Knock LA

On a cold and rainy day in March, I met up with LA producer JoogSzn in Los Angeles at Raw Suga Shack Studios for the second part of an interview that started in 2021. Since our initial meeting, when my Youtube channel was just beginning, both of our careers have developed so much. I worked as A&R for a compilation tape featuring various artists I’ve interviewed and known personally releasing the projecttitled “FreeWorldOrder” just over a year later. Both this project and JoogSzn’s debut album, Where’s Joog?, released on June 3, 2022,  are available on all digital streaming platforms. His album showcases a variety of artists over his beats. He also recently co-produced “She’s From Stockton,” a track featuring LA rappers Big Sad 1900 and 03 Greedo. 

Joog co-founded the production collective Hit Mob in 2015, alongside fellow LA producers Ace The Face and RonRonTheProducer. They later added Menace On The Beat and Quadwoofer Bangz to the group. But long before Joog was producing hit records for some of the hottest artists to come out of LA, he was running the LA streets as a young joint. 

Joog was born in the South Los Angeles neighborhood of Leimert Park. “That’s over there, you know, the Crenshaw District. I’m from over there,” he says. “Angelus Vista over there, you know – like 4th Ave and King where I really grew up at though.” 

The Crenshaw District in LA, like many areas in the city, has complex layers and is known for its gang presence.

“The Crenshaw District it’s like, it’s hood, but it’s also, like, nice looking. So like people that live in Philly might come to LA and be like, ‘Naw y’all don’t have no hoods, yo hoods look nice.’ Just because it don’t look run down and gutta don’t mean people don’t get gutta,” he explains. “It’s different pockets too. It be quiet on one street, then next street it could be active.” 

Like a lot of neighborhoods in LA, people who aren’t gang affiliates in the Crenshaw District must be aware of their surroundings. As pretty as it is, LA can be a very dangerous place. “You just gotta be aware, your situational awareness has to be up. And I be noticing that people today, they don’t got that. I’m always head on a swivel, awareness up. So if you know you not aware, don’t even try to get into it, you gotta kinda know what’s going on.” 

Although the gang life wasn’t for him, he has been around all types of different people.

“I got homies from a lot of different places and I seen that life, and I didn’t see the value in getting into [it]. As far as me personally, I seen them do they thing, I do my thing. Everybody got they thing, and my thing was getting money.” 

Joog grew up in a more quiet area in a two parent household with his older sister. He describes himself as being an overall good kid growing up. “I wasn’t in jail at all when I was young, I was just getting money,” he says. “I still don’t have any interest in tough guy shit or tryna be like that, it’s about money. 

Despite growing up in a constant state of hypervigilance, he describes his childhood as regular, though he remembers changing schools a lot. 

“I hopped around school to school. I went to Windsor Hills, over the hill over there in Slauson area. I just grew up playing video games, riding bikes through the hood, you know, stuff like that. I made a lot of friends because I went to so many different schools. I went to like 10 different schools.” 

He was considered gifted by his teachers and had an interest in playing basketball and playing video games. 

He also started noticing the music his parents were listening to. “I had a lot of earlier influences because of my mom. She listened to Earth Wind & Fire, Rick James, Prince and my dad was into Disco, he’s not a LA n***a, he’s from Pennsylvania.” 

It wasn’t always easy for him growing up, partly because his dad was not originally from LA. “I’m the one navigating these streets foreal, because he didn’t have any insight for me. It was me and my sister that’s it. So I learned a lot of shit from her. I learned vicariously through other people. I think that was one of my gifts and talents as a youngin, cuz I didn’t have to make a lot of mistakes. Cuz I’m watching other people.” 

In middle school Joog showed an independent streak, and even though his parents made sure he had the things he needed, he still found himself wanting more. “I was hustling and I figured out how to get what I wanted,” he remembers. “I think it was one Christmas I was like I want everything, that’s when I figured out what the dollar meant, from then I was like I know they not gone get it, so ima go get it.” 

Joog had always been passionate about music and in middle school, he started playing the piano. He began to devise ways to monetize his interest, and by his freshman year of highschool, he had it all figured out. “I started selling ringtones, I started selling mixed CDs, all type of shit.” 

He used the internet to teach himself how to do everything. “I remember back then it was phone shops, so you would go to the phone shop and they would load you up, I looked on their computer one time and was like oh that’s the program, Torrent boom, Limewire boom.”  

After high school Joog went to Clark University in Atlanta, Georgia, for one year before moving back to LA. 

“I just figured it wasn’t for, I don’t know, I tried multiple times to like, do college, it was more so the pressure from my folks. My mom has her masters, so it was more so pressure from my mom’s side of the family. My grandpa wanted to see me graduate, shit like that, so you know I was like ima try it. I gave it the ol college try and then it wasn’t doing it for me, I don’t know,  it just wasn’t for me.” He says he liked college but didn’t like going to class. “I just didn’t see the benefit. I had a long talk with myself after my first year, and I didn’t go back because I didn’t wanna sit at a desk writing on paper the whole day. That just didn’t sound like the life for me.” 

Joog always knew he wanted to do something in the music business, and he knew he didn’t want to be a rapper. “It was just like ima be behind the scenes, doing my shit and whoever sings and raps on my shit then cool. It was between that and being a ball player.” 

He first experimented with the production software Fruity Loops in high school, but doesn’t think of those early attempts at true producing because he felt his beats sucked. . “I knew I wasn’t good at it, I just let it sit for a minute and started doing some other shit. When I started going to LA Recording School, that’s when I really started getting into it.”

