Joshua Gunn

here's a historical irony to Gunn's living situation: From the early 1940s to 1986, the downtown building in which Gunn currently lives was home to Baldwin's department store. At one time, it was the best place in town to find a nice bow tie and one of the last places you'd find a person of color. In the next few months, though, Gunn will debut his own line of bow ties. The neon bull in the Old Bull sign of American Tobacco Campus—once home to the biggest tobacco company in the world—snarls at the back face of the Baldwin's building from across the railroad tracks. Next Thursday, Gunn and Bull City Cigars will host a launch party to debut their collaboration on the rapper's The Smoking Gunn cigar collection. All of it strategically comes on the heels of the surprise release of Gunn's new LP, Rage to Survive.

On a humid Thursday evening, Gunn shows up at the front door of his building clad in a special Runaway-edition DURM Bulls baseball jersey, camouflage shorts, and a knee brace. He has a torn meniscus from chasing his pet bulldog down Main Street. We head up the stairs to a Christmas-light-laced rooftop terrace to talk, and a passing freight train underlines the panoramic view of Gunn's terrace, from the Durham Performing Arts Center to the adjacent American Tobacco Campus.

Now twenty-eight, Gunn has had a rap career rife with derailments, destinations, and peculiar dustups. In the early 2000s, he helmed the underground Durham rap trio The Thyrday before briefly giving up on rapping altogether to earn a degree from N.C. A&T University. Upon his return home, he signed to MC Lyte's DuBose Music Group imprint, which in turn led him to become an artist on the BET Music Matters campaign. More recently, he's had a top-charting song in Jamaica, of all places, and a diss song aimed at Bow Wow, of all people.

However, his goal is clear: He wants to create a Durham dynasty out of his rap talents, much like his North Carolina cohort J. Cole has done for his own hometown of Fayetteville. And coincidentally, this new chapter surrounding the release of Rage to Survive finds Gunn partnered up with Dame Dash, the dynasty maker who cofounded Roc-A-Fella Records with Cole's current boss, Jay Z. The two met through a mutual friend after Gunn discovered that Dash had relocated to the Charlotte area.

"When I first met him nine months ago, I was really trying to impress him. He was saying that he didn't want to do music anymore, but I really knew that I could convince him to come back and do music," Gunn says.

"He respects me as a person. He knows who I am and he knows that I can rap. He respects what I do for my live shows and he respects my business model."

Dash's wish to leave his music industry days behind him is currently being chronicled in the BET reality television series Music Moguls with co-leads Snoop Dogg, Birdman, and Jermaine Dupri. However, a recent episode of the show heavily featured Gunn as Dash's next protégé.

"He's a rap star. For a high-yellow dude, he's kinda tough on his battle shit," says Dash over the phone in the typical jokester tone for which he's always been known.

"When he comes around us and we're hosting shows in strip clubs or in different places, he's running around with the bow tie on, looking different from everyone else in there. But then he gets on the stage with no fear and raps. The crowd eats it up every time," he says.

Strangely enough, Gunn's fifteen-year rise is directly linked to another hip-hop luminary and a fifteen-acre ostrich farm in Vance County, about forty minutes northeast of Durham. It was there that, following a serious motorcycle accident in 1994 and general wariness of the music industry, longtime Public Enemy DJ Terminator X joined his family's business in a new and rare enterprise raising African black ostriches. By 1998, X had become a full-blown ostrich farmer, occasionally booking DJ gigs at Triangle clubs. For years, X and Gunn's fathers had worked together at the same Durham post office, so Gunn's demo tape landed in X's hands. The two wound up in a recording session together in Durham's Overdub Lane studio, and X eventually began managing Gunn.

At the time, Gunn was a thirteen-year-old rap prodigy who had already gained local acclaim from calling into Duke and N.C. State University's radio stations during hip-hop shows and arrowing through on-air freestyles.

