If you are tuned in to any editorial Spotify playlists, you’re bound to run into BabyJake‘s music. Between his unbelievably deep solo tracks and his strategic collaborations, BabyJake has the formula for streaming success figured out.
As if the music wasn’t good enough already, he’s known to drop corresponding visuals that’d make even an iffy song entertaining. The young artist is currently signed to Scooter Braun, who is known for managing the likes of Kanye West, YG, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and many other notorious hit-makers. With so much traction and so little info out there on him, we saw this quarantine as the perfect time to sit down and talk with one of our favorite upcoming talents, BabyJake.
Daily Chiefers: Yo!
BabyJake: Yo! What’s up man?
DC: You’ve been on a roll lately! So I thought I saw on your Instagram that you’ve produced hip-hop shit, too?
BabyJake: Yeah, I mean, I’ve produced a little bit of hip-hop. I’ve produced more like alternative shit. Do you know Nate Traveller? I just produced his last single, “Airplane,” featuring Mills.
DC: Oh, that’s dope.
BabyJake: So, more like that type of shit. I mean, hip-hop, as well. I’m producing some hip-hop for my boy, but I’m not really in with the hip-hop scene. To really get cuts like that and stuff, I think that you kind of have to be in that scene a little more, you know.
It’s not that I’m not in it, but I just don’t have a direct connection to somebody who’s popping off in hip-hop that I’m really close to where I could just be like, “yo, I’m sending over these beats.” Pitching pop records and alternative records is different than pitching a trap beat, you know?
DC: Totally, totally. Hip-hop is just another beast. I love hip-hop, but I also love your type of music. I’m not a huge country guy, though, but virtually everything besides that I fucking love.
BabyJake: Yeah, I’m not a huge country guy, either.
DC: Dude. “Blue Cellophane” is just one of my favorite songs in general. Like, point blank. Like, I’ll be in the car and that shit will come on and I’ll be in my feels all of a sudden.
BabyJake: Bro, thank you. It’s one of my favorites. I love that record.
DC: It takes a lot to make stuff like that for listeners and I think that’s what music is supposed to do. You know, a lot of people don’t accomplish that though.
BabyJake: Definitely. Thank you. Glad you feel that way. It’s a little bit more of like a sleeper record, you know, it’s not necessarily like a radio record or a streaming record, but I think it did what it was supposed to do.
DC: Yeah, it definitely did.
BabyJake: I love it. There are some more records like that coming out soon.
DC: I’m excited to hear them, bro. Cause honestly that’s my shit. Like, that was one of my favorite tracks from you in general. So, how’d you get started working with Dillon Francis?
BabyJake: Me and Dillon, we met like three years ago. We met through a mutual friend, a mutual producer friend named DVLP. And yeah, I actually was sitting in… me and DVLP have been working together for a while cause he’s actually from Jersey but he lives in Miami. And when I lived in Fort Myers, Florida, I used to commute to Miami like all the time to go work with him. And he had a Spanish artist who got a session with Dillon in LA. And that’s how I first initially met Dillon. And then ever since then we kind of just kept in contact, but we were just doing our thing, and we bumped into each other a couple of times and then like, you know, we started talking and then one thing led to another and we started working together and came out with some cool shit.
DC: That’s fire. I think you guys are a match made in heaven. You let him accomplish something that without you, I don’t think he’d be able to accomplish in electronic. It’s just a whole different vibe than most shit that’s out there.
BabyJake: Yeah, definitely. I love the records. I think both the records are super dope. They’re doing well. So it’s so great to see people accept them, you know, cause they’re weird. They’re different records. I feel like most of my records are a little bit on the weirder side, genre-wise.
DC: Totally. To me it comes off as that it’s up in the air, but not in a way that you’re perceived as unreliable. It’s like to the point where it just excites your audience cause it’s like what’s next, you know?
BabyJake: Definitely. Definitely.
DC: And I think that’s a huge component of your success cause you just make good music period. Regardless of what type of music it is, I think your fans can count on the fact that whenever you’re dropping a song it’s going to be some shit that they’re going to fuck with.
