freespottie
Expressing his identity and creativity through his music, Atlanta rapper and producer Spottie Jones has established himself as a hungry musician. However, rather than aiming for fame and fortune, he creates music that is meant to be thought-provoking, with tangible, world-impacting meanings. Inspired by various genres and artists he finds unique, his complex production style has often been suggested as the perfect accompaniment to play video games to.
Jones released 4 Loko with Mark IV in 2019, followed by a trifecta of projects (WutDuzDisEvnMeen, Pleroma, and Burnt Out) in 2021. Now, he’s in work mode as he gears up for the release of his next project. Finding inspiration in everything from Donnell Jones, Little Brother, and Quincy Jones, to Curren$y, Boom Clap Bachelors, and Quadron (even away from music in Allen Iverson and SpongeBob Squarepants), Jones is setting up for something special.
Spending most of his childhood in upstate New York with his mother, he often traveled into New York City, where he’d become immersed in the melting pot of cultures that would influence his creative ear. Further helping in developing his musical tastes was his relationship with his father, blossoming when he was in the fifth grade, exposing him to the other side of his family. By the time that he was a teenager, he’d already started listening to rap, alternative folk, and rock. When Jones reached high school, he moved out of his hometown to a new community full of wealthy families, forcing him out of his comfort zone. He joined the high school band and got his first taste of what it was like to actually create music, inspiring him to finally take his lifelong fascination with music to making songs with his friends on Garage Band — eventually sharing the 2018 EP gif (raw) to SoundCloud where it amassed hundreds of views.
By the time that he hit college, Jones knew that creating music was his passion. At Morehouse College, he formed a band called the Luv Monkeyz with a couple of like-minded individuals similarly obsessed with music. In addition to rapping, he honed a talent for creating beats after receiving an MPC.
As he creates and prepares for the future, Jones isn’t guided by a compass pointing to superficial accomplishments. He plans to use music – in addition to being a manner of expression – to teach and outreach to others as similarly invested in it as he is. Jones plans to make music a way through which he lives his life and shares it with others in the form of mentorship, teaching, and creating a hip-hop residency for aspiring musicians to craft and workshop their art.
