Hot off the internet and onto mainstream success, Warner Brothers newly signed duo are smashing up the charts with a hot debut single and dance craze to back it. In the spirit of Soulja Boys, Crank That, New Boyz, the young rappers behind the newest club anthem, You’re a Jerk, found capital stardom after creating a single to ride over the Cali Dance movement known as Jerkin’.
Less then a year ago, Ben J and Legacy were regular teenagers who had dual dreams of having a career in sports or a career in the music industry. An inevitable turn molded by their infectious new single You’re a Jerk, paved a road towards unprecedented heights that has them coasting towards a cemented position as the newest faces to watch in this competitive music industry.
Sweeping through the nation with a new sound and new imagination, You’re a Jerk, is a sign of things yet to come for the duo, and is only the tip of the iceberg in discerning their mass abilities. Already living up to their hype with their new single Dot Com, proving that they’re no “One Hit Wonders,” and fresh on the heels of lead roles in an upcoming blockbuster film, they’re steadily standing behind their original moniker and poised to prove to the everyone that when it comes to them, it’s truly out with the old and in with the New Boyz. I sat down with the burgeoning group, to get a fix on the world of Jerkin, their music, their shoe line Spectros, and everything else that interminglea with these phenomenal artists.
For starters, introduce yourself to the world.
Ben J: I’m “Ben J” the cardinal one.
Legacy: This is Legacy, the light skinned one.
And who are the others?
Ben J: There ain’t no other ones.
Oh, my bad. Yall were talking bout some “Jerk” stuff, I just figured there’d be more of you, since there’s a whole bunch of “Jerks” in the world anyway. [Laughs] But that’s cool, just two of you representing, I like that.
Legacy: [Laughs] Naw, there’s just two of us.
Your song “You’re a Jerk” has become a viral hit, that’s not only sweeping through the nightclubs, but it’s also taking over the airwaves. How did you come up with the song?
Ben J: We made the song in our studio. We didn’t make up jerkin’, that dance move was already out. We wanted a jerkin’ song, and the first song we made was I Jerk. That song was just a particular jerkin’ song where we were talking about jerkin’ in the club and a lot of people were doing the same thing. We were like, ‘we gotta do something different, something jerky because we were trying to put jerkin’ on the map’. So we thought of You’re a Jerk. You’re a Jerk is a double meaning, because not everyone knows what jerkin’ is yet. We made the song to relate to the people who know how to jerk, by saying, “ Oh yeah I can jerk, so I’m a jerk.” And for the people who don’t know how to jerk so they can relate to the song like, “Oh yeah, my boyfriend calls me a jerk all the time. My girlfriend calls me a jerk all the time.”
Now I heard an interview about how that song was born. If I’m correct, neither one of you were supposed to be recording music at the time, but you snuck and did it anyways. Can you elaborate on that story?
Legacy: As far as the story, we were being ungrateful with our parents because we didn’t like the clothing they bought us so they put us on a kind of punishment- a restriction from using the better microphone. We needed the good mic in order to make this song what it is, so we snuck in our parents room- broke in. We switched the bad mic with the good mic and recorded the song. They got mad at us for doing it, but look what it is now, it paid off.
Some people spend their entire life trying to nab a record deal especially with a company like Warner Brothers, how’d you guys swing such a good look?
Legacy: In L.A. jerkin’ is a movement, it’s like a culture. We had music, and we also had a huge following. We had people jerkin’ on stages, everyone saw it on Youtube and just like Crank That they started making Youtube videos. They saw over hundreds of people make videos and dancing to our song You’re a Jerk, and they saw how people were gravitating towards this jerkin’ thing, so they figured they could do something with this.
Did you know when you wrote the song that it was going to take off like it did?
Ben J: Honestly we just wanted to make music, and it was just another song we did. That was our first dance song too, we made like 10 other songs before that.
Now in the beginning, both of you were set for a career in Basketball and Football, what made you transition?
Ben J: I wanted to play football all my life. I started playing football when I was 6. Rapping was something I always knew how to do, but when I hooked up with my partner rapping was something he always wanted to do. I just enjoyed coming home from football practice and recording in the studio. After a while I just felt it. I knew I was going to do something in rapping instead of football so I just switched over and made it my main priority.
Legacy: I wanted to rap all my life, basketball was pretty much a secondary thing. So it wasn’t that hard for me to stop doing it.
So what’s your new single, and how are people receiving it?
Ben J: Our new single is called Dot Com and it will be out next month on the radio but when we first put it on our myspace, we had like 300,000 plays over night and now we’re at like 1 million plays.
When are you expecting your album to be complete so you can drop it for the world?
Legacy: August 8th, be on the look out for Skinny Jeans and a Mic.
Are all the songs going to be like You’re a jerk, or are you going to switch it up a bit and give the world something different?
Ben J: Naw we’re switching it up a bit because like we said before, we did music before we did You’re a Jerk. That was our first dance song. We have different styles and make different types of music for all listeners. The album is going to be a mix. Everyone expects it to be a jerky album, but we have different concepts. We’re going to bring some different things, so everybody needs to get ready for this.
Are there going to be any features we should watch out for or is it just going to be the two of you doing your thing?
Legacy: We have like local artists and underground people, but it’s really going to just be the two of us. We want to show the world the New Boyz and not anyone else. We really don’t need anybody else to get up on the track to make us famous.
What’s it like nowadays for you two, in being chased by adoring female fans, and having your posters plastered on the walls of teenage girls all across America.
Legacy: It feels good, but now that we’ve been in the industry for a couple months now, it’s starting to get normal to us.
Ben J: This is the life we chose, so we’re happy to deal with that.
Legacy: And I love girls!
So what’s next for you gentleman apart from music, I see both of you have enough charisma and personality to enter into the world of television or film, what do you think?
Ben J: We have a couple things going on right now. We’re working on an album, and other than that, we’ve got people who want us to audition playing lead roles in movies. We have a movie coming up called 818, and that’s officially us in that movie. It’s going to be big.
What’s that about?
Ben J: You know how they have the whole Streets of L.A. with the police and gangs and the crime scenes? This is not L.A., but it’s a different part of California which none of the movies ever show different parts of California like the 818 area code. We’re going to show gangs and police and how they react to everything out there. I play a lead role. I’m basically the O-Dog in the movie, and my partner wants to be the leader of the gang. We also have our own shoe with Vlado Footwear called Spectros.
Legacy: We also have the modeling thing going on. We’re trying to get a lot of stuff going because New Boyz are not one hit wonders like everybody thinks.
How do you think what you two have accomplished so far, is paving the roads for young cats who want to follow in your footsteps?
Legacy: Honestly it feels good because I’ve always been a role model to my little sisters and my little brothers. We have to stay focused and it feels good to have little kids look up to us and want to be like us. I never would have expected this.
Any final words to the readers of Yo! Raps who want to follow in your footsteps?
Ben J: If you’re trying to rap, just stay dedicated and focused. Not everybody gets signed in 7 months. Either than that, you can hit me up at twitter: Twitter.com/BenJNewboyz
Legacy: I’m at Twitter.com/ThaLegacy
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