Jonwayne is an incredibly prolific up-and-coming producer and emcee from La… Read Full Bio ↴Jonwayne is an incredibly prolific up-and-coming producer and emcee from La Habra, California associated with the Low End Theory, the Wedidit Collective and Stones Throw Records.

Meet Jonwayne, a baby-faced white kid from the LA suburb of La Habra, who's been a fixture at Low End Theory long before he was old enough to drink. The 28 year-old rapper/producer got his start early, writing his first raps and recording his first beats while still in high school. Back then, he was a football-playing poetry-writing theater geek. The football part made sense; both his older brothers were varsity players, and their coaches knew him since he was a kid. But by the end of his sophomore year, the allure of jockstraps and pushups had waned, and Jonwayne (then still known as Jon Wayne) removed himself from the roster.

Fearful that they had a slacker son on their hands, his parents presented Jon with two options: find a job, or get some kind of productive hobby. The choice was easy—he got involved with the theater program at his school and attended the Young Artists Workshop, where he discovered a love of spoken word performance. Around the same time, he found his poetic muse; a girl he had a crush on was into poetry, and he wanted to impress her. "I was having all kinds of frustrating problems with raging hormones and trying to express myself. I was a mess," he says. "So [writing poetry] was really helpful. It wasn't necessarily a ruse—it just started as this half-assed thing and then it turned into something that I did really heavily for the next few years."

Writing turned to rapping at the age of 17, when a crew from West Covina at the Young Artists Workshop made an impression on him. Every day they'd bring over a workstation to make beats and Wayne would listen to them rap. "I was kinda tagging along, being the token white kid of the group, because, you know they needed one of those guys in there," he says, recalling how they'd encourage him to start rapping. "I started developing a style, but I wasn't comfortable recording it because they all had a certain aesthetic, and they pushed a certain vibe on everyone." After saving up enough cash to buy a cheap microphone, he left the group and started recording on his own. "I was kinda feeling like I was going somewhere else."

That somewhere else turned out to be Low End Theory, where he found a community of more like-minded artists such as dublab and Low End Theory-affiliated Kutmah. Wayne remembers the night they met very clearly: it was in early 2009, and the night's guests were Dibiase, Devonwho and Mono/Poly—a lineup that can easily draw a line stretching around the block in 2012, but which still allowed for some elbow room on the dance floor at the time. Dibia$e, Wayne's friend and mentor, encouraged him to bring a stack of CDs of his beats and hand them out to select tastemakers in the crowd—including Kutmah.

"Dibiase was like, 'You need to give him something.' So I did, even though I didn't know who he was at the time. He said he wanted to give me something too. He gave me this Sacred Geometry Mix and that was it! He was the first person to ever put me on." Kutmah was working at Poo-Bah Records at the time, and he started playing Wayne's CD there. DJ Nobody—Low End curator and fellow Poo-Bah employee—took notice and asked him for some more beats. After passing along his latest work, Nobody started playing them out during his sets. Soon after, Wayne booked his first Low End gig, becoming one of the youngest artists to grace its tiny stage.

"Elvin [DJ Nobody] had heard my music before, but it wasn't until he heard me rap for Dibia$e that he was like, 'Oh, OK—let's do this,'" he recalls. He invited Wayne over to his house to put together a set. Wayne brought over five CDs worth of material, and after spending a day sorting through the tracks, 30 beats made it onto his 404. "Elvin helped create it. He knew what would work there, so he picked out my set for me … you gotta be inducted into the family, and they took me in."

On the night of his Low End debut, it was pouring rain outside, and it was the first and last time he can remember ever being nervous before a show. "I had envisioned that night for a long time—it'll be packed, I'll subject these people to my shit for half-an-hour and it'll be dope. And then it started raining, and I was like, 'Ah, fuck. This is my one chance and it's not gonna go like I expected.' I didn't want to fuck up. Two hours before go time, I told Elvin, 'I don't think I can do this shit.' I thought it would be awful."

The rain had thinned out the crowd from its normal sweat-soaked, sardine-packed population of beat obsessives. But Wayne found himself rising to the challenge, transformed, swept away with his audience like the water guzzling through the venue's outside patio. "I can safely say it changed the course of my life. I think it was one of Elvin and Kevin's first experiences seeing the next generation—kids taking what they were doing and absorbing their aesthetic and building on it."

