SOLIDIFIED FROM COAST TO COAST: Nu Jerzey Devil

INTERVIEW KB TINDAL | PHOTOGRAPHY @JAMILNOTJAMAL

Nu Jerzey Devil is a veteran artist, producer, graffiti writer, and DJ with about two decades in the game. He’s part of The Game’s Black Wall Street crew and the Game's newest crew resurgence under the name Numinati. He also serves as the official tour DJ for The Game. He's worked with some of the best in the business like Lil Wayne and Rick Ross. He's an entrepreneur… He's a hustler that was born in the birthplace of Hip Hop in the Bronx and he wears many hats. Nu Jerzey Devil took the time out to chop it up with Validated Magazine. Tap in.

VALIDATED: I want to start off man and take you back a little bit. You were born in the Bronx, raised in New Jersey, and you were made in LA. Tell me a little bit about your journey through those three places and how you came up with your name Nu Jerzey Devil.

NU JERZEY DEVIL: Like you said I was born in New York. I actually spent a lot of my life in New York but my mom moved to Jersey. They moved to Jersey and we kind of just got stuck there for a little bit. I got with the dude Rodney Jerkins and that's how I got to LA. When we went to LA I was the only Hip Hop producer signed to Darkchild Records at the time, so I was the grimy dude. I came across Game, and I was kind of sneaking Game into the studio. The Game wasn't really Game yet. He was still trying to do his thing, and in the midst, Rodney heard him and he fell in love with him.

He sounded like an East Coast rapper. Rodney’s from Jersey and I was from New York and Game at the time sounded like a straight East Coast rapper. Game in his heart he would like to be a New York nigga too. How I got my name was I did a track for him and out of nowhere, he knows me coming straight from Jersey. He knew my New York history and all that. Doing the session, he was like “Nu Jerzey Devil on the track.” Right there the whole room went crazy. He was like that's your new name. I was like yeah so it stuck. Then you know it was my famous little trademark. He has said Nu Jerzey Devil on another track on a song I did for him called “Put You Up On Game” with him and DJ Whoo Kid and I just eq’d it and I echoed it and I was dropping that on everything man. The rest is history. We definitely put a big dent in Hip Hop, a big chunk of history, the whole Black Wall Street movement, and all that.

VALIDATED: No doubt. That's the best way to get a name too is when somebody blesses you with that.

NU JERZEY DEVIL: I feel like your name ain't really your nickname unless somebody gives it to you. You can't just call yourself whatever you want. I mean, everybody's doing it now. I come from an era where you had to earn your name or your name had to mean something.

VALIDATED: That’s a fact. Tell me what your first or should I say your earliest memory of Hip Hop culture was.

NU JERZEY DEVIL: Hip Hop has been in my blood since early. I got four older brothers. So my brothers were heavy in the crack era game and all that. When Hip Hop came out at that time, that's when everybody had the Audi's, the Volvo's, the Jettas, and the beats in their systems. I come from the BDP days, even when I was mad young, even when I was living in the Bronx, I used to look out my window and hope Scott La Rock or KRS-ONE would pass by because they had these Jeeps. They had these jeeps back in the day, they use to just bump them.

I would always look out my grandma's window on Webster Ave in the projects and every time I hear a system, I would run out to the window and I’m like “Is that them, is that them?” I used to go by Fat Joe’s store Halftime, on Third Ave all the time and hope Fat Joe would be there. It's always been in me, and I tag, I'm a graffiti artist. My brother knew breakdancing. So it was in my blood from day one. Like, I didn't have a choice. I wouldn't have it any other way.

VALIDATED: No doubt, I feel you on that. The same thing was for me too. I was born in the Bronx, and I grew up in Castle Hill for a minute until I went over to Queens and whatnot, and it was the same thing for me. Hip Hop was just always there. 

NU JERZEY DEVIL: It was just part of your lifestyle. You were Hip Hop. I didn’t think of it at the time, but everything I was doing was Hip Hop, with tagging, it was Hip Hop. It was life. It was all we knew. So for us, it was just normal. As you get older, you realize like, damn, I really am Hip Hop.

