Coming from Pittsburg, is the Hip-Hop rapper, singer, and songwriter Arian Jones who began his music career in 2010 when joining the group Heroes & Terrorists. Since then, Arian Jones has signed with Tribe Eternal Music Group and has been featured on countless records before coming out with his debut album ‘Enter The Mind’ in 2017. Back at it again, Arian Jones is here with a brand new single “Pound 4 Pound” and we are loving every second of it.
“Pound 4 Pound” opens up with an almost surfy lo-fi guitar that takes us to the beach before seamlessly transitioning to a hard-hitting verse that is full of deep 808 kick drums and an awe-inspiring performance from Arian Jones that is perfectly in your face. The production here really shows how far Arian Jones has come since starting out, there’s a level of polish present to each element that shows how much care went into making the whole record come together as one. We can tell that Arian Jones has been waiting for “Pound 4 Pound” to come out, with the lyrics “I’ve been writing for some years, give it some blood sweat and tears”, we felt the honesty in every one of Arian Jones’ lyrics. We are completely thrilled about “Pound 4 Pound” and cannot wait to hear what is coming next from Arian Jones.
Listen to “Pound 4 Pound” here.
Hey there Arian Jones! Welcome to BuzzMusic! We’re loving the vibes you created in “Pound 4 Pound”! How long have you been waiting to finally put this song out to the world? We definitely felt the honesty in your lyrics, what do they mean to you?
Hey guys, glad to be back on Buzzmusic shout out to Victoria!! The quick answer not that long, Dende and I finished the record literally start to finish in about 30 hours, I sent him the record late on February 26th and the record was done early on the 28th and mixed and mastered by March 1st so we waited for about 2 months. The goal was to put the record out around Cinco de Mayo so that everyone can just play it driving down the coast to the beach or just music to cruise to or just play it while the sun is out.
The lyrics were honest, I hate speaking for others but every word Dende said he felt, meant, and were true. For example one of the first lines is about hopping off an album and how he might do one more mixtape. He literally just finished and released an AMAZING album called Me (check it out because it is incredible) and went right back in the studio to work with me and is working on another project. Same goes for my verse it’s literally my artist story in audio format.
As artists when you’re serious about your craft especially first starting out you do feel like “why don’t the people around me support? When is it finally going to be my chance/time? Or what more do I have to do to get the credit I deserve?”.
Pound 4 Pound is all about flexing our skills and letting everybody know that we are greats, it’s finally our time and we can’t be stopped now. (The price has gone up baby haha)
The same people who wouldn’t come to a show, share a post, or buy a song a few years ago are now showing crazy love so that’s what it means.
I really want to highlight another line really quickly in my verse I say “All the great ones will work together we’re the best of the bunch”, I’m huge on showing love and Pound 4 Pound was a joint effort from greats all in different places. I’m in Los Angeles, Dende is in Houston, Kiyoto (producer) is in South Korea, and DJ Cashtro (engineer) is in Miami and we knocked out a great record so shoutout to them!
There is an incredibly polished feeling to this track, what was the process like for coming up with this song? Did you come up with that guitar line first? Or did that guitar line come after you wrote the lyrics?
So long story haha I randomly was on Instagram just looking for people to potentially work with in March of 2019 and found Dende and sent the DM like let’s work. We never ended up working (all my fault) but randomly like 9 months later It just hit my brain like “Arian you never sent Dende a song”.
So I hit him up and was like I’m about to send a beat pack to you and the first beat was Pound 4 Pound and was also the first beat I purchased because I just knew this was the record we’d do. Big shoutout to Kiyoto he put that guitar in right before sending it which changed the whole vibe of the record.
Since joining the group Heroes & Terrorists, how do you feel you have changed and grown as an artist since that time? What artistic direction do you see yourself leaning in for future releases?
This is a great question; I think my work ethic and my execution has grown. I have always had a ton of ideas and concepts over the years and some I just didn’t act on fast enough or in a way was persuaded not to do them. The difference is now I do what I want when I want haha, I write at least a full song every single day and reach out to my friends and make new friends with the same type mindset to work with like Dende for example.
To that point, artistically I am going to be a little all over the place haha, I always call myself Mr. All Arounder, because I have a project I’m planning on releasing that’s all House music, then I have a project that’s more current “ratchet”, another Boom Bap bar heavy Hip Hop project, and Pharaoh Lum (my labelmate) has been trying to get me to do like an R&B project. As an artist I truly believe that I shouldn’t be put in a box of any sort and I could keep up the Arian quality and content in any genre. Who knows post-COVID I may go do a K-pop record haha.
Your vocals in “Pound 4 Pound” are perfectly in your face and sit on top of the instruments, was this done during the recording or did it come during the mix? Was this vocal style a goal you wanted to achieve when the song was beginning to be written?
Honestly, it’s a little bit of both, Dende starts the record off and he has pretty much mastered vocal delivery as have I, so in my opinion the raw vocals sounded amazing as is. I must shoutout my engineer again Dj Cashtro though because when he mixes, it comes out sounding like Gold haha. When he sent me the mix back, I almost threw my phone from how great it sounded, and when I sent it to Dende he was pumped.
From a vocal style prospective it just conceptually made since for Dende to crush it the way he did and for me to balance out the energy and carry off the rest of the record!
What else can we expect from you in 2020?
For me I’m almost finished with Arians in the House (House music) EP, I have a mixtape Too Bamboozled (Bamboozled 2) coming out later this year, as well as 2 secret projects I can’t talk about, is coming out at the tail end of the year. My focus is on creating music all year especially since most of us are in the house.
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