J. Raise, Jr (born October 18, 1996, in Monopoli) is an artist/music producer from Fasano, Italy.
His music is defined by timeless grooves and meticulously syncopated rhythms. A very strong hip-hop attitude deeply infected by the complexity of jazz and broken beat, moved by the sweetness of soul music.
He studied drums during middle school and started to become aware of the Hip-Hop music and culture through discovering the discipline of break dancing. J. Raise, Jr got in touch very soon with some of the exponents of the most outstanding local Hip-Hop groups from the 90’s like (Fuma Project, Murgia Drima, Pooglia Tribe) getting noticed at a young age for his musicality and inclination towards music rooted to the Afro-American culture. They gifted him with a lot of understanding about the beat-making and sampling culture until the point to become his actual guides and mentors for taking the first steps into the world of music production.
After years of deep dive into the sampling science, studying all the abilities of his MPC2000XL to the core, he released an handful of singles between 2015 and 2017 jumping on the latest years of the SoundCloud lofi beats era.
In 2018 he took on the mission of trying to make the Italian beat-making scene heard on an international level by co-founding the independent label Resilienza Records, joining as well its roster with two beat tapes in 2019 ‘Hi My Name Is, Vol. 3’ and ‘No Man’s Tape’.
The label has launched and curated over 30 brand new music projects over the years, counting approximately 20 different artists from Italy and beyond. Getting noticed globally for creating a strong identity in the resurfaced market of cassette tapes, becoming a landmark for the Italian beat-making community. Through this experience J. Raise Jr has had the opportunity of putting into practice the years spent between Canada and The Netherlands where he attended a Bachelor of Arts in Music Business at the University of Haarlem, and had some short but intense experiences in the industry as intern and A&R for record labels of different sizes.
His never-ending search for music and dedication to record digging has always kept him active as well as dj/selector, collaborating with radios and media of all kinds, collecting a long series of appearances for showcases and dj sets.
In 2020, he released ‘Lifted Quest’, for the worldwide known label and beat-makers community NINETOFIVE®. The EP saw a quick rising on listeners in a few months, landing on editorial playlists and getting media support by various music channels like Okayplayer. Gradually creating a listeners base on an international level, especially in territories like United States, Japan, and of course Europe.
As follow up to this project, in 2021 he released the instrumental tape ‘Likewise’ (NINETOFIVE® x Resilienza Records) another solid piece of work that contributed to the creative evolution of his own sound identity.
J. Raise, Jr has recently announced his signing with Universal Music Group, releasing his official debut album CALL FOR YOU for Island Records Italy on October 27th 2023. A joint project with the UK singer and multi instrumentalist Alijaa, which sees the appearances of Chicago’s rapper Mick Jenkins, Detroit’s legend Frank Nitt (Frank’n’Dank), the UK singer and saxophonist Parthenope, and New York based rapper Hiero.
A journey through Hip-hop, nu soul and nu-jazz, touching a huge variety of styles but with a strong and unique character which defined a new whole level of sound for J. Raise, Jr & Alijaa.