BabyJake: Thank you. [And] I hope so. I hope they fuck with it. I’m definitely crossing into the Rock-and-Roll land so I hope that fans fuck with it, you know.
DC: Yeah. I’ve noticed that there are so many people that are still like huge rock fans that just don’t get that serving of rock from today’s music. It’s like if they’re listening to rock, they’re listening to Led Zeppelin or The Stones or whatnot.
BabyJake: Yeah, no, definitely. I agree. I think rock and roll is coming back heavy, like full force right now. I mean Alternative in general is coming back a ton.
DC: Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s like some of the most exciting music cause now you have the influence of the last wave of alternative and then all the new shit since then. And then you also get just different ways to express. Sounds like that just weren’t there years ago when Alternative was really going crazy. So it’s just like a whole new element to it, which is so cool.
BabyJake: Definitely. Especially like some of the urban alternative stuff, you know, it’s really cool. Like Dominic Fike‘s stuff is dope. Nate‘s stuff is dope. Matt Black‘s shit is dope. Those are all Fort Myers artists. But they just happened to be making super dope alternative shit.
DC: So, were you familiar with any of those guys just from Fort Myers?
BabyJake: I knew them all. I knew them all prior to [music], we all kind of came out here in the spur of the last two years. So, we were all connected. I didn’t know Dom that well. I still don’t know Dom that well. We’ve met a couple of times, each of us being like, yeah, I fuck with your music. But Nate is like one of my great friends and Matt Black is one of my good friends as well. I know Nate a little bit better than Matt, but they’re both really, really cool.
DC: That’s fire, though. It’s so interesting to see that there’s just such a scene coming out of Fort Myers, Florida, you know?
BabyJake: Yeah. It’s so weird. It happened at one time too, cause my deal and Dom‘s deal with Columbia Records were going down at the same time. He was a little bit earlier than me, but then I had signed to Scooter like probably a month after Dom signed his shit. And after me and him went, there were a whole bunch of recruiters and A&R’s that just popped down there and found all this other talent that we had been preaching about, you know.
DC: I mean, it’s fire. It’s like a whole new wave that started down there.
BabyJake: Yeah, definitely. For sure.
DC: So, how did you get to know DEVAULT as well? I’ve been wondering that.
BabyJake: That’s a funny ass story. So I was visiting Los Angeles with DVLP, my producer friend from Miami, and I was supposed to leave and it didn’t feel right. I didn’t want to leave. And I ended up staying in LA. I met Duncan who still, I think still partially manages DEVAULT, but at that time he was his sole manager. And I met him at the annual PULSE party, who’s my publisher now. And he was like, yeah, if you ever need a place to stay, like you’re more than welcome to stay with us. And I met Sage maybe a week or two before that because one of my buddies was staying with him and they used to have like this five-bedroom house in mid-city, Los Angeles. And so I ended up just staying with DEVAULT for like two months in LA. And I just ended up sleeping on his couch. It was crazy, like before I even knew him. And since then we’ve just built a relationship. He and I are working on some shit together.
DC: I am so stoked to listen, dude. You guys have such different styles but like there are similar tones between both of your music.
BabyJake: I love his shit. I love his stuff man. It’s different, you know?
DC: Absolutely. It’s a whole different vibe. Like even I had the luxury of seeing him DJ at this after-party. I love watching electronic acts DJ at after-parties cause it’s so much different than what their set would be like at a show. A lot of times they’re just marketing their music at shows. But, at an after-party you really get to hear what they got in the vault and what their taste is. And dude he’s fire. And I think I mentioned one of my homies from my hometown, his brother was college roommates with Sage.
BabyJake: Wow, that’s hilarious. Yeah. Sage is a fun guy, man. He’s a fun guy. That’s one of the biggest goobers I know, but I love that man. He is one of my best friends.
DC: Are there any other collaborations you got in the vault?