Wayne's second big break came shortly thereafter. Early one morning in May 2010, Kutmah woke up to the sound of police knocking at his door. He immediately knew what was going on; born and raised in Brighton, England and brought to Los Angeles at age 12, Kutmah lacked legal-residency status, and it was only a matter of time before someone noticed. Within minutes, he was handcuffed and detained by Department of Homeland Security authorities for failing to honor a voluntary deportation notice that he had signed over a decade earlier.

While he was locked up in a high security prison in New Mexico awaiting deportation, a furious local effort amassed to raise money for his mounting legal fees and raise awareness about the case. About two months in, as deportation loomed, Kutmah asked Wayne to host a benefit show produced by screen-printing collective Hit+Run. He had never performed at a Hit+Run event before—they didn't even really know who he was at the time—but they added him to the night's stacked lineup, which featured Stones Throw's giants like resident funkmaster Dam-Funk, smooth soul crooner Mayer Hawthorne and founding father Peanut Butter Wolf.

"For him to ask me to host, that was a big thing. For me to have the opportunity to share the stage with all these people that I admired and wanted to work with, that was great. I secretly think he knew that would be a great situation for me to be in."

During Dam-Funk's set, Wayne finally caught up with Stones Throw Records label head Wolf, a man he'd been chasing since the days of MySpace. "When I first started making music, the Stones Throw library—the funky, soulful aesthetic—was a very loud template for me," Wayne says. "My music was very derivative at first but then I started to find my voice and ended up going away from them and, in the process, attracted Stones Throw to me." He inked a three-album deal with the label this past January, shortly after his 21st birthday.

Before joining the Stones Throw family, Wayne already had a recording system nailed down: he used to drag a synthesizer, his 404 and some turntables into the bathroom and set up shop: the "synthesizer sits on top of pulled-out drawers, 404 goes on one side of the sink and a turntable goes on the other side." Any extra gear ended up on stacks of books. Wayne would sit in the bathroom composing tracks and beats, his eight-track resting on a trash can beside him, escaping to his bedroom when he needed inspiration for his rap lyrics. It was in the bathroom that he produced what later became his Alpha Pup debut, Bowser, a collection of sample-free beats blending the Warp Records' distinct brand of IDM with video game-influenced melodies. Deeper, darker instrumentals followed with his sophomore album The Death of Andrew, released on Alpha Pup late last year, along with several essential, self-released mixtapes.

The success of Bowser allowed Wayne to graduate from his commode. He now works out of the Stones Throw headquarters in Highland Park, in a studio he helped build with Peanut Butter Wolf and close friend/collaborator Jonti, a fellow Stones Throw signee. At last, Jonwayne finally ended up where he was always meant to be: right next to the ever-elusive, always-brilliant producer Madlib, on the roster of one of the most innovative hip-hop labels in the world.

"I had dreamed for years about coming here and meeting these people and seeing where it all started, [but] as a visitor... rather than a welcomed guest! It goes to show that if you want to grab someone's attention, you literally have to take them by the collar and be like, 'You're fucking listening to me now.' There's no other way."

Releases:
Jonwayne released his debut instrumental album Bowser on Alpha Pup Records on April 19, 2011, the mixtape How Stella Got Her Groove Back in July 2011, the compilation mixtape Thanks, Bro in August 2011, and the mixtape I Don't Care through Wedidit in September 2011. Jonwayne released his second proper album, The Death of Andrew, on October 25, 2011 on Alpha Pup Records. Shortly afterwards he signed to Stones Throw Records, on which he released the beat tape Oodles of Doodles in March 2012. Later that same month, he self-released a mixtape titled This Is False. He released a mixtape titled Jonwayne Fucks Disney on May 29, 2012. Most recently he released Casette (a limited edition 24-minute rap tape available only on casette) through Stones Throw on July 31, 2012.

