JLD

When you ask 32-year-old Justin Derington to cite some of his biggest musical influences, he’ll rattle off names like Tom Petty, Kurt Cobain, and Stevie Wonder. Those artists have inspired generations of musicians, of course, but when you consider that Derington is a hip-hop artist, who performs under the nom de rap JLD or Just a Little Different, they make an unlikely collection of inspirations.

“I don’t take as much influence from rap music, but somehow [when I write], it all comes back to hip-hop,” Derington said. “If I had to name a rap musician, I’d say Kanye West. He’s prolific, and he speaks from an emotional perspective, which you don’t hear a lot in rap music.”

JLD raps from a highly personal perspective, too. The streamlined, insanely catchy rhymes in songs like “Chevy (My First Car),” “It’s My Day Off,” and “Dance Floor Addict” chronicle Derington’s life growing up in the north-central Texas town of Hillsboro, where he hung out in white and African-American neighborhoods listening to the victories and defeats, the romances and heartbreaks of a working-class burg. Derington has carried a notebook around with him everywhere for as he long as he can remember, he said, jotting down quotes and scraps of observation.

“Hillsboro is a melting-pot kind of town, but it’s still pretty segregated,” he said. “After living there awhile, I learned how to mix with all different kinds of people. I knew professionals and drug dealers. That’s something I’ll always take with me.”

He recorded and released his first album in high school with a former Waco production trio known as Strange Fruit Project. In 2002 he moved to Fort Worth to look for a job, worked for Foot Locker for seven years, had a daughter with his girlfriend at the time, and then, feeling he needed to start taking his music more seriously, moved to Austin, where he was homeless for a long spell while still performing. (His daughter remained with his ex-girlfriend.) His brother Pete eventually returned from overseas military service and became his business manager. Eventually, Derington found some career traction –– he played an unsanctioned South by Southwest show with the popular Austin hip-hop collective The League of Extraordinary G’z. That’s where he was spotted by the Georgia rapper Rittz, who asked him to open for him on a national tour that included gigs in New York City, Chicago, and Detroit.

Derington returned to Fort Worth in 2013, where his daughter and many of his friends were. He stayed at other people’s places on the Near Southside and performed gigs at Lola’s Saloon with the backup trio of bassist Chris Evans (The Hanna Barbarians), drummer Mark McCreight (A Bird, A Sparrow), and multi-instrumentalist Bryce Braden, a childhood friend from Hillsboro. He was subsisting on a series of odd jobs in the Fort until the middle of last year, when he decided he needed a stable day job and a stable home while he wrote and performed. He now lives in Cleburne, where he works by day at a car dealership. He sees his daughter regularly when he comes back to Fort Worth.

“I was always dead set that I had to be a musician,” he said. “But then I turned 30 and thought, ‘I need to re-evaluate some things.’ I needed balance in my life, some stability.”

Though Derington now has a reliable paycheck and his own place, he’s far from abandoning music. On Thursday, March 19, he’ll play a 40-minute set in Austin with Braden, Evans, and McCreight as part of a sanctioned SXSW showcase. The upcoming gig is especially exciting for him, because he feel his live performances are stronger than they’ve ever been, with his new collaborators. He’s about to release a new EP, Fifty Shades of J, and support it with a small string of Southern dates. This summer he plans to record a full-length with his backup trio to be released in the fall. Derington chalks up a lot of his current momentum to working with his new bandmates, who are all rock- rather than rap-based. It all goes back to his life philosophy of mixing up styles, influences, and people.

“Hip-hop can be uncreative as a scene,” he lamented. “My relationships with Chris, Bryce, and Mark have opened doors for me I never could have opened [as a traditional rapper]. We’re looking forward to making a big impact in the next year.” l - Fort Worth Weekly

Thousands of music fans from around the world crowd Austin’s clubs and restaurants this week for the annual South by Southwest Music Festival.
It’s a chance for bands and musicians to show their talents to music industry representatives, which some hope will lead to the next rung up the career ladder, and for fans to soak up a lot of new music.
For two musicians with Waco connections, this week offers new opportunities to shine before the music conference formally closes Sunday.
Dallas hip-hop producer SymbolycOne (S1), known as Larry Griffin Jr. to Waco family, friends and fellow graduates of Robinson High School, has found his star ascending in recent years, working on beats for such superstars as Kanye West, Jay-Z, Eminem, Beyonce and 50 Cent.
He’s been tapped to coach Team Texas, the American team in the first SXSW International Beat Battle, which starts at 8 p.m. Thursday at Avenue on Congress, 408 Congress Ave.
Their opponent: Team Toronto, coached by Matthew “Boi1da” Samuels, who’s produced tracks for Drake, Nas and Eminem.
The competition was organized by Toronto’s The Beat Academy and Houston’s Space City Beat Battle and will pit eight producers on each team against each other throughout the night. As one would expect, there’s been days of trash-talking between S1 and Boi1da on their Twitter feeds.
JLD
Justin Derington, known as JLD, opened for the League of Extraordinary G’s, an Austin hip-hop group, on a wide-ranging tour.
This week also is a dream come true for Hillsboro native Justin Derington, who has progressed from a time four years ago when he was homeless in Austin, to a short SXSW showcase, working with Waco radio personality DJ Cyse.
Derington, 31, raps as JLD — “Just a Little Different” is how he tags it — although he was connected with South Mob when he was living in Hillsboro.
Derington says his involvement in rap and music started when he was a youngster. After seeing a short poem his mother wrote in the aftermath of a miscarriage, he started composing his own verses. His mom’s fondness for soul music produced a music-rich home environment for Justin and his younger brother Pete.
Derington turned to Waco when looking for an outlet to practice and perform his raps and music while a Hillsboro High School student, and he credits former Waco trio Strange Fruit Project — created and led by S1 Waco rapper Mony Mone, Direct Resonance Recording Studio engineer Steve Rosas and Hillsboro country musician Jerry Burkhart — for their help.
Rosas worked on Derington’s first CD, which the rapper recalls selling at Richland Mall. Graduating from high school in 2001, he started studies at Navarro College on a basketball scholarship, only to injure his knee. He moved to Fort Worth, where he got a job managing Footlocker stores in the city and its suburbs.
He and his girlfriend had a daughter, Ella Lo’ren, but a deep frustration with his work after seven years with Footlocker and his desire to do something with his musical talent led him to a drastic decision, breaking with his girlfriend four years ago to move to Austin and go all-in for music.
“When you’re an artist, it completely consumes you,” he said.
For six months, Derington lived out of his car, then slowly began to cobble together jobs and performing gigs. His brother Pete finished his military service and signed on to run the business side of Derington’s music career. A major break came when he was picked to open for Austin hip-hoppers League of Extraordinary G’s on a wide-ranging tour with stops in New York, Detroit and Chicago.
He performed last year at the One Spark Festival in Jacksonville, Fla., and has gigs scheduled next month in Nashville and Memphis, Tenn.
He sees his 6-year-old daughter twice a month and is proud to show her he is achieving success in pursuing his dream.
Is the pressure on for Friday’s showcase?
“I’m not nervous,” he said. “I’m really ready.” - Waco Tribune Herald