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In 2012, the city of Stockton filed for bankruptcy. Debt had ballooned from $3 million in 2006 to $17.2 million. Housing got less affordable, and led to the Weston Ranch neighborhood being a magnet for foreclosures. Citizens living on government pensions soon lost their longtime residences. Then there was the high crime rate, which only a decade ago led Forbes to name Stockton the fifth most dangerous city in America. (Even if Forbes is in no place to examine the heart of the city.)
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But by February 2015, Stockton successfully exited bankruptcy. Problems with housing, unemployment, and crime remain, but it was a win for a city that had been through immense pain. I say this all to point out that EBK Young Joc’s rough life reminds me of the rise of his home town. After the death of his older brother, who told him that rapping was the way that the family was going to rise, Joc started spitting. From there, it’s been an arduous but steady climb.
To hear the Stockton rapper’s music is to hear his lineage among the Bay Area legends, whose sound extends from Sacramento all the way down to south to Fresno and Stockton. After being sent to Juvenile Detention Center at 17, the Sacramento rapper Bris, hit Joc’s line to chop it up. He showed up to the studio in Stockton and they immediately started collaborating, creating an essential body of work that made them one of the best duos of their generation.
Like his comrade, the dearly departed Bris, Joc sounds casually menacing. There’s no time to waste by charming us. Where Bris had a whispery rasp, Joc has much more bark. He’s more straightforward. Bars hit as raw and clear as Nino Brown’s glass plate. Even if he’s relatively new at this (his first album, 21 Jump Street, dropped in December 2019), he already sounds like a veteran with multiple flows. The cadence might be the same, but the pace is different every time. He can go slow like a point guard sitting up the play and surveying where the defenders are. Take‘’Real Mafia’’, a standout track on his second effort, The Fresh Prince of Belair, where he sounds deliberate and controlled; whereas ‘’Get It Litty’’ is chaotic. He combines nihilism with the self medication of living in the hood, losing loved ones in his early life and disgust for his enemies.
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There are many strong Bris and EBK Young Joc songs, but ‘’Dumb and Dumber’’ is the one that sticks with you the most. It’s a song that brings out exactly what made them a formidable duo. Bris is the quiet assassin who sounds like the leader in the duo. The Marlo Stanfield of Sacramento, giving out orders without raising his voice or breaking a sweat. He was always in control with his vocal tone, but still as deadly as his shooter. If Bris is Marlo, then Joc is Snoop Pearson with how he uses slang to intimidate. Their music was a combination of different rapping styles, but the same mentality. They both spit bars that are the equivalent of the M.E. saying a victim had blunt forced trauma.
Bris and Joc were building off of that with classic Bay Area piano production. The former was a clear-cut breakout phenom: He built tension with each bar like every line is building towards a main event that ends with Bris stomping you out in front of your parents house like Kendrick as a teenager. ‘’Dumb and Dumber’’ was just one song that the Bris and Joc had that turned heads with its weirdness and violent outbursts. Another one, ‘’Jokes Up’’, dropped on June 14th, 2020. It’s the last time we heard Bris alive and he was in rare form: Even though stacking paper is his meal, cookies still make him have the munchies. On June 21st, he was shot dead in Sacramento shortly after the clock hit midnight. He was pronounced dead at the scene. He was only 24.
Thankfully, Joc is still here to carry on that legacy. He’s not just carrying Stockton on his back, he’s bearing the torch for his brother and his late rap brethren. Like his city, he’s endured difficult times, but he also knows he is on the rise. He maintains a humor to him that is in his music, as well as his native land. In our conversation, we spoke about Bris, Stockton, the death of his brother, and the perils of clout chasing. — Jayson Buford
Source: https://t-tees.com
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