Jevon Alexander

by Corey O'Flanagan

How he made "Mamba Mentality" and got it placed on NBA 2K21.



I'm really excited to bring you today's show because I've wanted to feature a hip-hop artist since we started the Songfacts Podcast. I hope this is the first of many!

Jevon Alexander, from the Ann Arbor area of Michigan, has been producing beats for most of his life and in 2019 released his debut EP, Chasing Failure. 2020 saw his career jump to new heights as his tribute to Kobe Bryant, "Mamba Mentality," was picked up for NBA 2K21 Next Generation.

We talk about these accomplishments and more in this episode, so please enjoy the hard working and inspiring Jevon Alexander.


Balance

A lot of artists say that if you want to record 10 songs, then you want to bring about 30 with you to choose from. Some of them go in with the idea of I'm just going to work and bring the collective, whereas I go into the studio with each song having the purpose to be on the album. There's some songs that didn't make it to the album, but they weren't really for it to begin with. I don't have an endless catalogue, but there is some stuff in the vault that's not quite ready yet.


Breaking Into the Hip-Hop Scene

Everyone has their own way of getting there and that's what I wanted to show. I want to show what it takes to get there and I want people to see what it's like to be an independent artist that is trying to make their dreams come true and to keep trying even if stuff doesn't work. I want people to see that I keep trying to do the right steps to get where I need to get to.


"Dangerous"

I haven't broken down this song, but it is about how you get distracted when a new love comes along. It was inspired by a specific someone. Most of the lady records I do are inspired either by someone in my life, or by a story I've been told and related to.

The album was going to be structured with two songs that were to do with me coming up and focusing on myself, then a lady song where I wasn't focusing on me and was distracted and focused on her, then after that didn't work out, going back to focusing on me. I ended up changing that idea though, and now the lady songs are all together on the album.

"Dangerous" was a co-production, but all in all, I'm a producer myself.


"The Snippet King"

Kanye is my biggest inspiration when it comes to music. There was a point where someone told me I couldn't be a producer and an artist and that I had to choose one or the other.

In the 30 seconds I'm making a beat, I'm always writing lyrics to rap around that. They used to call me "The Snippet King" because I always ended up writing snippets of a song and then moving onto the next.

I want to go down as a producer. I became an artist because nobody was buying my beats. I started taking it seriously as an artist and playing around with my beats. Now I try to go to the studio and make beats three times a day to hone the craft.


"Mamba Mentality"

I don't have a good memory in general - I always forget important moments in time. I do however remember exactly where I was when I found out that Kobe died. I'm not one of those bandwagon Laker Kobe fans, I'm just someone who has so much respect for him. His death showed me way more than his basketball highlights ever could have shown. Just seeing how many people he's impacted made me think that if I could inspire just 1% of the people that Kobe inspired, that's a successful life for me. That's how many people he has inspired outside of basketball.

When I got the rumor from TMZ I didn't believe it. I was working on the beat for "Mamba Mentality" when I got the news and just didn't believe it. I was in my basement pacing back and forth calling everybody, watching the news. I was sitting there looking at what everyone was posting about him and I cried.

When this happened I had finished the beat I was working on and thought that I wanted to write something about him. Not in an RIP Kobe way, but just something about him. I sat there and said "mamba mentality" out loud so many times and it stuck.

I got done with the hook and was like, "I need to record this at the studio tomorrow so I can release it on all sharing platforms as early as possible." At 2 a.m. I had the first verse and the hook done. I was thinking I'm gonna go to bed, and as I was closing my laptop the thought came into my head, what would Kobe do? So I finished it off, and it came out eight days later.

Before this happened I was just in the beginning stages of the loop. I can't remember if I had lyrics or not, but knowing me, it was still pretty new and I was just seeing where it would go.


Quick Producing

Producing and creating a song so fast like this has only happened three times in my life. One of the first songs I ever put out on Soundcloud, I was so inspired by a girl I was seeing that I put it out. The second time was with "Yeah Yeah Yeah," which was inspired by Nipsey [Hussle]. Those are the only songs where it came so fast - all the others have been a process in formulating the lyrics to the beat and then going to the studio.


Fast Rap

On social media you see a lot of people talking about fast rappers and saying, "What are they saying?" I never wanted to be one of those people saying something so fast, but with "Mamba Mentality" I had just started saying it that fast and it was what was natural with the song. I don't have any fast rap songs other than the first part of this song.

When I started doing that, I did think how perfect it was because I hadn't done anything like that in any of my other songs. I didn't want to do something slow talking about how we miss him, I wanted to be uptempo and talk about something that meant something to him.


NBA 2K21

We went through a new distribution company that came with a couple of new attractions, one of which was that they come with different sponsors or partnerships. For new artists it's great because we submit our music and the company submits that music to various other partners. One of those partners was NBA 2K21.

After I had submitted my songs for partnerships, I was asked to add the lyrics, the beat, and the clean version, so my engineer sent me all of that stuff back and I submitted it and didn't really think anything of it.

What I didn't know was that they were putting new artists on weekly. I didn't hear back from them until August and I saw the cover was Kobe and I realized they wanted to use it for the next generation, which was huge for me. This was just something that I had clicked on and it ended up working out for me in the long run.

"Mamba Mentality" was not my favorite or best song on the album, but for some reason, it just worked out that people loved it. Who would have thought that would have been the opening exposure song. That was just a song for a moment that I wanted to have on a project forever. I wasn't thinking that that would be the one that would get me where I am today.


Better To Be Respected

My grandfather said, "It's better to be respected than to be liked." I don't care if you hate me, but you will respect me."

I want people to know that when it comes to business, I don't ever plan on doing anything specifically for my fans that would step me out of me being me. Don't get me wrong, I love the people that support me and where they have helped me get to.

I would say this one thing for all creators: We were that before the fans existed. I was an artist before my fans, therefore I want my art to be sung the way I want it to be. If I did anything else, that would be stepping out of what I started off with. It's cool that artists do things for their fans, but I want to do stuff that feeds me, not my fans. I'm not going to step out of my way to feed something that doesn't need to be fed. I try to not get into what other people want me to do... I'll do me. I think that kind of energy gets people to where they want to be because that way you're doing something genuine.


2020

As crazy as the world has been, this has been the best year of my life. Through all that has been going on with COVID, it shows just how important your family and close friends really are. That importance has really been brought to light by the current situation. That realization, along with everything I have accomplished, this has been my best year.

February 3, 2021

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More of Jevon at jevon-alexander.com
Here's our list of songs inspired by athletes

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