VALIDATED: You've been down with The Game for years. Like you said, even before The Game was The Game, and from the beginning of the Black Wall Street days, which is still the movement today. How do you guys keep the bond so tight after all these years?

NU JERZEY DEVIL: If it’s real, it’s real. Ain't nothing you got to do but just do what you do, be normal. He's him. I'm me. I didn't meet him acting as nobody else. He didn’t meet me acting as nobody else. So we accepted who we were, and we just clicked. We clicked off the rip. I think a lot of times, a lot of situations are messed up and get really messed up about money situations. Like me, I have always been a hustler. I never needed to ask nobody for anything as a man, I never even felt it was right for me to ask anybody for any type of handout unless I earned it.

I felt like that played a major part in it too. Because he looked at me like man this nigga never ask you for nothing. He always on his shit. He’s always there for me every time I need him. Not even on his dime, like if I got to fly out or something. If I got to pop up somewhere. He put me in that position to make moves and to get myself where I'm at and to be stable and all that so it's just the understanding we got. That's my bro. I don't have to speak to him for a year, but if I see him tomorrow, it's like, we never missed a beat. That's how you know it’s real.

VALIDATED: That’s authentic. I saw your post on Instagram with your tattoo of Big Pun. So I'm sure it's safe to say he was a huge influence on you. Tell me about that influence that you got from Pun and also tell me what it means to you to keep his legacy and his name alive.

NU JERZEY DEVIL: Honestly, I got to credit back to Fat Joe because like I said, I was a huge Fat Joe and Terror Squad fan. When Pun came on the team, it was just like, whoa. When Pun came Pun was different. You know what was crazy, when I moved to Jersey, I was about 17, maybe 16 or something like that. Pun came to a club. There was a dude that was from New York that worked in a food court or something like that in the Bronx and he opened a store in Atlantic City called Tito's Hip Hop Shop, and he was tight with them, so he used to bring them down for his birthdays and all that. My brother, it was two episodes. One Pun came down with Mobb Deep and he wasn't Pun yet, he was Big Moon Dog. But I'm waiting in line. I'm telling my brother. They ain't going to let me in and he's like I got you bro. As we are standing in the front, this little, short wild dude came through moving everybody out of the crowd and it was Pun. But I didn't really know. I knew of him, but I was like, oh, he was new at the time. He got in there and he just, that’s the first time I ever saw anybody at a rap concert. It was Mobb Deep and Pun, which is my two favorite groups of all time. Pun came in and he did that, I forgot, I think the “Super Lyrical” or something like that but it was some acapella, and he just killed it.

In another situation, they brought Fat Joe down again and I always talk to him about this story. I had curly hair at the time so I pulled up and I was like, yo I do this, and I do that, and he was like “First thing I would do is cut that hair.” To this day we always laugh about that, but yeah Pun meant everything to me. Then when he died, no cap, I cried and everything like I knew him. It's crazy because nowadays me and Joe is tight. Me and Joe talk all the time. I can say they are my brothers now. It's a little bit deeper than rap with them. When I see him I always tell him, I give them their flowers. I said I grew up listening to y'all. Any little Spanish, any Puerto Rican from the Bronx that was growing up… you already know, Joe was that deal, Terror Squad was the movement and that impacted my life huge and I was in the Bronx and all that so I felt like it was just all love man. Genuine love. Pun was just like, when he came on the scene, it was different. It was like we got one for the squad, for the whole team, not just for the Ricans but for the Latinos in general. The first Latin to go platinum and him being from the Bronx. Everything was like damn, I felt so connected to him because I could relate to everything he has been through, like where he's from and all that. I just posted you know Capital Punishment dropped 24 years ago. Pun is like the Godfather to me and that's my all-time favorite MC.

VALIDATED: That's love. I wish Pun would get mentioned more in that conversation when they talk about the best lyricists. A lot of people forget to mention his name because he was only here with us for a short period of time, but in that time, he demonstrated that he was one of the best.

