Being the kid who got made fun of so bad for rapping in high school, lead to dropping out to perfect his craft.
After a few steps behind putting the books down and leaving school Jake ‘s first step in the right direction was creating a milestone collaborating with Eminem’s Band – D12, for a cypher style track that Bizarre of D12 reposted on Spotify, SoundCloud and Facebook. In just the first 6 months of releasing “A Bizarre Cypher” it reached over 1 Million Streams on Spotify alone.
“Went to school with these guys and grow up in the area, recently got a facebook invite to like their record labels page. I had always thought the guy on the left didn’t finish school to pursue his music career, didn’t really have high hopes though since i remember some of the lyrics being about putting the principal in a coffin. I haven’t listen to what he has put out in years but seeing the positive feedback here gives me a bit of hope hes actually doing alright.”
Successfully proving his classmates wrong after taking a picture in front of his road sign “Swaggertown Road“, going semi-viral by landing himself on the “Front Page of Reddit” under the category r/Trashy in 2018. Jake Strain is a household name in the 518. The abundance audience of over 60k on his Instagram, anyone who follows him are strangers or as Jake would refer to them as “Straingerz“. During that same year he created his independent record label company “Swaggertown Records“.
Jake Strain is not your typical emcee, he also has a background of audio engineering, business and marketing. Jake has an in-house only recording studio in Albany, NY. Scheduling recording sessions on a set-monthly basis, but he also offers other services to his clients, some services include promotions, social media management, public relations marketing, & consultation under his alias Yer-Management.
Yer-Management was named after Jake’s music and business partner Connor Yerman. Connor had a vision for a scheme of umbrella companies that all coexisted. This vision that Jake continues to bring to life. A week before Connor passed away Jake lost hope of taking it to the next level because he lacked proper funding and having a steady budget. Bouncing back from Landscaping gigs to dish washing barely making enough money to cut $50.00 an hour studio time left Jake feeling hopeless with only two songs recorded and ready for distribution. Connor convinced Jake that he would be a fool if he ever quit music, and they were in the process of creating a solid game plan of how to achieve greatness with the music Jake was stashing away. After Connor passed away unexpectedly on Leap Year in 2015 it left Jake with so many unanswered questions of what to do next in his music career, with having to figure out the business side of the music industry with no manager or label backing him, he now could never give up music, even if he thought he was wasting his time.
“The day that you passed yo, I went and got a tat cause you always had my back but I got it on my chest each and everyday I really try my best, but since you’ve been gone, I been a wreck, friends, family we’re all upset when I saw that casket I was dull in the face, and it’s slowing me down and I ain’t pulling no breaks, If I make it up I hope you holding the gate, when I wanted to quit you always had faith.”
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Brief Exclusive Q&A With Jake Strain via Email:
– Tell us about yourself, where you from and where you got your artist name?
“I’m from the 518 but most people say I’m from Swaggertown Road. I got my artist name because it’s not really an artist name, it’s my real name, I used to have a rap name but people always said my name should be my rap name, lol”
– What got you into music, and what really influences your sound?
“I got into music because my dad put me on to hip-hop culture at a young age, and my mother got me an Eminem Explicit tape when I was only 4 years old, I fell in love. The thing that influences my sound is growing up on early 90’s – 00’s studying the game back then when artists were actually spitting, not to mention I take pride in being from New York, you always show respect to the culture and pay homage to the game.”
– Where do you see yourself being in 5 years and what plans of upcoming projects do you have planned?
“Right now I’ve been doing a surplus of features, some paid features with upcoming indie artists, and I have a handful of major features in the vault just waiting while I work on my solo project.”
– What artists would you like to work with or do you have any you cool with sharing with us that are unreleased?
“Figured you’d ask that question after I just said I got major features in the vault, I’m not gonna say all of them but I got a dope club-ish record called “Nasty” FT Maino, but no release date yet on that one.”
– What’s next for you coming up this year?
“I plan to stay busy, the next step for me is to trying to finish up my untitled project, continue to build my brand, run my studio and network with other serious artists to help achieve the same goal(s).”
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