For most teenagers, making friends is a difficult task; fourteen-year-old rapping sensation Jordan Newt doesn’t have this problem.
Although Jordan isn’t a household name (yet) the rapper has over 200,000 followers and friends on Twitters. It’s impressive numbers for a kid who just dropped his debut single, “Fresh Down 2 My Socks,” in April.
Now with the success of that song and its follow-up, the charming “iPhone,” the young Los Angeles-based rapper is building his brand.
About a week ago, Jordan came out to the New York City for the first time; he kept himself busy. He performed two shows, with one of those concerts being the “1 Act, Give Back, Feel Good” benefit, which was an event for Hurricane Sandy victims.
Jordan also stopped by the GlobalGrind offices, where we talked about his come up, his musical inspirations and how the ladies back home are treating him now that his fame is rising.
Check it out below!
GlobalGrind: I’m assuming you have a iPhone, right?
Jordan Newt: I do not. Long story, I’ll have one as soon as I get back to LA. I’ve been negotiating my deal for my iPhone for a long time now.
That’s a pretty cool song you have. It’s gotten a lot of love on YouTube. You couldn’t have thought it would hit 1 million views. How did that happen?
“Fresh Down To My Socks” was the first song that came out. That was on VEVO. It did alright, 167, 000 views. I mean, obviously, I was like ‘wow I never thought that would happen.’ The first time I actually watched my music, keeping track — I did a remix to Tyga’s “Rack City” called “Swag City,” and I was like ‘alright it got like 5,000 views.’ It kept going up. Then “Fresh Down To My Socks” came out and it seems like when you put out a video it gives views to all your other videos, because when they watch one then they want to go watch another.
Right now I think “Swag City” is at 40,000, or something right now. So I was like ‘alright that’s pretty good.’ It jumped from 20,000 to 180,000 and I was like ‘alright, I’ll put out another one.’ Then I put out “iPhone.” We did a big video, we put a lot of effort into it, and I was like ‘who knows, maybe we’ll get 200,000, maybe we’ll get 300,000’ and then it happened. It happened so fast. I was like ‘wow!’
And you also got a ton of followers on Twitter from that, right?
Yeah, so it was like as my views went up, my followers on Twitter would go up.
So how did this start? Did you go ‘dad, I want to be a rapper?’
I’ve always been into music and dancing. I went to a performing arts school. They weren’t really rappers. A lot of kids were singers, and I don’t sing, not at all. It just doesn’t work. But my dad, Bob Newt, he was in a group when he was younger in the Bay Area called the Neutrons, with his brother Jay Valentine, who was a singer also. So a lot of people in my family sing but that didn’t work out for me.
When I was in the 8th grade, I was in the studio one day with my dad and my uncle. I use to just hang out, play basketball. It would be big people there like Chris Brown, Bow Wow, Omarion — whoever you could think of would be there. It was never like ‘I want to do music.’ I would just be there chilling. So then one day they looked like they were having so much fun. They were doing music, and I was like ‘maybe we should try it.’ I knew singing was not going to be it; there was just no hope in that. So I was like maybe I should try rapping.
What made you incorporate dancing with your rapping?
Well, it’s just something I do and something I enjoy doing, so I just incorporated it in my shows. I personally like seeing shows were people are dancing. It’s more fun. I do flips. I dance. It’s much more than just rapping.
Are you the cool kid in high school?
I guess you could say that. It was funny, last year my friends were like ‘when you’re a senior you’re not going to have any friends.’ I was like ‘what are you talking about?’ They were like ‘you don’t hang out with any of us during school.’ I was always with the seniors, the juniors, because I know so many people from football, from basketball. At my school, it’s probably not good, but there’s cliques within the school, and I kind of migrate. I don’t hang out in one clique because I know everybody.
How do the girls in school treat you?
There are a lot of girls that seem to like me, I guess. It’s kind of cool, and it’s kind of so-so because I’m never really at school, so I don’t have time to see them or talk to them. On the weekends I’m doing shows. I meet girls at shows, and I’m like ‘she’s cute, she likes me,’ but I see her one time, and I don’t see her again.
So you’re too busy?
It’s not that. It’s that I’m not really too focused on a girlfriend, if that’s what you’re kind of getting too. I’m just more focused on working and playing sports, pretty much. I don’t have time. When I’m not doing sports or working, I’m doing homework or catching up on stuff.
How would you define ‘swagger?’
That’s funny, I was never a person to use the word, but a lot of my songs say it. I guess it’s kind of like… I personally take it as personal style. I think everyone has their own personal swagger. There’s no such thing as ‘this is swag.’ It’s whatever you think is swagger, whatever you like, rather than what other people think. Pretty much being yourself, doing you and dressing how you feel.
Where do you see yourself next year?
I see myself on tours, if not my own tour, doing TV work, maybe even a movie, if life goes great, and God wants to bless me.