Around the same time, Joog survived something that could have ended tragically: he was shot. At the age of 23, Joog attended a party where gunfire broke out. Even though he was an innocent bystander, Joog was hit in his leg and his foot. “When it happened I was so amped I walked outside and couldn’t feel my foot and walked it off. I knew I was shot because I heard the gunshots and I felt it go in my foot,” he recalled. The injury and subsequent recovery period forced him to stay inside. With the extra time on his hands, he started perfecting his craft. “I was down and that’s when I really learned how to make beats. My boy Smoke showed me.” 

He eventually purchased a computer, and eventually dropped out of LA Recording School. Later on, he started buying plug-ins, tools used to produce beats, and that’s when he really began to take producing seriously. 

One of his earliest inspirations was Quincy Jones.”He put together tapes, like you did [with FreeWorldOrder]. I just thought that was genius how he would put that shit together, that’s kinda what made me wanna look into being a producer more so than being an artist.” 

In 2015, Joog met RonRonTheProducer through his late cousin, rapper T Swish.”“I pulled up on T Swish and he introduced me to Ron, it was like automatic, we was homies damn near. Ron was recording Swish, he was recording hella people at the time. He introduced me a little down the line to Ralf, Drakeo, and Ketchup.” Joog and RonRon instantly hit it off and began to produce together. “We immediately started fucking with eachother we was making beats right then and there and exchanged info and was like we can do this all the time. One time I had pulled up and I came outside and my car was gone, and I didn’t have any money on me and Ron took me to the tow yard and gave me the money and I paid him back, I was like that’s what homies do.”

Over the years, RonRon and Joog continued their collaboration, including music for the now disbanded Shoreline Mafia. In 2017, Joog and RonRon produced songs on the albums Shorelinedothatshit and 2020’s Mafia Bidness. Both projects are certified gold. 

It was around this time the Hit Mob created “Traffic Music,” a new LA genre of music. “Traffic Music is technically LA’s version of like drill music, I guess street music,” Joog says. “We called it Traffic Music because car culture is so big out here. It’s music you can listen to when your off work on the 405, 110, 105 all that your in traffic. You gone be in traffic in LA a lot of the times of the day. Ron Came up with the name. Most of the new generation falls under traffic music.” 

Joog has made his mark on both the music scene in LA and across California. His inspiration for his beats comes from California as a whole, along with inspiration from the time he spent living in Atlanta. In 2019, he produced the beat for “Vintage and Adventurous,” by Conradfrmdaaves, a California summer anthems that’s racked up over 16 million Youtube views. The record earned Joog more notoriety and respect. A remix featuring former YSL rapper Gunna was released later, further cementing Joog’s status in the music world 

Joog also recorded and executively produced Thank You For Using GTL, a mixtape by the late rapper and his “irreplaceable” friend, Drakeo The Ruler. The mixtape was released while Drakeo was incarcerated for three and a half years. Joog spent months on the phone with Drakeo, recording every single song over the LA Men’s Central Jail, using phone service from GTL — a company that controls roughly half of correctional facility telecom market. This recording method was unprecedented; previously, artists had recorded music in jail over contraband cell phones. The mixtape, featuring 19 songs,  was hailed by Pitchfork as “likely the greatest rap album ever recorded from jail.” 

I was present for a lot of those phone calls and recording sessions, and like Joog, I also had an irreplaceable friendship with Drakeo. A few months after the tape’s release, Drakeo was released from prison. He later re-recorded and re-released the mixtape under the name Because Y’all Asked. 

Even though Joog has found success in his music career, he still faces the reality that a lot of citizens in LA face when it comes to police harassment. About a year ago,he was pulled over by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and  forcefully removed from his vehicle without any explanation. “I was driving home from the movies, I wasn’t doing anything. I wasn’t intoxicated or anything. They just saw me and they were following me for a minute and they finally put the lights on. Normally a person would have to do something weird like swerve or something. But they were behind me running my plates,” he explains. “I switched lanes and put my blinker on, following the rules. I didn’t do anything that would make them blurp me, but they still did. I went to a gas station and they were mad I was driving to where I wanted to go, but that’s not against the law.” Joog says he chose to pull over at a well-lit gas station equipped with surveillance cameras, where he felt more comfortable.

“I pulled over at the pump and they started harassing me. They opened the door first, then grabbed my bag off the passenger seat. Before I could retrieve my licenses and registration they told me to put my hands on the steering wheel. They told me turn the car off, and then they popped the door open and choked me out to get me out the car. The whole time I’m calm asking them what they pulled me over for. They didn’t have a reason.” 

The deputies threw Joog in jail without any formal charges and kept him there for a couple of days. Once charges were filed, he was able to post bail. “It isn’t even a case, they dropped it. Young Black, brown minorities especially if you have a nice car are targeted…Ima just suggest everybody get a dash camera in their car, film the police because they be on bunk.” 

Joog doesn’t have any malice in his heart and explains that he’s used to this type of behavior, due to the fact he’s known in LA as a successful Black man. He encourages younger generations to be safe, remain aware of their surroundings, and to continue to follow their instincts. 

“My main theme has been don’t sit in a box, don’t try to fit in. I don’t fit in. I just do what the fuck I wanna do. Draw upon what you like, not what someone else likes. Be you don’t be the you, you think everyone is going to like. Don’t think because someone else thinks something is cool, that’s what’s cool. What’s cool is what you make it.”