dirty dan
Jonwayne Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

See I need no introduction
You know the name
Take ′em to the coroner to recognize game
The soul organic on a mechanized plane
Rockin' AutoTune flows with some Melodyne aid
I do it raw from the nerve, if I don′t get it in a single take
Then I don't deserve to say the words
And maybe that'll keep me hidden from the herd

But I′d rather hear my head than turn deaf to be heard
So fuck this pressure to be anything but real
Of course these synthetics are jealous of all this flesh-
-Bitch you guessed it, but you′re not asking any questions
Do I really have to text you so you listen to this message?
Get on my level, I'm not even skyscraping
I just think you could do better than wallowing in the basement
Yall ain′t rappers, you're player-haters and geishas
Divorced from the game, rebounding from the breakup

"Friends"
"That these are the people that we call"
"Friends"
"That these are the people that we call"

Gimme one damn good reason why I should fuck with you
As far as I′m concerned, my rhyme book is untouchable

"Friends"
"That these are the people that we call"

Gimme one damn good reason why I should fuck with you
As far as I'm concerned, my rhyme book is untouchable
It′s lonely at the top or the bottom
You feel godly too often
Seeing seasoned G's fall off the tree like autumn
Fake friends flake out, always saying they got 'em
You′re a threat and a ladder, so they stepping with caution
It′s easy to give up and just meddle with toxins
Always one drink away from being the savior of Gotham
Not the one that it needs, you just like holding the keys
This shit is hot, but it's cold in the breeze
Leaving scheming bitches flat, their heads start to crack
As the bodies start to stack up, oh, calling for backup? No
I fly solo in the dojo
That way, your boy never have to split the dough low
That way, your boy′s in Kokomo, slappin' ass in a kimono
They never said you had to be poor to be the truth

Friends
That these are the people that we call
That these are the people that we call
Friends

I′m living off the fat of the land
You're living off the fat of my lambs

I′m living off the fat of the land
You're living off the fat of my lambs
I'm kicking in my Fruit of the Looms
You′re kicking with your head in the sand
You know I got this mic in my hand, screamin′
I'm Dirty Dan
I′m Dirty Dan
I'm Dirty Dan
Bring her round here and we might dirty dance
Other suitors, not a chance
When I suit up and I put her in a trance
I′m in the pants like ants
Dip in a flash
Next glance I'm just tippin′ my glass
Next scene I'm just tippin' my hat
I′m busting my ass, all I ask
Is you perk your ears up, and give it a chance

Take it like The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Take it like The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Take it like The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
"When you people leave tonight, I′ll feel much better. No, I will, truly. I mean I like you to an extent, but I mean, I like you better when you're not here."

Overall Meaning

The first verse of Jonwayne's "Dirty Dan" is about the rapper's commitment to staying authentic in his music, even if it means rejecting popular trends. He opens with "See I need no introduction, You know the name," showing that he's confident in his own abilities as an artist. He then goes on to speak about his unique blend of organic and mechanized sounds, saying that he's "Rockin' AutoTune flows with some Melodyne aid." Despite his use of these modern production tools, Jonwayne asserts that he always tries to get his songs right in one take, saying "I do it raw from the nerve, if I don′t get it in a single take/Then I don't deserve to say the words."

In the second verse, Jonwayne takes on the topic of fake friends and the difficulty of maintaining real connections in the entertainment industry. He asserts that "It’s lonely at the top or the bottom," and that even "seasoned G's fall off the tree like autumn." He goes on to suggest that some people will pretend to be your friend just to get ahead, saying "You're a threat and a ladder, so they stepping with caution." Through it all, Jonwayne remains committed to his artistry and his status as "Dirty Dan," someone who is unapologetically himself.

Overall, "Dirty Dan" is a song about the pressure to conform and the importance of staying true to oneself. Jonwayne asserts his individuality in the face of industry trends and fake friends, urging his audience to "perk your ears up, and give it a chance."

