Photos courtesy of Jay Storm
When Noisey first met nineteen-year-old producer Jay Storm, it was a rainy day in northeast Charlotte, NC. Storm was chilling with a couple friends at a recording studio, wearing a single gold chain and messing with his phone as other rappers and singers stepped in and out of the recording booth a room over. In a city not exactly known for producing successful hip-hop artists, Storm’s unexpected connections to some the biggest rappers in Chicago make him something of an island unto himself—even if he chooses not to flaunt it.
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A big reason for his subdued demeanor is that he’s still a relative novice to navigating the rap game. Jay Storm got his start in middle school on Fruity Loops 2 and 3m back when his older brothers were messing around with the programs. He pushed his early work through the old site Soundclick, and made what he jokingly described as “Crank that Soulja Boy-type beats.” At one point, he even sent Soulja Boy some of his work; he got back a request to send more beats, but that trail went cold after the initial reply. Storm was back to pushing beats online in hopes that some of that good fortune might help him get his beats to the right ears. His luck held out, and got him his first real connection with living Chicago legend, King Louie.
One day while sitting on Twitter, Jay Storm asked how he could send beats to King Louie; someone tweeted him an email address, and Storm sent over what he felt was his best work in hopes that Louie would hop on the tracks. That’s exactly what happened, and before the songs were out, Louie gave Storm a call to playback the finalized tracks he recorded. The highlight of that cluster was “Eastside Shit” featuring Lil Herb off Drilluminati 2, which triggered a number of rappers out of Chicago to come looking for beats from Storm, even though he hadn’t—and still hasn’t—made it out of Charlotte.
David Turner is repping Charlotte on Twitter.