BabyJake: I’m working on a Christian French remix right now. He’s a pretty dope, like I consider him to be Pop-Alternative, a little more pop, but he’s really dope. I’m working on a remix of one of his tracks right now. Literally right now, I’m probably gonna record the rest of this verse after we get off the phone. But Christian French, DEVAULT, and Dombresky who’s another one of my best friends. I really love house music. So I’d like to get in that scene too. I love Ibiza house, I love like, you know, really chill poolside house type shit. And Dombresky is like an OG in that scene.
DC: He is like the goat in that scene, dude. His LSD remix (A$AP Rocky) is nuts. You’re easily one of my favorite artists right now and it’s so exciting to see just how much momentum you have right now. I’ve watched your monthly listeners pick up gradually over time. You’re almost at 2 million monthly listeners.
BabyJake: Yeah, I’m excited. We have a single coming out in May, and then after that, we’re going to drop the EP. And I think the EP’s gonna shock people. I really, really put a lot of, not only me but everybody involved, put a lot of hours into it. You know, shout out fucking Jon for mixing it. That guy, Jon Castelli is like one of the best mixers that I’ve ever dealt with. Shout out to all the producers that worked on it cause I really think the EP’s going to be what allows fans to engage in a body of work. Excited for the visuals, too.
DC: We can’t wait. Releasing music videos and what not, it gives a deeper picture of those artists. It gives us a deeper understanding. Your videos have definitely served that purpose, and I’m sure they’ll continue to do so.
BabyJake: Yeah, definitely, I totally agree. I think projects are important and I’m super excited to finally be putting one out. I guess that was kind of like an EP with Dillon and it was considered a single but, that was from the perspective of like, hey, I can do electronic music too. But I’m excited to give people a project that’s Baby Jake. That I can fucking stamp my name proudly on it and be like, yeah, these are seven records that I really fuck with.
DC: I’m really looking forward to it. You said that’s in May, or the singles in May?
BabyJake: The singles in May. The single’s called “Mad, Happy, Sad.” And then the EP, we’re not really sure about because of coronavirus and stuff, I was supposed to be touring right now, so like a lot of plans changed, we might drop one more single or the EP or feature, or whatever. But there’s a lot of artists that I’m talking to about doing features that I’m not going to name right now, but there’s a couple of dope female and male artists that I’m thinking about doing some features with that could also carry some of that momentum I think.
DC: I’ve been wondering, too, how did you get started? Like, when did you realize music is my path?
BabyJake: Part of me wants to say 18 and the other part of me wants to say like 8 years old cause I started playing guitar at 8, and from 8 till 12, I was obsessed with AC/DC and like, you know, Lynyrd Skynyrd and bands like that. All I wanted to do was be like fucking Slash or something. I wanted to be like this guitar player. I didn’t even want to be a singer, I wanted to be a guitar player. And I think around like 13, 14 years, I really got heavily into sports. So around like 13, 14, I was learning how to produce, but I also got really heavy into sports around that time. So music kind of took a backseat, music took a back seat for a while, but I think it was always there and I always went to music whenever I was feeling some type of emotion. I picked up my guitar and I posted little snippets of, you know, me playing the guitar on Instagram for the girls at school and shit. Like it was always a part of my life. But I think at 18 when I went off to college, like, I went off to University of South Florida, I realized this other shit is not for me. I want to be in music. This is what I want to do for a living. So I started playing guitar. I started songwriting and producing at like 13, and I was really bad, but making the attempt was a breaking point for me. And then at 18, I started taking shit seriously. And then at like 19 and a half I dropped out of school after my first year. And I didn’t tell my parents. That was terrifying. I was on the phone with my dad one day and he’s like, “you’re not in school, are you?” I’m like, “no, I’m not.” And I knew my dad wouldn’t really care. He’s like, just don’t tell your mom, I’ll give you till the end of the semester. Don’t tell your mom. So yeah, I mean 8 years old or 18 years old, you pick.
DC: That’s awesome. Quite an interesting story, you seem to have lots of them. Thank you so much for taking the time to do the interview, I know you’ve been busy. We’re rooting for you here at Chiefers.
BabyJake: Appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me.
