JarJarJr: Beats, Bars, and Ballincollig

JarJarJr is a producer and rapper from Ballincollig, Cork. 2024 was a milestone year for the young artist, as he released the album, Catch the Dusk, the first album of his which showcases his ability on the microphone. This year’s Cork Jazz Festival was also the first event where he would perform his new material.

It was a dreary and rainy day in Cork, but I made my way to Live at St. Lukes, to meet JarJarJr. The venue itself was a sight to behold, an old church which has been repurposed into a live music hall. It has retained many of the religious structure’s original features, like rows upon rows of wooden church pews that bask in the colourful light seeping through the stained glass windows.

Music echoed throughout the mostly empty venue while JarJarJr was on stage with his supporting band performing the mandatory soundchecks while venue staff were scuttling around to fulfil their duties.With sound checks done, I met with him to talk about his life, performing at the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival, his venture into the rap game, and collaborations with other up-and-coming Irish artists.

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Background

JarJarJr, real name Robert O’Halloran, grew up in the suburb of Ballincollig, Cork. Ballincollig was once a sleepy little village, but over time, it has slowly been absorbed into the expanding cityscape of Cork. When asked about the music he grew up listening to, he cites iconic hip hop albums like Dr. Dre’s 2001 (1999) and Kanye West’s The College Dropout (2004) as his first exposure to hip-hop and rap music.

Later, he started to follow beat makers and rappers that blew up during the Soundcloud Rap era. This inspired him to try his hand at producing. He matured as a producer and then gravitated towards artists like Madlib and Dj Premier, both of which are legendary producers in the hip-hop community.  Speaking about his growth as a producer, he said “I was trying to study all of the various producers  that were revered as the greatest, and then trying to pick bits and pieces from there. But it was definitely like J Dilla, Dj Premier, Madlib and Kanye West.”

JarJarJr’s first album, Fallen Angel (2018), was a homage to Madvillain, the legendary rap supergroup consisting of Madlib, who is renowned for his sample-heavy and jazz infused production, and MF Doom, the iconic masked rapper who is known for his intricate rhyme schemes and wordplay.

The album art of Fallen Angel features MF Doom lounging on top of an American nuclear warhead. Musically, the production bears the trademarks of Madlib’s production, like the jazz inspired beats with interspersed samples from Marvel Comic media.  JarJarJr cites artists like Tom Misch who inspired him to incorporate jazz into his sound, giving it a more sophisticated and refined sound.

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Catch the Dusk (2024)

His newest album, Catch the Dusk (2024), signals a completely new direction for the young artist. Before the release of his latest album, JarJaJr only released beats he had produced, so taking centre stage and rapping is a bold move.  When asked about this new direction, he said “I started rapping a long time ago, like possibly even before making beats. And I’ve been making beats for like, maybe 10 or 10 plus years. But I definitely was rapping maybe 10 years ago”

“But I was doing it like in my parents car, and it was in an American accent, and I was rapping about selling drugs and loads of other things that I wasn’t doing. Maybe in the last four or five years, I started rapping about my own genuine life and the things I go through, which is feeling sad and feeling happy and breaking up with people and getting with people and all these different things, falling in love.”

He revealed that Catch the Dusk has been years in the making, taking form once he left home and had time to himself. Many of the songs on the album were written back in 2018 and 2019, being slowly recorded and mastered over the last five or six years.

After listening to Catch the Dusk, with regards to his rapping,  I was impressed by his cadence and delivery, which I believe has a universal appeal. His rhythm and bar delivery is smooth and blends seamlessly with his band’s jazzy rhythms. I asked about his rapping accent, he replied “I actually tried very hard to not rapping an American accent. So for me, it was like starting at this extremely American accent and then trying to, like, work my way back. For a while, I was doing a weird Dublin accent because that was what I was used to hearing.”

He continues “There were elements of a British accent in there. I think now it’s international. This is genuinely the way I think, like me speaking and me rapping is close, I can’t really get it any closer. I think I have an international muted cork accent.”

I asked JarJarJr how felt about performing his new material in front of a live audience. He revealed that this was his third Cork Jazz Festival, but this year was definitely different. “For a long time it was annoying,” he elaborated. “I kept doing these gigs, but I had no rap songs released. I would turn up to these events, and people would buy tickets to come and see me, maybe because they know me through Instagram or through doing gigs.”

“But it was very difficult to do those shows and not have any songs in the world because you’re like, rapping, everything is brand new to everyone all the time. It’s going to be nice tonight to finally have people that might have heard the songs before.”

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Collaborations With Other Irish Artists and Plans for the Future

That evening, JarJarJr was set to share the stage with Chris Wong, an Irish/Hong-Kongese singer-songwriter based in Dublin, who also featured on a track on Catch the Dusk.

When asked about his collaboration with Chris Wong, JarJarJr revealed that the two had been friends for a while, bonding over their shared experience of being able to record their albums thanks to a grant awarded to them by The Arts Council of Ireland.

They were both booked to play at a mutual friend’s birthday party, which had a “MTV Sweet 16” vibe. That evening, the two performed together, with Chris asking JarJarJr to help sing a chorus to a song. This chorus would later be recorded and would form the chorus of the track North Face Duffle Bag on Catch the Dusk.

I was curious about his thoughts on Bricknasty, the Ballymun-based neo-soul hip-hop fusion band which is making waves in the Irish music scene.  When asked if he would like to collaborate with the group, he stated “I would love to. I performed with them a couple of times. I performed with them at the first nasty sessions. So I did that with F3miii  and Tomike and a couple of other Irish artists, and it was amazing. And then I did a small thing with him at Electric Picnic, but I would love to make some genuine music with him, obviously.”

He added, “This has become my weird annual gig. I go to work at nine to five, five days a week. Then October comes and I do court jazz. And let’s see, maybe, hopefully, from now on, it might start the momentum needed to do this full time.”

While he didn’t plug any upcoming shows, he revealed that he is going through an Aphex Twin phase, saying “ I am planning on buying some gear to make weird Apex twin style music for a while. So, yeah, I’m just gonna mess around. I’m massively into listening to ambient music at the moment, like Brian Eno, Harold Budd, and Aphex Twin.”

Personally, I’m excited to see what the future holds in store for his career. In terms of his rapping, he has a sound and delivery that I think would appeal to audiences far beyond the shores of Ireland.

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