(New Orleans, LA) After signing with Jive Records as a young kid, Jean Lephare has been around the block when it comes to the music game. But after living in New York and LA during his stint as a Jive Records recording artist, Jean decided to take his talents back home to New Orleans where he successfully formed the infamous MonstaBeatz production duo with his cousin.
The two would go on to produce for Curren$y, Wiz Khalifa, Lil Wayne to name a few and cemented themselves as some of New Orleans’ most accomplished producers. Now Jean Lephare is stepping out on his own again as an artist, offering fans his debut project Toast now available on iTunes.
“At that time we really just we really were just drinking champagne and smoking, just vibing and getting to know each other. It was cool at that time, you know during the How Fly mixtape days,” he said.
“Now I’m stepping out from the production side of things, even though we produced a few songs on the project,” Jean Lephare explained. “This project has elements of what fans may find familiar with my sound because we come from that and we helped build that, but at the same time its an R&B project too, so it has more melodic stuff and more singing. It still has the rapping but its relying more heavily on the melodies.”
Switching from production to rapping Jean Lephare is kicking things off with his song “Survival” produced by BlackTheBeast. The video is directed by Romano & Plex with the help of Jon Auguste and shows Jean Lephare in a natural setting exploring the Trinidad island.
“I got a Curren$y record thats really cool and ‘Drive Slow’ is one of my favorites. It was the bonus track on another project but I had to make it official and put it on my album. I gotta give it some justice,” Jean said.
“I was DJing this event and judging a showcase in Trinidad and I wanted to tap into their culture, they got a lot of talent over there. I was there for two weeks and I was just like let me shoot something. Its really natural, everything is real, not actors, interacting with the real people. It was the slums but they embraced you.”