“Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds you down or polishes you up, depends upon what you’re made of.” -Jody Banks
She’s talented, sexy, and edgy. Her sophistication can be better glimpsed in the way she handles business than the way she walks out onto a stage. Yet, when she grabs the mic, restless crowds immediately erupt with cheer. She is no other than Inrage’s latest sensation, Jody Banks---a rap superstar in the making.
"Whoever says it never rains or snows in California had never come near the places where I grew up,” hinted Banks, who admits that her life has been no crystal stair. Nevertheless, this Oakland born emcee is finding her way to the top. Driven by purpose, and riding on melodic beats and dope lyrics, this West Coast Bombshell is making a living out of defying the odds.
“I don’t do what I do to satisfy others expectations,” Jody explains, in the calmest of tones. “I am devoted to the music because I find purpose in it."
After spending some time conversing with the rap industry’s newest highlife entertainer, I sense that her elevation into the limelight can’t be tagged solely to ‘talent meets opportunity.’ Instead, I get the oddest feeling that it is her courage and her keen ability- to keep the intangible things of life in prospective- that is guiding her towards success.
"I rap about my life, which is about more than money, clothes, and hoods,” says Banks, who works to unwind in her LA home, after a long day of promoting her debut album, “Private Dancer.” With her young son not but ten feet away and an album release date seemingly closer, I immediately began to thank the heavens that my interview had no chance of being predictable, since Jody isn’t the typical rap star.
The Difference Maker
Unlike most of today’s emcees, at least the ones that have grab hold of the national spotlight, Ms.Banks hasn’t shown the desire to make the glamorizing of money, expensive clothes, and sex, her signature mark. Neither has she decided to run head first in the opposite direction in order to pound conspiracy theories into the heads of her listeners. Instead, Jody has seemingly made a conscious effort not to limit her audience to asymmetrical view point, but rather give them a balanced and broader perspective of who she is, day in and day out.
The Emcee (MC)
Whether thugged out or reflecting her more feminine side, Jody's lyrics are born certified. As like many rappers that flash in front of our TV screens, she, too, was raised on one of crime’s most vicious corners. However, unlike those entertainers, who share a similar background story, has chosen not to boast her hood for street credibility. She has rather disallowed any one part of her life to become her only lyric.
“No one wants to be depressed,” Jody laughs, as she describes how rap has always been her emotional outlet. Giving the people just one side of me is robbing them, and I’m no thief, she indicates, as a reasonable explanation for why several of her album’s tracks elude the street hustler’s theme and mirror a tender and sexier side of herself. “I want everything I write and perform to be emotional because my life is emotional,” she explains. “Where I am has come from blood, sweat, and tears. Where I’m going, I suspect will demand even more. If that’s not some emotional shit, I don’t know what is."
Raised with Hard Knocks
Jody was born to a partially deaf mother and domineering father that, with each drink, further pushed her mother out their apartment and into a destitute community. On and off throughout the years, her mother came and went, nurturing her the best way she knew how. They often hit the neighborhood streets to panhandle for spare change to purchase the basic necessities that they were lacking; whether it be food or clothes.
“We first lived in East Oakland’s Valencia Gardens,” Jody explained. “Then we moved to a project complex in LA,” both neighborhoods being notorious for their drugs and a high crime rate. “We didn’t have many material things, but me and my mom had each other.” Jody paused before saying another word, as if to dismiss any sentimental images that came to her mind. It was then that I realized that her current perspective of life isn’t based primarily on her current experiences. Instead, I suspect that they are founded mostly on the tragedies in her past that she had witnessed and survived.
JB: I had cousins that gangbanged. So growing up, I wasn’t unfamiliar to death. But when the streets took my mom, there was a moment, when I thought I would never recover.
The LOOK OUT
Living in a dungeon of danger, being forced to see those you love dying around you, would have been enough reason for many to settle in on the bottom and make a bed out of excuses. However, Jody rather searched for a way up.
"Finding out that my mother had been brutally beaten to death was the bottom for me,” she expressed, before painting a vivid picture of the Italian beauty that gave her life. She was a good mother that was scared of living for way too long, Jody insinuated, as the sound of her voice began to rattle with emotions.
My mom lived on the street of LA for ten years; homeless,” says Banks. “She was deaf, but somehow forced to hear the madness of the world. She didn’t deserve what happened to her. No one deserves that.”
"When I got into in the music, my sole purpose was to use it to finance a safety net to rescue my mom. In my early in my teens, I wrote rhymes in hopes to earn enough money to find her.
Banks who, at 18 years young signed a lucrative publishing deal alongside her brother with Sony Records, had figured that rap would save the day. “After signing the contract, I had all this money and the plan was to go with my brother and search Downtown LA until we found our mom," Jody explained.
LD: And did you two find her
JB: What we found is that our mother had died three years earlier, at the hands of some murderer who had no appreciation for her life.
LD: Was the murderer ever brought to justice?
JB: No one was ever booked for the crime
LD: And how does that make you feel?
JB: I try to focus more on overcoming the tragedy, instead of living in it.
Reincarnation
“Music gave me my life back,” says Banks, who considered her new record label, Inrage Entertainment, steer-headed by producer, Bruce “Automatic” Vandeerveer, her extended family. “They really helped me get back to me,” she says. Jody then took a moment to elaborate---describing how Automatic had granted her the freedom to heal herself, by not governing her tracks. Seems he allowed Jody to release her every emotion through her lyrics, until her pain had lost its weight.
JB: At first, all I wrote was painful music. Everything was about the anguish and struggle. But now, I think I’m at a point in my life where I can infuse some of that pain that I overcame into my songs, along with tracks that makes me feel good. Cause, again, no one wants to be depressed.
LD: With the rap game being practically dominated by males, do you feel as if the rap world is fully accepting of women in the rap game right now?
JB: I think right now, everyone is at a point where they just want good music, regardless of who’s putting it out. Being that the rap game isn’t fully set on conscious or gangsta rap right now, I think people are just into what makes them feel good. I doubt if they care if it’s a male or female that bringing them the feeling.
LD: And what rappers do you put high on your list?
JB: Tupac and Nas. For me, some of Nas’ earlier work, lyrically, is just amazing. And as for Tupac, I don’t care if he’s talking about His Momma or whatever, the man was just emotional. And I like that."
Jody goes on to talk more about rappers of the past and present, but not excluding herself, of course. “Music has assisted me to this place in life, where I can once again concentrate on the things that matter.” She smiles, glancing at her child. I sense she has found her peace there--- in between motherhood and lyrical artistry. Everything happens for a reason,” she proclaims. "I’m better now lyrically and as a person, because of all I’ve been through.”
The Future
LD: So what's next for Jody Banks?
JB: Well, there is the push for the Jody Etzler foundation, which is my foundation. It’s organized to assist the homeless, as well as battered women and children, to find a safe haven.
JB: Yes! One is an independent movie called, “The Third Generation Gangsta,” which is real hot. The other is actually a Western called, “Jessie’s Girl,” where I star alongside Jon Voight.
LD: Wow! Jon Voight, the academy nominated actor. Are you the slightest bit nervous about sharing the big screen with Angelina Jolie’s father; a veteran actor with more than fifty films under his belt?
JB: I’m more nervous about this LA city girl learning how to ride a horse.
LD: Well, like most everything in your life, I doubt you will let this fear stop you.
JB: How right you are.
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