NU JERZEY DEVIL: If you hear the real ones talk. If you hear Nas talking, if you are hearing any OG, they are bringing Pun up. It's just the new generation that they don’t really know him, they don’t really know any history like that but if you talk to the goats they know. The same with Big L too, they are goats that died way before their time. Before they got to roll, but Pun did his thing while he was here, but Big L checked out a little too early before he even got on the scene like that. Like he’s not where he is supposed to be as far as notoriety.

VALIDATED: I also saw your post on Numinati. What is Numinati? Break that down for me. I saw you wearing a fit that had Numinati on it. I see it on the screen in the studio. Tell me exactly what that is.

NU JERZEY DEVIL: Big bro just sent me my chain so I'm waiting for that to come tomorrow. I am mad I ain't got it on right now. Numinati is more… I ain't gonna say it is a label, it’s going to be a label but it's more of a, how would I say it? It's like a movement. It’s about everybody doing what they want to do and everybody staying on top of their shit, everybody being connected. It's just deeper than a label, I don’t want to compare this to a label, it’s more like a movement. It’s like a lifestyle for us right now. For us, like me, Game it’s like us coming back from the dead. Coming back on some new shit. It's just we resurrecting what we had before and bringing up some new names to light. It's gonna make a lot of noise.

Game lined up a lot of good allies with it. You all seen Kanye around, him rocking with Kanye more. I think we were the Black Wall Street we were just young, dumb, and reckless, and we didn't really know too much about the industry like that. All we knew was street shit. We didn’t know about the politics too much like that. I think this time Game, I mean, both of us, we are more in tune with what we need to do business-wise and all that. We know The Game more and now it's a different era. It's like an entrepreneur era. You don't even need the big labels to do too much now because we are self-contained. I could sit in the studio, do the verse, do the beat, do the mix, do the video and everything and throw it out myself. We don’t need nobody. With that being at our beck and call, being who we are and where we came from and the respect that we got already. I think it's a no-brainer right now so when Game drops his new album and all that I think this is gonna shake the world up. It's gonna be a whole new, I'm gonna say the new Black Wall Street.

VALIDATED: Tell me about the story of when you traded that 45-caliber pistol when you were 18 years old. You traded that pistol to somebody for a DJ setup. First of all, at that age, at 18 carrying a pistol we know how shit goes down in the hood but what gave you that mindset to say I'm going to trade this for a music setup, and then how did that change your life?

NU JERZEY DEVIL: It was my bro. My bro was like bro you need to make a choice. Because they were all street niggas that didn't really get to do what they wanted to do so they were trying to be big bro and like guide me, like you got to make a choice whether you want to get into these streets. I was already in the streets heavy with them. I was doing regular normal things that we all do. He was like bro, you got to make a choice but if you really want to do this, I'm gonna support you. I'm gonna support you all the way and I'm gonna help you and everything. Then somebody just so happened to be selling a DJ set and they wanted a pistol and I’m like you know what and my brother, he kind of like popped in my head and I was like I got something for you let's trade. We ended up trading a Blue Steel 45, gave him the joint, and he was happy, I was happy. After that, you couldn’t get me out of the crib because after that all of my equipment led to me getting other equipment.

I definitely dabbled back in the streets a little bit to get some more money to get some other equipment and so I got the MPC, a little Yamaha DJX keyboard, and then from that the passion just like sat in me and I was like this is what I'm going to do bro, this is it, ain't nothing else I’m gonna do and I locked down. I locked down for years and I stood in my bag, and I really just went hard. My family didn’t let me really do nothing else. Because at that point I was making so much noise. I was like the kid in the hood that had everything first as far as equipment-wise and all that.  I started out with the Tascam four track, but I was the first nigga in the hood with Pro Tools so when I got to the next level niggas wasn't used to seeing shit on screen. The passion just really set in, and I fell in love, and I knew at that point this is what I'm doing. Don't ask me about nothing else, this is what I'm doing.

VALIDATED: Is there anyone that you want to work with that you haven't worked with yet?

