Whatever happened to J.T. of "Swing It" fame?
johmbolaya
4,472 Posts
I had made a post at OKP about the alleged downfall of hip-hop and conveniently poked fun at him, nothing more than an attention grabber to get people talking about one-hit, half-hit, and no-hit hip-hop wonders. I'll take the best of what I had written and rearrange it here.He's listed at ASCAP as Jordan Emory Tepper, but in the hip-hop world he wanted to be known as J.T. Not to be confused with J.T. The Bigga Figga, but in this case J.T. was a white (Italian?) guy who had the whole shirtless thing down, kind of a cross between Marky Mark and maybe (MAYBE) Freedom Williams. He came out with a song in 1991 on eastwest/Atlantic called "Swing It":http://www.sendspace.com/file/bmxfr3
It was produced by Fresh Gordon, with DJ'ing from Clark Kent, and the music had him on stage, in a warehouse-studio in the night, with a bunch of people dancing and swinging it. I thought the song was funky, and I went out of my way to buy it. I thought his flow was alright, was willing to give him a shot at a time when every label tried to have their own white MC, and yet I think I was more into the production and the Rimshots sample than what he was trying to say.The song, to my knowledge, wasn't even a bit hit, but it managed to get a significant amount of airplay on both MTV and BET. At a time when hip-hop lyrics were being analyzed for violent and sexual imagery, this song made it to the airwaves with the line:"J.T. bust a nutIn your face and in your butt"Then again, maybe that's not so bad as Phife saying "bust a nut inside your eye" or referring to "semen furniture".Even though the single didn't do well, an album would eventually be released and it flopped. What blew me away was that about a year later, J.T. was rapping and endorsing a shoe line in a TV ad that was shown on YO! for about a month. It wasn't "the artist formerly known as J.T." or him trying to develop a separate identity, it was J.T. the shirtless wonder telling people that people should buy whatever brand of shoes he was wearing. After that, he was never heard from again.When I posted some of this information at Okayplayer, someone suggested that maybe the single and album was just the second phase of his career, that he may have appeared on a TV show beforehand as a rapper, which may have lead to him being signed. Someone had suggested he was on "Saved By The Bell" but IMDB.com didn't have him listed.I'm very curious to know this guy's story, even if he did become lost in the crowd, that is if he was even part of the crowd at all. There were a lot of one-offs between 1990-1993, when it was realized that an industry could be developed, and I guess for me this was one song that had stood out from the rest. Maybe with eastwest's success of Yo-Yo, they were willing to take a few chances with anyone and everyone in the hopes one of them would become the next big thing. J.T. became one of many hip-hop sidebars, and with every Paris and Wise Intelligent there was a J.T. hoping to be able to crossover with pop appeal. It goes back to when rappers were talking about the "bootleg beatdown" and the fear of what would happen if the music "blew up" and went "pop".
It was produced by Fresh Gordon, with DJ'ing from Clark Kent, and the music had him on stage, in a warehouse-studio in the night, with a bunch of people dancing and swinging it. I thought the song was funky, and I went out of my way to buy it. I thought his flow was alright, was willing to give him a shot at a time when every label tried to have their own white MC, and yet I think I was more into the production and the Rimshots sample than what he was trying to say.The song, to my knowledge, wasn't even a bit hit, but it managed to get a significant amount of airplay on both MTV and BET. At a time when hip-hop lyrics were being analyzed for violent and sexual imagery, this song made it to the airwaves with the line:"J.T. bust a nutIn your face and in your butt"Then again, maybe that's not so bad as Phife saying "bust a nut inside your eye" or referring to "semen furniture".Even though the single didn't do well, an album would eventually be released and it flopped. What blew me away was that about a year later, J.T. was rapping and endorsing a shoe line in a TV ad that was shown on YO! for about a month. It wasn't "the artist formerly known as J.T." or him trying to develop a separate identity, it was J.T. the shirtless wonder telling people that people should buy whatever brand of shoes he was wearing. After that, he was never heard from again.When I posted some of this information at Okayplayer, someone suggested that maybe the single and album was just the second phase of his career, that he may have appeared on a TV show beforehand as a rapper, which may have lead to him being signed. Someone had suggested he was on "Saved By The Bell" but IMDB.com didn't have him listed.I'm very curious to know this guy's story, even if he did become lost in the crowd, that is if he was even part of the crowd at all. There were a lot of one-offs between 1990-1993, when it was realized that an industry could be developed, and I guess for me this was one song that had stood out from the rest. Maybe with eastwest's success of Yo-Yo, they were willing to take a few chances with anyone and everyone in the hopes one of them would become the next big thing. J.T. became one of many hip-hop sidebars, and with every Paris and Wise Intelligent there was a J.T. hoping to be able to crossover with pop appeal. It goes back to when rappers were talking about the "bootleg beatdown" and the fear of what would happen if the music "blew up" and went "pop".
Comments
I mean he was apparently a bigger figure.
You got a point there.
But seriously, anyone else, or is it just one of those "the less said, the better?"