If you’ve heard “Catch A Wave” or seen them perform live together, you know that Joey Cool and JL have a great chemistry that stems from a long friendship.

He isn’t the only one, however.

With two appearances on Joey Cool’s debut album Ubiquitous of Ces Cru, is too a friend, collaborator, and supporter of Joey Cool.

Considering their history, we figured Ubi could provide insight into their two stellar collaborations “Stranger Things” and “One, Two” and give us some background on Strange Music’s newest emcee.

Being that you both are KC mainstays, what is your history with Joey? 

We crossed paths in the club back in the day. I think the first time is when he was in this group called Three The Hard Way with JL and Dutch Newman…like a long time ago. I don’t even know how long ago… like 10 years.

I did something for him for the first time on his project just before he was signed, on “Out There”.  Joey had been asking for the feature for like a hot minute and shit got to crackin’ through 2013 and 14 and I just back-burnered it over and over again, and he was like so cool about it…no pun intended. His patience was something that I wasn’t  seeing from really anybody else around me, and that’s what kind of made me take notice of him.

Then Godemis later suggested that we take him on tour, so we took him on the Recession Proof tour in 2015 and put him on the EP on “Off The Hook.”

 

Wrecked shop with these fine gentlemen in Madison last night! 💣 Might pop up on the #planettour 🌎 again… which city should I hit?? #strangerthings #ubiquity #swanky

A post shared by U b i (@therealubiquitous) on Apr 21, 2018 at 7:23pm PDT

What stands out about him as an MC?

He’s very distinct. He’s got a great voice, a great presence and stage confidence. I can remember one time, a long before anything popped off, I saw him rapping on the back porch at Riot Room. I think he was just doing like a guest verse or something, and he just really took command of that shit. It was a small room or whatever, but he absolutely captured energy of the party and took it up in his small time on stage and so I just I was like, “OK he’s got it.”

You were featured on the album twice, solo on “Stranger Things” and with the Ces feature on “One, Two” how did those two come about? 

Joey approached me pretty early on in his album process and we just communicated a good amount and he kicked me a couple of things.

I think maybe initially he was like doing something like, “Do you want to rap on this one or rap on that one?” And then I just kind of wrote them both very quickly. I think in maybe five days I had them done and recorded. I don’t know if that was more than he bargained for, but it just sort of happened.

In the case of  “One, Two,” when it came to me all it had was a chorus on it so I initially got the first crack at it and then Joey come after me and Godemis came after that. That got constructed piece by piece.

And I don’t mean like we were all in the same room doing that, I mean like days apart. It was an unexpected surprise; it turned into a Ces Cru feature.

“Stranger Things” came with everything. There was already a chorus and his verses, so he had really set the tone for that song with what he said and everything. So he did kind of already give direction for that song and I just followed suit.

As someone who knows Joey very well, What are your thoughts on the album as a whole?

I just listened to it just now from the back end without interruptions and it was dope man. I enjoyed it. It was a lot of my buddies on there.

I really like the song where his grandfather singing. That’s wonderful… I thought that was super tight.

I think that if you look at it like this was his first big record…like if his other records were auditions, this was like the actual show. He was ready on this one and it really shows. It’s well put together… it feels like an album.

It’s out everywhere!! Congrats brother @_joey_cool @applemusic @itunes @spotify

A post shared by CES CRU (@cescru) on May 4, 2018 at 5:56am PDT

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