J-Kwon, the rapper behind the 2004 earworm “Tipsy,” takes our Zoom call from his hometown of St. Louis, though he was just in Nashville the night before. He attended the ASCAP Country Music Awards, which celebrated the writers and publishers of the biggest songs in the genre – including Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” which wouldn’t exist as it does without him. J-Kwon’s “Tipsy” is the cornerstone of Shaboozey’s breakout single, now gunning for Lil Nas X’s record for the longest reign atop the Hot 100. The pre-hook and chorus on “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” flip key elements of “Tipsy” nearly verbatim, and clearly, one hit begets another. J-Kwon says it’s the first sample or interpolation of his track he’s approved in 20 years.
After we talk, J-Kwon and his manager say they’re making plans for him to return to Nashville for the televised Country Music Awards, which aired this week. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” was nominated for Single of the Year and Shaboozey for Artist of the Year, losing both at a show that has historically underappreciated Black artists. However, the song is also up for three Grammys, two of which would also go to J-Kwon, born Jerrel Jones, as a songwriter: Best Country Song and the prestigious Song of the Year award. (Shaboozey also earned a Best New Artist Grammy nomination, undoubtedly due, in part, to the massive hit.)
Back in 2004, “Tipsy” was everywhere, a raucous rap ode to underage drinking by the then 17-year-old. It hit No. 2 on the Hot 100, beat out by a little song you might know called “Yeah!” by Usher, Lil Jon, and Ludacris. “I was in the club and Patti LaBelle was boppin’ to that shit,” Kwon’s rap contemporary and popular podcaster Joe Budden recently said of “Tipsy” in its heyday. However, J-Kwon’s career didn’t get that kind of national recognition again until Shaboozey breathed life into it for a new genre and generation. Before “Tipsy,” J-Kwon overcame grueling homelessness to make it in the rap game, he says, and since, he says he’s wrestled with label drama, an expensive false paternity case, and building a life beyond the hit.
Lately, he’s been working on a clothing line called Expen$ive Ta$te, building out an entertainment workspace in St. Louis, and an album he might call Sobriety Check. “For the last 20 years, I think I’ve really been just taking time to work on the next 20 years, to make my legacy that much bigger. I had a lot of ups and downs,” he says. “Now I’m feeling like God is realer than ever. I’m so grateful for everything that’s coming my way and I just want to keep going.”
With his sights set on a Grammy in February, J-Kwon reveals what he’d do with it, why he believed in Shaboozey, what he earns off of “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” and what he thinks about Gen-Z’s drinking habits.
I have such strong memories of “Tipsy” from my childhood. Now that we’ve seen this resurgence, what do you think makes it so catchy?
Honestly, because I wrote it.
Well, what did you do? What did you put in it? What was the technique?
I feel like I went against the grain as far as me being 17. I’m letting you know teen drinking is very bad, but I’m still talking about drinking and doing grown-up stuff. So with all that in play, I just feel like it just made people want to listen to it. And then the beat was super catchy. I mean, come on. I said “One, then comes to two.” I mean, everybody can count and if you can’t, I help you count! It was educational as well! I feel like it had all the components.
What was your approach as a rapper then?
Okay, well, first and foremost, I was the class clown, so there’s going to be humor in everything. With “Tipsy” being the last song that I recorded [for his debut album Hood Hop], I just felt like we were missing something. I wanted to go in and do one more, and that’s what me and [Mark “Tarboy” Williams, of the production collective Trackboyz] did. I wanted something very club-ish, very simple. The simplest songs are the hardest songs to make; to break it down [so] it will be remembered forever is something totally different.
Tell me about the moment that you learned about all the Grammy nominations that “A Bar Song” got. Where were you? How did it feel?
I can’t remember exactly where I was. I probably was somewhere shopping maybe.
Oh, so you didn’t sit down and have a watch party for the stream?
No, I didn’t. [J-Kwon’s manager interjects to clarify that they were working out of a studio when the nominations came out.] I think Boo [his nickname for Shaboozey] hit me up and said, “We getting the Grammy.”
What’s your perspective on another artist earning Grammy recognition off of your work, when that wasn’t a part of your journey? Did you have any difficult feelings around that?
That’s exactly what I wanted to happen. That’s the goal that we was shooting for. Me and Boo had talked about this when we was doing the BET Awards. I told him off the muscle, “This is going to be one.” I think I told Billboard magazine as well. They was like, “You think it’s going to be Song of the Summer?” I’m like, “No, it’s going to be Song of the Year.” So this is exactly what I wanted to happen.
Why do you think Shaboozey’s take on your song got this level of reach?
Well, I think he added a 6’5″ black man and country. Just to see what I bring to the game merge into other lanes and be super successful – I wouldn’t have signed off for anybody else. No one else would’ve used this because you have to go through me to even use it. You have to get the okay, the stamp, the cosign. That was just one person that I really truly wanted to cosign. I liked how his energy was. I liked how he was persistent about me cosigning it. I just liked everything around it. It felt really good. And I talked to God about it. He told me it was the right thing to do and I did it.
Congratulations. Does that mean that you turned down other sample requests?
Of course.
How many do you think you turned down over the years?
Maybe a thousand—easy. You can talk to Sony about that. This is [the] one. When I heard it, I was like, “This is wild.” It wasn’t even finished. We was going back and forth on certain stuff but it wasn’t even finished.
Oh, tell me about the versions of it you heard.
