JASON NKANGA IS THE SYNONYM FOR RANGE

Jason Inidara Nkanga known by his stage name Jason Nkanga is a 23-year old emcee, born in Lewisham, England. The young rapper has stuck to his fatherland, and hails from the city he was raised in, Abuja, Nigeria. He holds a Masters degree in International Education and Development from University of Sussex. Same uni he bagged his bachelors degree.

Jason began his journey into music as far back as 2014 and has found a way to fuse his raps (melodic and non-melodic) with different genres, thus creating sounds that spreads across several fanbase in the industry. I met Jason via a “playlist consideration submission” mail, went through the 3 songs he sent and instantly fell in love with his incredible talent. This has led to him earning a spot on JJC.

Encounter with Hip-hop

Growing up, I listened to a lot of songs. But that one hip-hop song that I got hooked on to was Lil Wayne’s Lollipop. I can remember listening to it back in ‘09 and getting hooked on it. You know back then it was tough to get a hold of music, it wasn’t accessible to us as it is now. I still found a way to get it, I played it so much till I learned the whole song.

Writing Hip-hop

I can’t pinpoint the exact time I wrote my first verse but I do know it was in a class. I had this spare book and I was wondering what to do with it and that was when I decided to make it my rap book. I wrote my first verse without a beat, I just kept writing whatever came to my head. After I was done, I rapped it to myself and it was surprisingly good.

I decided to keep going because I liked the feeling it gave me. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would make music, it was just something I enjoyed, like a hobby I was pretty good at.

I listened to a range of artists when I was starting my career. I would say my style of writing was influenced by Lil Wayne, Eminem, and Drake.

Hip-hop Head to Emcee

Being a shy person was one of the hardest things for me starting my music career. I had doubts like

“What if people don’t like my music?”

“What if I’m not actually good enough”

I would write verses in a book, rap them to myself and just store them away, I was skeptical, I didn’t want to get my confidence crushed. One day, during recess, I decided to rap to a couple of my classmates a verse I had just written, so I rapped a verse, they were impressed and were like “That was good, let’s keep doing this” which made me happy and a whole lot more comfortable with sharing my music.

I would say if that didn’t happen I wouldn’t have put out my first song.

Most Slept on Verse/Song

Book of Legends for sure. I feel it’s my most slept-on song. I believe it hasn’t reached where I want it to be, it still has the potential to do a lot more. It’s more than just a song, it’s a STORY. It took a whole lot for Delø and me to put it together.

Not many people see the brilliance in the song but the few that see it appreciate it. I feel it’s heavily slept on and it’s only really known by core hip hop fans.

Worst Verse/Song

I’ve never really thought about this [Laughs]. I’ll like to say my verse on Go Dumb. That was my first ever recorded verse so that explains it. It wasn’t a bad verse, I just felt it was a verse that wasn’t me. You see, there are times as an artist you record a verse and you add a little flair to the record and dominate the record.

In that verse, it felt like I was scared to rap in a way that was comfortable for me. The lyrics were good, I wasn’t just impressed with the delivery. Probably because it was my first track. You get better with every verse you put out, that’s just how it is I guess.

Plans

I do have a lot planned. I want to take my music career to the next level and experiment with new areas of music. I would love to start putting out singles I’ve created, preferably next year. Also, I’d love to start dropping a lot more videos. It’s great to know an artist by their face. I do plan to be visually pleasing as much as I have been with my audio.