Article originally written in 2022.¹

It was December 2020 and Jab had made his first major concert appearance as a supporting act. We were backstage while running off adrenaline to the muffled sound of the concert continuing when Jab told me that this would only be part of the beginning for him. The feeling of clarity that follows performing a set is something I experience with everyone I perform alongside but I remember the moment for the raw passion that made everything Jab told me about what he planned to achieve in his career wholeheartedly believable.

Over a year has passed and things are different for Jab as he prepares for the release of his third extended play, Real Shit. He has continued working towards those aspirations he told me about and made an important progression with the release of his debut studio album in August 2021. Titled Different, it was named for a feeling he has experienced throughout his entire life.

“Being dyslexic all my life, I’ve felt different,” says Jab. “I’ve always been behind other students in class. I’ve always been pulled out of class. I’ve always been that student that needed extra help.”

“That obviously makes you feel different – hence the title Different.”

Jab – his initials, Joshua Anton Barone – is a representation of duality. His studies floundered as a child but he is pursuing an education degree. He lives with dyslexia but writes music. The only issue of combination he finds difficult, however, is potentially being a teacher who raps.

“That doesn’t really look good going into a job interview and they’re like, ‘Oh, we found your Facebook and your Instagram. You rap? We can’t hire you.’ Because it’s rapping, there’s a stereotype to it.”

Jab had already committed to his university path before he even knew that he could write lyrics. Introduced to the genre by friends, he immediately developed a love for Australian hip hop and the connection Jab felt to rappers who were using the same slang as him motivated his own involvement. He joined friends in freestyle rap sessions before making the transition to writing his own material. “I decided to put on a beat and started writing to it and I just kept going with it,” says Jab. After only a month of writing, Jab debuted his first release Hell and Back.

The five-track extended play was released on 6 October 2019. The process of its creation was a natural adjustment for Jab and required little thought. “A lot of it doesn’t really make sense if you listen back to it,” explains Jab who attributes his lack of experience for the sporadic range of subject matter contained in each verse. “Obviously because I was writing for a month. That was it.”

Jab’s sudden and unexpected emergence as a rapper came as a surprise to his parents. “When I started, they were like, ‘What the fuck? Is our kid cooked?’,” laughs Jab. His private Instagram account was made public and converted to his stage name to mark the beginning of his music career. An audience of those who already knew Jab became the first to hear his music and pass on words of encouragement to help build the early foundations of his artistic pursuit.

That pursuit was something that found its formation during Jab’s childhood years. Temporary desires of other careers were put aside but one particular aspiration lasted through some modification. “I’ve always dreamed of being like an artist but I couldn’t sing”, says Jab. “I’ve always wanted to be an artist deep down.” The dreams from his childhood were of him being on stage in front of a crowd despite not knowing of any reason for him make it there; aspirations of youth fuelled by no particular cause other than pure intuition.

Jab’s natural adaption to rapping was what took him to the stage for the first time. The scene was an open mic event at Little Red Door and the time was the month after the release of Hell and Back. “I was nervous obviously [with the] first time performing but it was such a rush of energy,” reflects Jab. “I just sent it and did it.” He honed his craft at other open mic events with crowds sometimes entirely consisting of other artists waiting for their turn to perform. Those minor opportunities to gain stage experience and exhibit his music were enhanced by contacts with show promoters who recognised the unbridled potential emerging from the small stages of Adelaide bars.

Jab returned to the studio with his efforts recognised and focused his attention on crafting his second extended play. “I wanted it to be like me opening the door for everyone and being like, ‘Look, this is my real shit’”, states Jab. Released in July 2020, Who’s This Emcee? sees Jab emerging into a full stride from the first steps of his debut and rising as an artist with potency. His voice is assured while dealing with song concepts that are now fully realised. The title track “Who’s This Emcee?” is a brazen introduction to himself and his career intentions. The socially conscious “2020” is a commentary on police brutality and racial tensions arising from the death of George Floyd. It is on “Dyslexic Kid” that shows Jab at his most vulnerable and exhibiting a part of him that only a few close people knew previously.

“It was the quickest I wrote because it was just something that was always on my mind,” reflects Jab on the song. “Like deep down, I’ve had struggles with dyslexia.”

Jab was aged 9 when teachers recognised a potential problem with his writing and informed his parents that he would require a test to see if he had dyslexia. His first test confirmed the suspicions; a second test at age 11 proved it was not a passing issue. Another test the day before I spoke to Jab for this article conveyed that he still possesses the disorder.

“The way it affected my learning was pretty hard because I wasn’t at the same level as the students in my class,” he remembers of his primary school years. His dyslexia was coupled with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and had a major affect on his learning abilities. Finding it difficult to write, he became distractive to classmates while his attention wandered. Jab remembers the feeling of being taken away from his regular classes and being placed in an alternative setting for students with similar learning difficulties. “That sort of stuff happened everyday at school,” Jab states. “That’s why it’s such a deep thing for me.”

