Jordan Hollywood sat down with us at Capitol Records to talk music, influences, QC and new music video “EXPLOSION.”
After working on NOTHING, but music during the entirety of his childhood, Jordan Hollywood was discovered by Jason Derulo’s manager who helped kickstart his career. Jason Derulo took Jordan under his wing, had him help on every aspect of an album and introduced him to a whole new world in LA. After getting his foot in the door and working as a songwriter, Jordan shifted focus back to his own music. Today Jordan is signed to Quality Control, recently released a hit single with Lil Baby, and just dropped a new music video last weekend. Checkout what Jordan had to say about his musical beginnings and his latest music video for “EXPLOSION.”
The Knockturnal: Can you start off by telling us about your relationship with Jason Derulo and how that helped kickstart your career?
Jordan Hollywood: Think it was the end of 2015, he had come to my studio and I played him a bunch of my music and he was like, yo you’re one of the best songwriters I’ve ever heard. He was like I’m working on an album I want you to come through to LA and work on the album with me. Probably a week after that I flew to LA and was living out of his house for a whole year. We were working out of Encore studio in LA and every song he was working on, he just let me be there and just be part of it. Even songs I wasn’t writing on he would let me help vocal produce and just be part of everything. I learned a lot from him. He’s one of the biggest artists in the world so just being around him I met so many producers and so many writers and I started writing for other people because of Jason.
The Knockturnal: How did Jason make his way to your studio?
Jordan Hollywood: We had the same manager at the time, Frank Harris.
The Knockturnal: How do you think he has helped mold your sound?
Jordan Hollywood: It’s crazy because writing with him – you know he has a high falsetto voice, he sings- so writing with him I found my singing voice. After that year of just songwriting I came back to Florida and that’s when I did my album “Sorry For This” and it was very singy on that album.
The Knockturnal: Can you talk about your love for extreme visuals?
Jordan Hollywood: When I was 17 or 18 I put a tweet out, “I need a cameraman” – so I met Christian Breslauer- when I met him he had a little shitty camera, he didn’t really have nothing. It was always his dream to do videos as well, but he never had nobody to chase it with so we just started shooting and once I seen that he really could do it, I went and took $1200 and bought him a better camera and we just started grinding. “Trill Shit” was probably the first video where that extreme / cinematic movie type of vibe, and once I nailed that one I knew this was the style, this is what I wanna do so I’m always chasing that and I’m just tryna chase the craziest ideas possible.
The Knockturnal: Can you talk about some of your favorite collaborations old and new?
Jordan Hollywood: Man I really love this Lil Baby song that I got out now, it’s crazy cause like I met Lil Baby when he had only one song out and probably even before he put out his first song, so I literally sat there and watched him blow up. I like making music with my people SkipOnDaBeat and Smash [David], anytime we get in the studio they inspire me to push myself harder, that’s why I work with them a lot.
The Knockturnal: How did you and Lil Baby meet?
Jordan Hollywood: From being signed to QC and hanging at the studio at QC. Coach K and Pee pulled up and was like we’re about to blow him up- when they say that you don’t take it lightly, so I already knew he was gonna blow up. That’s like my favorite collab.
The Knockturnal: Can you tell us about The Wasted Youth?
Jordan Hollywood: At first it was just a name for my fans, I needed a little collective, a little movement. The name stuck, everyone loved it. I developed it myself. I’ve been doing this for 10 years, I’ve caught a lot of roadblocks in my career, I’ve taken a lot of Ls, been in a lot of fuke up situations and I just knew that when I finally hit that point and put out that project “Sorry For This” and I started catching real traction, I felt like I found my blueprint – there are no cheat codes and everyone’s has a different way of making it, but I felt like I could really start helping people now. I signed an artist and ended up getting him a deal and then I have another artist named IV, she’s incredible, we’re about to do a deal with her and SkipOnDaBeat, which is the producer under The Wasted Youth.
The Knockturnal: Can you talk about your introduction to QC and relationship with them?
Jordan Hollywood: We were catching crazy buzz, so it all started with the songwriting, I’m writing with a lot of labels and I’m dealing with A&Rs all the time and I wasn’t even trying to push my artist side on them, I was like ok I’m writing and producing, but when I dropped the project, all these same people who were calling me for records were now like, wow are you signed? We started taking meetings and at the time I didn’t have management or nothing do I’m pulling up to buildings and sittings at tables across from A&Rs and these executives, no managers, no nothing and I wasn’t feeling the vibe. I felt like I was in a principal’s office so after the 4th meeting, me and my people were like we need some real hustlers. If we’re gonna partner up with somebody we need management first. We did our research and QC was the perfect place. I knew there had to be someone who could get us to QC, so I started calling everybody and it’s crazy because there’s five people that could have got us to QC that didn’t want to bring us, it was that one person, shout out to Black O because he made that happened. I was signed to Solid Foundation first which is the management and in January I signed to QC Capitol Records.