Line by Line Meaning

See I need no introduction
I am confident in myself and my abilities, and do not require any formal introduction

You know the name
My reputation precedes me, and those who are familiar with me recognize my name

Take ′em to the coroner to recognize game
My skill and talent is undeniable and even those who are skeptical will eventually come to recognize it, just as a dead body must be examined by a coroner to confirm its death

The soul organic on a mechanized plane
My music comes from a place of authenticity despite using technology to produce it

Rockin' AutoTune flows with some Melodyne aid
While I use technology in my music production, I am still able to maintain artistic expression and individuality

I do it raw from the nerve, if I don′t get it in a single take
I prioritize authenticity in my music, aiming to record my verses in one take to capture my raw emotions

Then I don't deserve to say the words
If I'm not able to flawlessly perform the song, I do not believe I am worthy of producing it

And maybe that'll keep me hidden from the herd
By setting high standards for myself, I aim to differentiate myself from others who may prioritize quantity over quality

But I'd rather hear my head than turn deaf to be heard
I prioritize my own artistic vision and expression over catering to popular demand

So fuck this pressure to be anything but real
I resist the societal pressure to create inauthentic music in order to achieve fame or financial gain

Of course these synthetics are jealous of all this flesh-
Those who create inauthentic music are envious of my own creative expression and authenticity

-Bitch you guessed it, but you′re not asking any questions
Those who do not actively listen to my music or understand its meaning cannot accurately make assumptions about it

Do I really have to text you so you listen to this message?
I am frustrated with the lack of effort some individuals put into understanding my music and its meaning, as if they require direct communication to pay attention

Get on my level, I'm not even skyscraping
I do not believe that I am above anyone else, despite my talent and success

I just think you could do better than wallowing in the basement
I encourage others to strive for better and not settle for mediocrity

Yall ain′t rappers, you're player-haters and geishas
I criticize those who do not create authentic music but instead participate in negativity or superficiality

Divorced from the game, rebounding from the breakup
Those who are not genuinely engaged in the music industry are disconnected from its true essence and may struggle to find their place in it

"Friends" "That these are the people that we call" "Friends" "That these are the people that we call"
Referring to the chorus, the importance and meaning of true friendship and loyalty is emphasized

Gimme one damn good reason why I should fuck with you
I challenge those who are not genuinely interested in my music or in building an authentic relationship with me to provide a valid reason for me to consider engaging with them

As far as I′m concerned, my rhyme book is untouchable
I am confident in the quality and originality of my lyrics

It′s lonely at the top or the bottom
Success can be isolating regardless of whether one is at the top or the bottom of the industry hierarchy

You feel godly too often
Those who achieve success may develop an inflated sense of self-importance

Seeing seasoned G's fall off the tree like autumn
Even those who were once respected and established in the industry may lose relevance or fade away over time

Fake friends flake out, always saying they got 'em
People who claim to be friends may abandon or betray someone in a position of success or power

You're a threat and a ladder, so they stepping with caution
Those who are in a position of success may be seen as a threat by others and may also be used as a means for someone else to achieve their own success

It′s easy to give up and just meddle with toxins
When faced with setbacks or challenges, some may resort to negative or self-destructive behavior

Always one drink away from being the savior of Gotham
Some may seek temporary escape or relief from their problems through substance use, but ultimately it does not truly solve anything

Not the one that it needs, you just like holding the keys
Those who seek power or control may not be the most qualified or deserving individuals

This shit is hot, but it's cold in the breeze
Success may be fleeting and temporary, and it's important to recognize this and not become too attached to it

Leaving scheming bitches flat, their heads start to crack
Those who plot or scheme against someone may face consequences when their plans fail

As the bodies start to stack up, oh, calling for backup? No
Those who engage in deceitful or harmful behavior may find themselves alone when facing the consequences of their actions

I fly solo in the dojo
I am self-reliant and do not require assistance or validation from others

That way, your boy never have to split the dough low
By working alone, I do not have to divide profits or credit with others

That way, your boy′s in Kokomo, slappin' ass in a kimono
By working alone and being successful, I am able to enjoy the fruits of my labor and indulge in my personal pleasures

They never said you had to be poor to be the truth
Success and wealth do not necessarily detract from one's authenticity or talent

"When you people leave tonight, I′ll feel much better. No, I will, truly. I mean I like you to an extent, but I mean, I like you better when you're not here."
The quote at the end of the song suggests a desire for solitude or personal space, and that the artist may not value the company of others as highly as their own artistic vision and creative expression

Contributed by Addison L. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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