Jab recognises he has a blessing by being able to overcome his dyslexia and write music. “When the beat’s on and I’m writing, it feels like I have no dyslexia,” he explains. “When the beat’s off and I’m writing for an assignment or something, I got dyslexia.” Jab describes dyslexia as something he feels: reading words incorrectly, being unable to write properly and failing to sound words in his head. It extends to his speech as he can find himself without the ability to incorporate correct words or pronunciations.

Any hinderances of dyslexia manage to disappear when Jab plays an instrumental and is taken away to a place where his desires overpower difficulties. Quiet places work best for Jab when he writes so he believes his best lines have come to him when he is writing in his car. He leaves home and parks down the street to write as he finds that environment to be similar to “a little booth”. Despite feeling like his aural conversations with others can go off topic, Jab is able to structure his story with ease when writing. “I try to tell my past experiences while incorporating wordplay,” he describes. “It’s not like I have to go through a great process to get a song done. I can just do it.”

The release of Who’s This Emcee? marked a change for Jab. “When I released that EP, that’s when people started to realise,” he says. “When I posted it, I think people knew my potential after that. I was getting messages from people saying, ‘wow, man, you‘ve actually done something special here’.” Jab’s music was now creating an emotional impact with people telling him that songs like “Dyslexic Kid” had brought them to tears. “That shit buzzes me out when people say that stuff to me,” he admits.

Such is the adaptation that Jab has had to experience frequently throughout his career. With concert bookings scarce due to continuing venue restrictions, our show together in December 2020 was one of the few opportunities that Jab had to perform songs from Who’s This Emcee? to a live audience. There was no chance of continued appearances and showcasing the material from what had the potency to be his breakthrough EP. By the time he had secured his next concert support slot, Jab was already deep into the construction of his debut studio album.

I met with Jab at the studio in July 2021 to rehearse for his supporting appearance at The Album Launch event at The Gov. The rehearsal was our first time together since the December concert and he told me that he had a setlist composed of almost entirely new music. I remember the feeling of astonishment I had as I watched him practice “Daily Basis”, “Mum Made a Man” and “Different” with the energy and hunger derived from the desire to perform for thousands.

Jab was the opening act on the night of the concert. Equipped with the experience of only a few concert appearances and open mic ventures, he presented with incredible composure and won the crowd over from the outset. It happened to also be a family affair for Jab; his parents and cousins were there to support him. Despite any initial reservations, Jab felt like that performance was a moment of realisation for those who knew him from before he was rapping. “My dad said he teared up when I performed “Mum Made a Man”,” he admits.

Jab’s debut studio album, Different, was released on 27 August 2021. “Originally, my process with that album was – if it’s my debut album – it has to be great,” he remembers about the process of its construction. “I made sure that every single track had a meaning.” He raps about dedication on “Daily Basis”, love on “New Girl” featuring Nicole Seneca, and school experiences on “Different Class (Interlude)”. “Mum Made a Man” sees Jab venturing into EDM with his intention of shocking his listeners with a “banger” much to the approval of the song’s namesake (“She was like, ‘Yeah, mum did make a man’,” he laughs). Over the bass and piano instrumental of “Online”, he recounts the suicide of a cousin and how it affected other family members. “I wanted to use that song as a way to prove that suicide does not take away the pain,” Jab explains. “I didn’t want to be proving that I’m a good artist; I wanted to speak and prove that I had a story to tell.”

Jab desired to incorporate that personal feeling of being different into the structure of the album itself. From the song content to the vocal presentation to the instrumental, he desired for each song to sound unique. The album’s common theme is that it is contrasting while still presenting an overarching view of his personal experiences. “Initially, my thought process was word play and be different,” says Jab. “It came out better than I expected. if anything, it just fell into place how I pictured it.”

It is his self-belief and deep passion for music that enable Jab to naturally find progression throughout his career. Jab is 21-years-old and nearing the end of his university degree with only a final year left until he is fully qualified as a physical education teacher but his ambitions all lie with music for now. He is motivated by achieving financial security through his music so he remains investing in studio time, instrumentals, music videos and artwork using his own money until he reaches that point. Jab tells me that he has already achieved one dream of his: the one that developed in his childhood that has persisted for many years.

“After that gig at The Gov with you, that’s when I realised: shit, maybe that’s what I’ve been dreaming my whole life,” he says. “I had people who knew the lyrics in front of me. It felt like I was an artist. It felt like watching a video of an artist performing but I was the artist.”

The artist who has accomplished so much but has the commitment for everything else left to achieve. I remember how Jab told me about what he envisioned for himself when we were backstage after our first show together. That same passion will be sounded on songs, stages and wherever else Jab envisions himself being. Nobody should expect anything different.

1. Published on my personal website, callumhaslam.com, on 10 March 2022. This interview was done in the lead-up to the release of Jab’s debut studio album, Different. ↩︎