Thug Life Army

One of hip-hop’s finest emcees, J-Live debuted in 1996 with his classic first single, "Longevity" b/w "Braggin'' Rights". And though it took five years for his habitually delayed debut, ‘The Best Part’, to finally be released, by the time it was released in 2001, the LP had already achieved cult-status (buoyed by cuts like the Prince Paul produced “Wax Paper, and the DJ Premier laced “The Best Part among countless others). In 2002, J-Live returned with the critically acclaimed All Of The Above, which furthered J’s place among Hip-Hop’s top emcees and as one of the cultures most conscious emcees. 

Since then J-Live has steadily moved forward on fulfilling his lofty goal of getting better every year while also navigating the many roadblocks that the music industry throws at young artists.

“Back in the days, it used to be all about Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, Kool G Rap, KRS-One. When you listened to Hip-Hop music, the best emcees just seemed to get better every year. Like Rakim's flow just got tighter from Paid In Full to Follow The Leader. Basically, that's what I''m trying to do with my music", explains J-Live. J-Live has a sincere commitment to emcee excellence, while also wanting to emphasize to other young rappers that there is an alternative path to success in a contemporary rap world dominated by bling fiction, thug life fantasies, and major label dominance.

Ever eager to feed his fans new material and passionate about writing and performing, J-Live has completed his Penalty Recordings debut, The Hear After, which will be released on 8-30-05. The Hear After’s lead-single, “Audio Visual” is already impacting on college radio and J-Live lives up to his “Live Motivator” mantra on “Sidewalks” where he laments “from the sidewalks up here watching Hip-hop grow/and vice versa from school battles to my own show/I watched skills evolve and the next up blow/motivated by the love for the art and the dough/I seen people influenced by the next mans flow/to the point that it controls where they content go/but if there’s eight million stories and a handful of rappers/we can’t all be pimps, players and gun clappers/it sounds sexy coming out of ya stereo right/but then you wonder why we still getting stereotyped.”

Tracklisting and credits for J-Live’s ‘The Hear After’:

‘The Hear After’ is on Penalty/RYKO Recordings

1.) Here f/Soulive

2.) Aaw Yeah

3.) Fire Water

4.) Do My Thing f/Cvees

5.) Whoever

6.) The Sidewalks 

7.) Audio Visual 

8.) Brooklyn Public Part 1 

9.) Listening f/Kola Rock

10.)  Harder

11.) Coming Home f/Dwele

12.) Weather The Storm

13.) After