NU JERZEY DEVIL: It's crazy right now because I got an old soul. I want to work with probably somebody like, I would love to work with, to get a beat or something from Havoc. Havoc played a major part of me being a producer rapper. I used to listen to Hav beats and be like, “These shits is simple but they rockin’.” I’m like, “I can do this.” Hav is somebody I would love to work with. It’s not even far-fetched. It can happen. It's just a matter of me just reaching out and making it happen because like I said, this is a day and age where everybody's reachable, it’s different. Back in the day, it was hard. You ain't see no stars back in the days unless you went to a concert or something like that.

It wasn’t no going on Instagram and checking in to see what they are doing on a daily basis. There was none of that, everybody that was a star was a real ass star. You didn’t see them; you only seen them in concert and all that. If you see them in the street, you were lucky. That's why I always was trying to stop by Fat Joe's store like I know he’s gonna be here and one time I did going in there, actually, I was with Zulu Nation too, that's more Hip Hop, and then with Fat Joe, when I found out he was rocking with Zulu. I was like, Hip Hop is me bro.

VALIDATED: What's one piece of advice that you heard early on when you got into the industry that you still carry with you to this day?

NU JERZEY DEVIL: I'm gonna say bro, probably the one thing that Dr. Dre told me is to keep everything simple. Don't overdo too much on your music, on the beats, and all that. Simplicity is key. Once he told me that I went back to all his stuff, and I just started listening to his stuff and then watching his beat process and all that and watching how he worked. He never really wanted to put too much into a beat. He felt like have a few sounds that's just got to carry and make it and the artists come and do their thing with it. I do that with everything in life. I don’t really try to go over the top and do too much. I just keep it simple, keep it moving and stay focused on what I got to do.

VALIDATED: For the younger artists that may read this interview, what sacrifices did you have to make early on and things that you had to go without because you wanted to invest more in your artistry than anything else?

NU JERZEY DEVIL: Everything's a sacrifice if you want to make it at this point right now bro. Everything, you can't half-ass it because you will get half-ass results. To the youngin’s man, I’m gonna keep it a thousand. The main thing that I do is sacrifice time and put time and effort into the studios. With your craft, master it and do what you do. Stay away from these hoes, stay away from these females, that's the biggest distraction. Keep it a thousand. That was probably one of the main things I wish I did myself. Because when I got in the game females were everywhere. So I was getting love so it kind of like distracted me a lot. Even when I was supposed to be in the studio I was like, you know what, shorty call me, let me hang or whatever the case may be.

I felt like a lot of that time that I wasted just out the studio, not to music, I felt like I could have put it to way better use and it would have got me way further and got me a lot more bread and whatever I needed to get at the time. Put your time and your effort into your work, into your music and your craft or whatever you're doing. Females always going to come, they come and go, they're going to be around and if you really want to make it, if you want to grind and you want to come up, every day is the studio, your music, your craft, ain't nothing else. That's the mindset you got to have, that horse racing, you can’t look sideways, you got to stay focused, you got to stay straight and just keep going and it definitely will pay off.

I promise you, because like I said we in this day and age where everything is just way more easier and accessible and easier to happen. Like back in the days to get a record deal was like hitting the lottery but now it's like if you making noise you can go on Tik Tok and get a little something going, get some notoriety and somebody might hear you or whatever and that's gonna lead to bringing you back to whatever your craft is. Keep putting out content, keep dropping stuff because what’s going to happen is everybody got their time. So what you don't want to do is when your time comes you ain't got nothing for them to go check. You want to consistently drop shit, so when they do check for you and they do listen to you, they're gonna go back to all your old archives and they’re gonna see all the shit you do got and guess what's gonna happen all that's gonna come right back up and then all your sales and everything is gonna go right back through the roof. So definitely stay focused and sacrifice everything so you get to where you need to be. If you really want to make it.

VALIDATED: I also saw your posts about the Backpack Boyz strain of weed. I also heard in one of your tracks that you had a Nu Jersey strain coming. Fill me in on both of those.