The Knockturnal: What made you want to take that next step?
Jordan Hollywood: It was a whole different wave – Coach K and Pee were like ok go shoot some more videos, that’s when I did the “Leave Me” video, I did the “Cash Out” video, I did a video for explosion that’s about to come out. I did an “X-Files” video and literally they gave me a little bit of money – they were like how much money you need and I gave the smallest amount and they were like there’s no way. I took that shit and within 3 weeks gave them back 5 videos and they started showing people those videos and the whole industry really started going crazy and they were like do you want to start taking meetings at other labels and I was like nah, I want to sign with QC. Those guys are my role models, I don’t idolize rappers anymore, I idolize the business people like Coach K and Pee.
The Knockturnal: Can you talk about making the song and video for “LET ME FIND OUT”?
Jordan Hollywood: The way I record music, sometimes I just go in the booth and mumble melodies and sometimes it’s half words- I don’t really like to spend my time finishing records unless I really know it’s the one and I had this mumble idea and I was in the car with Pee and I played it for him and he heard it and was like finish that and send that to Coach. I never sent it to Coach because it wasn’t done and I wasn’t crazy about the record, so I went home and finished it and once I finished it I was like oh shit this is something- probably a month later he was like you wanna put somebody on it and I was like yeah, but we couldn’t figure out who because we didn’t want to put anyone that was too big on it at the time. When we put Lil Baby on it it was before the Drake record. I was like yo, let’s put Lil Baby on it and we all agreed it was the perfect person.
The Knockturnal: Can you talk about the creative process for the video?
Jordan Hollywood: The director and I were sitting and thinking of ideas and in the song I say “all of my cups double or nothing like we gambling” so when I said that line I thought of a casino and then I thought of putting it in a place where you’d least expect it and I was like we have to do the casino because Lil Baby and Pee and all of them love to gamble. In the video that’s not prop money, they were really gambling. I just knew if we did gambling, everyone was gonna come and stay and have fun. Usually when you doing a feature with somebody they show up, do their part and wanna leave. Lil Baby was only supposed to be there for 2 hours and ended up staying for 5 hours. The metaphor for me was like you can’t hang with us – you’re over here trying to sell your jewelry to come gamble with us and it was just a vibe.
The Knockturnal: Can you talk about the “FINALLY” video?
Jordan Hollywood: The Finally video- that video means a lot to me. It’s a metaphor for all the shit I’ve been through like storms and hitting rock bottom. If you look at the very end, only half the room wakes up, the other half is still sleeping and it’s a metaphor that I got a lot of work to do before I show people who I really am. It was the first time I had my hair back and showed my face in my video. I’m real mysterious and let the music speak so it was cool.
The Knockturnal: You mentioned you had a video coming out for explosions, can you tell us more about it?
Jordan Hollywood: That one is crazy. We went on YouTube and typed in top 10 movie endings, there was one, it was probably like number 3, we saw it and wanted to recreate it. It’s a war movie, his grandpa was in the Vietnam war, but his grandpa had all the authentic helmets and equipment so in the video I’m on my real army boy shit.
The Knockturnal: Coming from Broward County, what were your thoughts on XXXtentacion’s posthumous release SKINS? Have you heard it? Did you like it?
Jordan Hollywood: Yeah, I thought it was great. One of my biggest fears is if I die- my music, who’s gonna- now I know because I told Skip and my friend Hakeem, if I die- these are my passwords, my hard drive is here and I want y’all to be in charge of the music. You could tell that XXX had a team of people who really knew him and knew what he wanted musically, they were trustworthy people who put out a quality project without him being here, which is incredible. It gave me goosebumps when I heard it cause I hope my team would be able to do the same for me. Whoever was in charge of that, I can only imagine it was tough to do.
The Knockturnal: Any last words for fans?
Jordan Hollywood: The Wasted Youth. That’s a lifestyle, what it means to me is – I’ve been grinding since I was 12, but I’ve been in the industry since I was 15, when I dropped out of school. I didn’t go to any parties, I worked in the studio all day. I wasted my youth chasing this and it paid off so don’t ever give up or stop believing in yourself.
