Artist Of The Week - Jair Dynast

When I first received my copy of Jair Dynast’s latest single I had no idea who he was but was instantly drawn to his song “Pull Up.” A few MySpace emails later and he was calling in to one of my radio shows to talk about the record, the serious physical ailment that kept him from pursuing another one of his goals, and what it’s been like living in a myriad of different places (Toronto, Barbados, Connecticut, Texas). With dope music, and an even doper story, Jair Dynast has earned the right to be this week’s Artist Of The Week.

Adam Bernard: Tell everyone a little bit about yourself, where you’re from and how you got into the music industry.
Jair Dynast: I’m originally from Toronto. I was born in Barbados and my family moved up to Toronto when I was seven or eight years old. I don’t know what they thinking. I got into Hip-Hop music even earlier, backing Barbados I saw Run-DMC performing at the Grammys one time and I just got into it right from that. From there I was doing the whole basketball thing and what not and I found out I got a heart ailment and I couldn’t do that anymore. That was a major setback, but really life changing and humbling. So I switched it up and I found out one of my boys was doing Hip-Hop and I felt like hey you’re doing it, let me see what I can do. I started writing and he was liking what I was doing. The next progression was that I was really into making beats so I started doing that and then boom, now here I am about to introduce myself to the world with a solo debut album.

Adam Bernard: With that heart ailment, does it affect breath control or anything like that in terms of performance?
Jair Dynast: You know what it probably would but I’m trying to stay in shape. I’ve been sitting on my ass for along time not really doing anything athletically but I started back working out and stuff like that because I figured it probably would affect that when I get up on stage and start running around. I’ve got some pretty animated tracks that I have to deliver hard for the crowd. I did a show at CMJ in front of a pretty sizable crowd real animated and stuff and I felt good, so I think that the exercise is definitely keeping me up with it.

Adam Bernard: Your lead single is “Pull Up,” tell everyone a little bit about it.
Jair Dynast: “Pull Up,” with that track I really wanted to introduce myself to the people who are into lyrics but also at the same time show that it’s still possible to have a record that has a lot of lyrics on it with something to say and still be movable for a crowd, like you can perform it and people will be feeling it. It’s something for people to call and response to, and being that I went to school down in Texas I’ve always been into the southern style of the music ever since I was there so I kinda tried to incorporate that into it, as well, just as part of what I like as an artist and as a fan of the music. I also had to put a little bit of my culture in there, as well, because being from the West Indies the reggae DJs, whenever they drop a record and it’s a hot record they always yell pull up and bring it back so I had to throw that in there.

Adam Bernard: When is the album coming out?
Jair Dynast: The album, which is titled V.I.A.L.E.N.C.E. – Vicious Ignorance Amounts to Little Except Negative Consequences n’ Expression, is dropping September 26th.

Adam Bernard: Finally, you’ve lived in so many different areas, how do you feel this has affected your music?
Jair Dynast: My album is like a smorgasbord of Hip-Hop because I’ve got everything on there from Caribbean influenced records, to southern influenced records, regular east coast boom bap, I’ve got it all. It’s a record with a lot of flavor and it’s really due to the fact that I’ve had the opportunity to live in so many different places and experience so many different cultures. I just had to incorporate all that into my music and just reach out to all the people who come from all those different areas. There’s something on the album for everybody because it touches on such a wide range of styles of Hip-Hop. I also produce R&B so some of my music has a smoothed out R&B vibe to it sometimes. I feel it’s a really well rounded record.

Website: http://jairdynast.com/

MySpace: http://myspace.com/jairdynast