NU JERZEY DEVIL: Backpack Boyz is a fam. My cousin is one of the main dudes over there. Shout out to my nigga Ebay, shout out to Juan, shout out to Quan. They are just family; it was just a movement. It was kind of like my lifestyle too, everybody smokes. But you know it’s more like family to me more than anything. It was just like my family doing what he's doing. I was pretty much supporting what my family was doing, and it led them to kind of like say, okay, well why don’t you be a part of it. So that led to a Nu Jerzey Devil strain coming. The delay on my strain is basically me being picky on what I need, what I want because once I put my name on something I make my bag and all that, like I can't have someone saying like, this is just alright.

I'm just waiting on the right strains. They got the labs, they are going heavy. When I get back out West, I'm gonna go check out the new labs and see what they got on deck. They gave me one, one time, but it was cool. But I just felt like, it's not exactly what I want just yet. I wasn't gonna rush it. I wasn't gonna force anything. Backpack Boyz is definitely the top bud, and I got a lot of respect for them, because they came from the streets too. They started from the bottom. A lot of people don't know the history of Backpack Boyz, they ain’t something that’s just from last year. This is a whole flock of niggas that just grinding from the streets, that got a business mindset and brought it to a whole other level. And now with all the weed being legal everywhere, they made it all better. We did the merch with it. Now you got the Backpack Boyz backpacks and all that, he takes it to a whole other level. It wasn't just about weed no more; it became a lifestyle as well with the clothing and everything. It's a great thing to be a part of.

VALIDATED: As a Hip Hop artist, as a person that's involved, and entrenched in this culture. When you put out music, what do you feel your responsibility is to the culture in general?

NU JERZEY DEVIL: To keep it real and to give them whatever came from me. Whatever I grew up with, whatever made me. I felt like I had to just put it into the world and give the world whatever I feel I like. Not what everybody else like, not what I feel like is hot at the time. I am going to always give you something that I just feel like comes from me or whatever created me or something like that. I just want to always project out the energy that I get, and I want to give it right back. I want everybody to be creative on their own page, don't follow the trends. Whatever is in your heart, whatever you feel like, whatever your lifestyle is, bring it to the music, no matter what you take is good or bad, whatever is you. It ain't no good or bad… it’s you, it’s real. It's always gonna be good, so I'm gonna just be me. I'm gonna always give the industry me, whether they hate it, love it, whatever the case is, I know it's real. I'm gonna be okay with that.

VALIDATED: How do you feel you've grown as an artist and as a producer and as a DJ, or just as a creative spirit since you’ve come into the game?

NU JERZEY DEVIL: I've grown tremendously because as a kid, we always rapped, everybody was a rapper. It was like second nature. When I started doing DJing and that led to producing and then from producing it led back to being an artist again, to learning engineering and mixing. I learned every aspect of the game. It's like there's nothing I can’t do in the studio right now and put out a project. I would say I grew tremendously on a lot of levels. Creatively, business-wise, mentally, everything, bro. I came a long way because I could think back to times where all I did, I needed engineers. I needed somebody to come and load up this equipment and all that. I can be solo right now, I can go ahead and do whatever I want to do at any given time and drop whenever I want. With all that right there, that's the blessing.

VALIDATED: What does Hip Hop mean to you?

NU JERZEY DEVIL: Hip Hop means everything. Without Hip Hop, I wouldn't be able to feed my daughter. I wouldn't live the life I live. I probably wouldn't be here. It's my life, it’s my world. I wouldn't trade it for anything in this, it's everything I am.

VALIDATED: What should we be looking for coming from you in the future musically or from people that you're working with? Tell us anything that you’ve got going on that we haven't covered.

NU JERZEY DEVIL: Definitely got some new music coming out. I'm just waiting for Game to get his little drop release date and all that so I could kind of correspond with that and get ready for tour again. We got tours lined up. Definitely be on the lookout for all the new music between me, Game and everybody else that we deal with. Merch I still got my “$low Feet Don't Eat”, go to www.topshelfheavyhitters.com and I got all my merch on there. Just watch the grind, you're gonna see me. Whatever I'm doing, I'm gonna post it. I'm gonna put it out to the world, y’all just follow Instagram and you're gonna find out everything you need to know.