Ragz Sweet Jones (formerly known as Rapper Ragz) first come to my attention when Supar Novar produced his debut album. Since then I have saw how hard he has been grinding and now with the release of his new project I thought it was only right to get him up on the Hip-Hop Life And Times site!

Wassup Ragz, hope your good. For those that don’t know can you tell people what you’ve released and featured on since you’ve been creating music.

Yeah I’m good mayne. Basically I’ve got two projects that are available for free download online. The first is “no budget hip hop” produced by tony mahoney. The other is “music 4 miss peaches” produced by supar novar. I’m featured on songs with a bunch of other artists like novar, big ben, danny bones and dash gambino among others. “The zombie tape” came out recently and its all produced by tony.

Your first album was produced by Supar Novar. How did you hook with Novar and tell us about how that album was made.

Me and novar been friends since primary school. One of them ones where he knows my real name and all that lol. I think that project just came about after some drunk conversations or suttin. I’m not sure to be honest. At the time I’d only ever had one project out and he’d just started studying sound engineering so it was a good learning experience for both of us. I would just go there pick beats I liked and write to them. Other times I would take him songs I wanted him to sample and he would flip them for me. That project was a lot of fun still.

So are you a member of F.L.I.P then yeh?

Yeah yeah. Most of us grew up together innit, its not really a “put together” type group. We all good friends. I came up with some gang signals for it and all that lol. Its fly.

Okay so lets talk about your latest release ‘Zombies Cannot Live By Flesh Alone’ with Tony Mahoney. Tell us why the release has this title and the whole concept for the release.

Me and tony started working on an album “folk heroes of the have-nots” but a lot of the songs we were making had a different sort of vibe from what we’d previously recorded so I just came up with the zombie theme. At the time tony was fucking with a lot of horror film samples and what not so it just worked. I was living like a zombie at the time aswell to be honest. Like too much drugs and drink. Not sleeping enough not eating enough, just not taking very good care of myself in general. I wrote and recorded that shit in zombie mode still. In the bible it says “man cannot live by bread alone” meaning people have spiritual needs as well as material. Music is one of the ways I fulfill that need, so I look at this album like soul food for zombies like me lol!

For those that don’t know, tell us a little bit more about Tony Mahoney.

Tony is one of my favourate producers and a close friend of mine. My favourate person to work with still. He’s made beats for big ben, dash aswell as me. He produced an e.p. Called “revisited” with terawrizt from dublin. Tera is in a crew called class a’s and he done a lot of beats for their group projects. He recently made an e.p. For a rapper from florida called 24/7. He’s a dope battle rapper still. He battles on “grindtime” and all that. The e.p.s called “a room full of empty bottles” and its gettin bare love over there. You can find him if you check “tonymahoneybeats” on youtube he’s got beats for sale too 😉 

So who produced this project?

Tony innit. Co production from me here and there slyly tho!

The release is credited as being on ‘Music 4 Miss Peaches’. Is this your label and can you tell us who ‘Miss Peaches’ is (lol)?!

Not a label nah. One day hopefully. All my music is for miss peaches.

Out of the ten main tracks on the release what would you honestly say are the main stand out tracks?

I can tell you what my favourate track is at the moment. I’m feeling the “don’t try this at home” song at the moment. The “shark fin soup” track cracks me up everytime that shit makes me smile, did a uk overstood video for that still its gonna be out soon. But to be honest if you ask me tomorrow I might name some different shit coz each song was an experience in itself with memories attached to it and all that children of the corn type shit.

How long did the project take to make and what was it a stress free experience or was there any dramas along the way?

I think the project took about 2 months the momentum was good on this one. If we didn’t have lives beside music it wouldve been done in like a week. Tony been one of my closest friends for years and years and we have the same type of musical tastes especially when it comes to hip hop, so working together is pretty much effortless. Sometimes I give him samples I want him to flip but mostly he gives me the beats I pick what I like and he just leaves the rest to me. The only thing we ever disagree on is what song to put on what project and we both maaad subborn so boy lol! The only frustrating thing about it was the mixing. Our friend terawrizt he’s a full time genius. He mixed the whole project for us, but he lives in ireland so it was kinda long having to email back and forth for the little minor changes we wanted. Need to jump on the skype hype real quick bruv trust me!

So are you planning another solo album release soon or for next year?

Me and tony gonna put the “folk heroes” tape out asap we got like 10 songs done. I wanna do a follow up to the zombie ting and the miss peaches ting aswell. Gonna put out some accapellas for all the producers out there. But the shit I’m excited about right now is the k.I.n. Project. That’s dash gambino, big ben and me. The beats will be mostly my boy mk ultra and tony, with some random instrumentals thrown in there for the fuck of it. We got some bangers for that trust. You need to check out “sound of the city” on youtube that’s dashs channel he shoots and edits videos for a bunch of artists, so everyone out there that need videos done need to holla him still.

In the UK at the moment who do you think is killing it on the microphone at the moment?

To be honest I don’t listen to much hip hop. I mostly listen to beats I’m writing to and a whole bowl of weed smoking music. Outside my immediate camp I like m.c.5, ti2bs, terminator mc, shadrack and the mandem. I like peoples army still there’s a bunch of good mc’s there and I just like the way they organised and what they about. They a proper army too theres hundreds of them!

How serious is music to you and what do you have planned for next year?

I’m very passionate about my music. Its my therapy. I might of got sectioned or some shit by now if I didn’t have that creative release. For the future I just want to keep having fun making music. I definently wanna collaborate a lot more with other artists. I wanna experiment.

Can you give us all of your social networking sites/links please?

I’m on youtube, twitter, facebook all as “ragz sweet jones” just google me mayne!
 
Interview by Tricksta

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