We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jewels Genesis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jewels, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Well, last year I released my EP ‘Streets is Sleepin’ Vol. 3: The Spirit of Hartshorn’ which is the most meaningful and socially conscious project I’ve released to date. This was an important project to me that came together during and after the social justice protests that arose around 2020. The name “Spirit of Hartshorn” is another term for smelling salts, which are mixtures used to arouse consciousness. I picked that because that because that’s how I view my music. I not only wrote the lyrics, but mixed and mastered the project myself as well. Truly a labor of love for me. I believe Music can change the world.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As a lifelong Hip-Hop fan, I was first inspired to rap professionally by seeing LL Cool J drop his album ‘radio’ being only a few years older than me. However, my first album was by an artist named Paris, who is a positive/conscious/militant rapper which inspired my conscious/militant perspective. It’s that unique mixture of inspiration along with the likes of Tupac and Nas that I think makes me stand out as an artist. I like to think of it like I’m the Furious Styles of rap. The OG that’s still around tryna teach the youth how to make the right decisions from the perspective of someone that was once in the streets myself and am now a successful artists and entrepreneur.

As an entrepreneur, I started my own company Kingsmob Entertainment which serves as my record label and as a media company based in Buffalo, NY promoting underground music videos and local events to help support my local arts community. I also double as a fashion designer for the business and have designed the Kingsmob Dynasty luxury sneaker as well as various designs for merchandise, including the very popular “Buffalo VS Everybody” tees well known in the area.

I am most proud of my ability to use my platform to help bring attention to the arts and music community in my city and be recognized by my city for the same. I have been nominated for best music video/EP for 2022 in the 716 music awards with the winner to be announced 7/15/2023 and have received a certificate from the NAACP legal defense fund in 2020 during the social justice protests, for donations I made that derived from proceeds of merch sales. In fact, I don’t charge artists for any of the promotion I do for the events or music videos, I do that through merch sales so any support is always appreciated. We offer everything from phone cases to clothing and accessories in the merch store online. The website is www.KingsmobEnt.com.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I remember in my 20s when I was still traveling to cities like NYC, Toronto, and ATL passing out CD demos trying to get noticed and signed as a conscious rapper and got close enough to rub shoulders with a couple signed artists who put me in touch with a couple A&Rs. I remember being told there was no market for conscious and no record label would sign unless I could do “club”/”Radio” songs and put in contact with artist development people who wanted to water down the militant conscious stuff and effectively change the music. As an artist, I decided I wanted to control the message so instead of pivoting with the music, I pivoted with the business and created my own label so I could release my own music free of outside influence instead of looking for a major label to take a chance. Kingsmob Entertainment was born in 2019. As mentioned, I have my own clothing line, and sneaker line now, release my own music which is available on all streaming platforms and I have even branched into acting and have co started in my first feature film called “Slapped Straight” with Kingsmob Entertainment as an official sponsor with in film product placement. I am proof you can make your own way.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Location, location, location!!! Like real estate. If there’s an artist site, you should be on it with a profile/page and content. Be consistent with your online handle/stage name in everything that you do online and set up a Google Ads account and run ads. If you won’t invest in yourself, nobody else will. All about name recognition so put your name in as many places as possible.      

Contact Info:

• Website: www.KingsmobEnt.com
• Instagram: jewels_genesis
• Facebook: Jewels Genesis
• Twitter: @Kingsmob
• Youtube: @JewelsGenesis

Image Credits
BBJ Films