About half an hour North of Seattle, the city of Everett, Washington is popping with new talent. I sat down with J Key at Clark Park in North Everett to talk about his music, which is a unique blend of West Coast sound, EDM, and rave rap, his influences, and what drives him to create the kind of music he does. Drawing influence from everything from Jay-Z to DJ Carnage to Tropkillaz, J Key brings loud, energetic bangers to the party.
In the interview, J Key talks about having both positive and negative influences in his life, and that instead of dwelling on the negative, he has focused on the positive. This becomes apparent when listening to his music, almost all of which is upbeat, loud, and straight up fun to listen to. A lot of music on J’s mixtape Who’s Looking, which is available on his website, theonlykey.com, is influenced by the rave culture that is prevalent in the Pacific Northwest. He said that he and his friends would go out to raves and party, and that he likes atmosphere at those events. In the interview, he says that he’s “never seen a fight at a rave”. That desire to be positive is apparent in his music as well as his demeanor. Before the interview, we ran into a guy with a pit bull puppy, and J just picked that little bastard up and snuggled the fuck out of it. (I tried to think of a better way to put that, but couldn’t).
You can check out J Key on his website, his SoundCloud, or just find him rolling around the streets of Everett. This spring, look out for J Key on the Not a Kid Anymore tour, which shares the same name as his upcoming tape, due out in late April. Stay woke on music coming out of the North Seattle area, specifically Everett, Marysville, and Lake City. There’s a very unique sound in the Pacific Northwest, and trust me, you don’t want to sleep on it.
