It’s been awhile since we heard much word from Jay Rock. Since his debut album Follow Me Home, the Watts, California representative has been busy in the lab cooking up his next project. In the meantime he’s also been jumping on fellow TDE artists’ albums such as “2 Raw” on ScHoolboy Q’s Habits & Contradictions and “Lust Demons” on Ab-Souls Control System. Meanwhile the world awaits his next album and whether it will be released under TDE/Strange Music.

We talked to Strange Music CEO Travis O’Guin in a live podcast interview and asked him to get us up to date on Jay Rock and what is in store for the future from the Top Dawg/Strange Music emcee.

What’s going on with Jay Rock? Can we expect another release from him?

You absolutely can. Right now we’re working with Top Dawg, and Top Dawg is our partner on Jay Rock. You know Top Dawg Entertainment has a ton of traction going on right now. They’re doing their fucking thing man. Hat’s off to Dude Dawg, Top and to Punch and to the whole team over there, from Ab-Soul to Kendrick. Kendrick has such incredible traction right now. You know, Kendrick was the hype man for Jay Rock on Jay Rock’s first tour with us. The quiet kid always just in his head. He is one of the nicest most genuine dudes ever so success couldn’t happen to a better dude.

Jay Rock, that’s my guy. I love that dude to death. Their team is one million percent. I’m working with Top Dawg right now on Jay Rock. They’re already way in to recording on this album. What we might do as a little collaborative effort to get some music out on Jay Rock this year, you might see something come out through Top Dawg/Strange and it might be in mixtape format. It might be on some beat-jacking type shit or it might be some flavored shit that we want to get out there. Again giving the fans that holdover, that fix – some music. I anticipate his major release to be first quarter of next year. That’s my hope. And you know what? It’s going to be phenomenal because with the relationships that Top Dawg Entertainament has out there, because of what they’re doing with all of their artists and the features that they can get. I know that they’re going to deliver the most incredible Jay Rock album ever. And they’re truly the driving force as far as the music goes with Jay Rock. He records out there in Top Dawg studios, they align the features, we simply finance it and obviously we go through the process with them, sorting out the songs that make the record and then we put together the best record possible and then we put together the marketing plan and then we collectively go out there and push his record as hard as we can. I plan on being in business with Top Dawg for quite some time because me and the head of Top Dawg are very like-minded – very, very like-minded. We get each other. I like that dude a lot. And he’s doing a phenomenal job. I think that Top Dawg could be the new Death Row of the West Coast. I really believe that. That’s what I want to see happen for them and we want to obviously participate and play ball on the Jay Rock front and who knows? Maybe in the future we’ll be involved in the Black Hippy front. That’s something I’m very interested in but meanwhile I just love seeing what they’re doing.

– Interview conducted by Jeff Nelson, Senior Blog Editor

• Are you looking forward the next Jay Rock record?

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