking… I listen to other people’s music when I be in the car, and I start rapping over their shit, thinking of some shit. I just be rapping in my head all day. So it’s just easy to go in there and say some shit. Just rap about my life. I do hella shit, so I always have something to say.
That’s dope because the way you write is intricate, it’s dope that you would put that together in your head like that.
That just come naturally.
Even when you first started rapping, it was like that?
No. Now it’s easy. It’s easy. Call, go in the studio, do my thing, like clockwork. Not before, because I feel like I perfected my craft now. So, before, it was hard. It was a struggle when I was coming up, but now it’s just easy. I know what I’m finna go in there and say.
I know some artists, when they record, they’ll focus on one or two songs a day. Some artists will do five, six, or seven songs a day. Where do you feel like you fall in on that?
I do seven songs, six songs, a session. I’m not going in there and playing. I’m for surely leaving with seven songs every time I go to a studio. And everybody could vouch for this. I’m not going in there and make no two songs. If that’s the case, I’m not going to go.
How long did it take you to put together the songs that are on this project?
I only been home 20 days. I’ve been holding this shit in for… I went to jail so a nigga been holding everything in. I had some shit to say.
What do you think are some of the main themes on the project?
A few bangers, “Long Live Brother,” “The Button Center.” Some rattles on there. I ain’t going to lie, all that shit slap.
Do you care about being considered the best rapper?
No. I just want to make it out, bro. Get mines. Because I’m a real nigga, I don’t really need that validation from nobody else. I’m just trying to get in where I fit in. But if they crown a nigga, they crown a nigga that. But I ain’t looking for all that. I don’t care. I know I rap good. I know I could rap my ass off. Because it’s my life and I know I done been through some real shit, so how can’t [they] respect what I’m rapping about on the mic? On buzz, nigga, this all my life, on dead homies I ain’t rapping about nobody else life. But I’m coming, for sure. They done let a nigga through the door.
You were incarcerated when “Boogieman” first blew up — how did you realize the song was getting big?
I just seen it doing that, just hearing it all the time. I really don’t like that song. I really didn’t put no effort into making it.
I was reading a previous interview and you said, “I’m not blind to the fact that we’re doing something they want,” I’m assuming musically. What do you think it is that people want from your music, and what do they get?
It’s a lot of different things. I get a lot of text messages where some people be like, “Jaaybo, your music heal me.” Some people be like, “Jaaybo, your music make me want to slide.” Some people tell me, “Your music is not a good influence.” My music get a positive and a negative [reaction]. I got some music out there, where it’s not violent. Them songs touching some people that don’t got their pops and shit. I don’t got my pops, and I rap about that a lot, and there’s some people that really relate to that, and it gets them through the day. So people can’t say that I’m just influencing the bad. Because it’s some people that’s not taking my music that way. There’s some people that don’t even listen to my gangsta songs, and they just go turn on that slow sample, sad Jaaybo, and it’s really healing niggas. So it’s like, my music do the bad and the good.
Just researching your name on YouTube, you’ll see stuff that comes up that seems more focused on violence and things outside of the music. How does that make you feel?
It be on me sometimes, because that’s the image I put out. But the fans go searching for shit. The bloggers and all this shit, they go search and blow up the negativity. I’m just rapping about it. They go search for that shit and blow it up and shit. It is what it is. That’s on me to change the image, to where they can’t even do that no more.
Do you feel like that kind of coverage hurts more than it helps?
Yeah, it for sure hurts more than it helps. That’s why a nigga got to change the image, though. Everybody did it. Durk did it. Meek Mill, everybody changed their image. I just got to learn how to do it, you feel me? I’ve still been thugging too hard, but I got to get on some rich nigga shit.
How do you feel about the Stockton music scene, in general?
Yeah, we going up. [There were people] rapping before us but I got niggas knowing us in the UK. They know us and they slapping us down there. So we did something different. We got the world knowing where Stockton is, but it was people before us that did it too. You can’t take that from them niggas, but we just did it two times better.
What do you feel the EBK movement means to the West Coast rap scene?
We mean a lot to them. They need us. We like the soul of Cali, right now. Without us, it ain’t going to be no soul no more. Still going to be a heartbeat. They still going to be able to live, though, but we keep niggas on their Instagram and seeing what’s going to go on today. They need us.
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So I know you’re dropping the album soon, and then you’ll be free to tour. What else are you looking forward to this year?
I’m just trying to turn up this year, bro. I’m going to turn 22. I ain’t had a birthday out since I was 15, bro. I’m going to the strip club. And I’m legal now.