When I heard it, it was kind of plain. By the time we got to this one, it was just incredible. It took me a month and a half, maybe, to clear it. I’m glad I did, though.
I saw in another interview you were like, “We got a crazy percentage” [of rights to and profits from the song]. Can you tell me, is that more than 50%? Is that somewhere under that?
You right around there. I don’t like talking my business. I’m ducking already.
I feel you. There’s also so many songs from that era that have been sampled recently. Some people feel like artists aren’t trying hard enough to be original now. They’re reaching back to things that aren’t old or obscure enough. What are your feelings on the way sampling is happening in hip-hop and pop right now?
I think it’s good for songs to get revamped because I just don’t feel like a lot of songs that’s coming out are good anymore. I feel like music’s supposed to be thrown back in the washing machine, it can be re-worn. Music is just expression. If [it] works, and I already said it and I already did it, it still can work here too.
Did you ever see yourself winning country music awards? Are you a country fan?
I am. Chris Stapleton is my favorite. “Tennessee Whiskey” is one of my favorite records of all time. And I think we passed that up in jukebox sales. Any time we even mentioning something in the same conversation as Chris Stapleton and “Tennessee Whiskey,” I feel like I did my job. And of course, to me, country is rugged. It’s soulful. It’s telling a story. And I feel like we did that.
You mentioned your BET Awards performance of “Tipsy” with Shaboozey this summer. Twenty years ago, when “Tipsy” was one of the biggest songs, did you go to the BET Awards?
You know what? I was too busy. I don’t know if I was there. I know I hit a couple awards shows for sure, but I was real busy. I was doing Saturday Night Live, Pepsi, shoe deals. And they never really considered me as an urban artist, which I don’t understand with an album called Hood Hop.
You think they looked at it like a pop song because of the way it crossed over?
You know what I mean? I was on Jay Leno. I was focused on doing that and really making it popular. But shout out to BET, too, no doubt. I was definitely on their countdowns. I definitely did [106 & Park].
I wonder if your performance at the BET Awards this year still felt like a reunion of some sort, like re-entering a conversation. How did you process it?
Well, it was kind of difficult for me to process it with all the smoke that was around me.
It was a very elaborate set.
I couldn’t really see. But I tell you this, a lot of people that worked at the BET Awards just had all these stories of me, and it was like, “J, remember we did this? Remember 106 & Park?” And I said, “Yeah,” but I really didn’t remember that well. It comes back to me later. We also got to understand this is 20 years ago and a lot of bottles ago, a lot of drinking and a lot of partying ago. But yeah, I’ve seen some familiar faces, and it just felt really good. And it felt good to have country at the BET Awards. It felt good that I brought country to the BET Awards.
I do want to talk about drinking. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Gen Z, this new generation of young adults, they don’t really drink like that.
I have heard that. But again, they need to. Listen, whatever they doing, it’s a lot of deaths and a lot of people going to jail. Just go back to the old school. I don’t know. I just feel like we need to calm down. The new generation is kind of scaring me a little bit, honestly.
Interesting.
Yeah, I like these artists, and I see these artists one day, and then I don’t see them. And then you hear about all this backstory. They went to jail for this, and they OD’d on this. I haven’t heard nobody OD’ing on a fifth of Gray Goose yet.
On a lighter note, I want you to compare 2004 and 2024 a bit more for me. Let’s do it like a game. I’ll name something, you just tell me the year it was better and why. Let’s start with music.
2004.
Okay. Why?
Because that’s when J-Kwon came out.
You were also saying earlier that you feel like the sampling helps now because some of the things that are coming aren’t hitting the same.
It’s not. I like what Glorilla is doing because she’s reaching back to a lot of older music. I feel like it was simpler. I feel like the beats was better. It wasn’t too complicated. I feel like everybody could latch on, they could participate more. I don’t even know what half of these people saying, you know what I mean? It’s hard for me to participate if I don’t even know what’s going on.
Dance moves: Better in 2004 or 2024?
I’ll give it 2024. Because I just can’t do them and I like when stuff is a challenge. But all of them are still old dance moves, they’re just putting them together and revamping those, too. So both, we’ll just do both years on that.
Fashion?
2024. I like how they’re not scared 1732295929. I love that they express themselves better and they mix and match – it doesn’t have to be so matchy-matchy. Back in the day, we had a white tee, the socks had to match the shoes, stuff like that. We’d just look like a crayon. I’m going to give it to 2024.
All right, live performances?
Now, you know, I’m going to say 2004. People actually cared about their performance. You could tell it was practiced, it was rehearsed. We wanted to walk in certain rooms and we wanted to be on point. I feel like 2024, you give them a mic, you give them some drugs, and they just go up there.
Was St. Louis better in 2004, or is it better now?
Definitely 2004. Nelly was out. Chingy was out. You had the St. Lunatics out, you had J-Kwon. It was crazy then. Now, it’s not so much. How in 2024 is me and Nelly and Chingy still the biggest names coming out of St. Louis? And we got Sexyy Red. We getting one every 20 years now.
My last one is award shows. Were they better in 2004 or 2024?
2024. The awards just look better. All my awards, I want to throw them away and get them remade. They look [more fun]. It makes you want to win them. All we had was a slab of wood, you know what I’m saying? We had a slab of wood or a piece of metal, and it said what it was, and that’s it.
So, if you and Shaboozey take home some Grammys, how do you think you’ll celebrate?
I’m drinking out of mine.
I love that. What are you going to drink?
Champagne of course. Rosé. Moet.
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