"Everybody would be blown away by this little kid who had a high-pitched, girly-sounding voice, but with very mature bars," Gunn says.

He then decided to take that ripeness to a higher-stakes arena—the locally fabled Duel of the Iron Mics battle rap contest. Gunn says he didn't know what to do for his first battle, but he pulled it together.

"I watched these rappers, and all they were doing was rapping about how good they could rap. I was good at that. Plus, I knew that my punch lines would hit harder because I was young," he says.

Gunn won that battle and took home the hundred-dollar grand prize. He dominated the local battle rap circuit until his next Duel of the Iron Mics event at the Durham Armory, where he found himself going head-to-head in multiple final rounds with another respected and feared emcee Phonte Coleman. Earlier that night, though, Gunn had casually explained to Coleman the story behind how Terminator X came to be his new manager.

"Phonte set me up. In the last round of the battle he said something about 'hostages' and 'Why don't you go run back to Terminator X and them fucking ostriches?'" Gunn says.

"I didn't even know that everyone else in the crowd already knew what Terminator X was doing with those ostriches. It was a hilarious line with an incredible delivery. I was like, 'Fuck, I lost.'"

Still, the much-younger Gunn had won the respect of the Triangle hip-hop community for going the distance against an emcee who would ultimately become one of hip-hop's lyrical heavyweights. In the years since, Gunn has left the battling behind—for the most part, at least. In a promo clip from one of the first episodes of Music Moguls, producer Jermaine Dupri and rapper Bow Wow are seen sitting in a music studio criticizing Dash's relocation to North Carolina.

"Ain't nothing crackin' in Durham," says Bow Wow. It was another setup, which Gunn suspected came from the show's producers.

"They specifically told Bow Wow to say 'Durham' because of me. I know they did. Dame lived in Charlotte, not Durham," Gunn says.

Initially, Gunn admits he tried not to take the bait. Instead, he made a post about it on Instagram. But after consistent encouragement from his followers, he decided to record the diss track "Crackin'," a brutal, three-and-half minute assault on everything from Bow Wow's "trash-ass movies," to his past relationships. Maybe Gunn's reaction was extreme against some very low-hanging fruit, but his battle-rap mentality meant he could not have handled it any differently.

"I know for a fact that Bow Wow heard the song," Gunn says proudly.

"I wore this jersey that I have on to the [2016 BET Experience] Genius Talks event. Jermaine Dupri saw me and recognized where I was from and got out the way. So, we made our point."

Moving forward, however, Gunn is engaged in an entirely different and more important battle, one that's equally entrenched in how to balance aspirations of being the state's next greatest rapper and using his platform to, as he puts it, "fight some of the injustices of the world." At home, that's translated into selling out concerts while also making concerted efforts with Durham community activists to preserve the integrity of downtown's Black Wall Street legacy.

It's a two-front battle that Gunn has been training for since he was going toe-to-toe with rappers twice his age over a decade ago. "Two-thousand and three/ I knew how this would be/ and I put this work in so ask me who I think deserves it and I'll tell you me," he raps on "Say Me," one of Rage's standout tracks. He set himself up. - Indy Week

Meet a Durham, NC rhymer who puts a message in his music without being preachy and keeps your ears with deft lyricism and witty wordplay… - xxlmag.com

Joshua Gunn aka J. Gunn is a North Carolina-based rapper known for his battle rap prowess. As a member of the collective Thethyrday, he was featured on the group’s The Perfection Xperiment 2 in 2005. His solo album, The Sky…, was distributed online in 2008 and he continued with a mixtape project entitled Earl Manigault, a nod to the street basketball player known as the G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time). He is the co-founder of the Red Eye Lifestyle label, and counts hip hop great MC Lyte as one of his mentors in the game. Gunn has been selected as a 2012 BET Music Matters artist. - BET.com

Joshua Gunn aka J. Gunn is a North Carolina-based rapper known for his battle rap prowess. As a member of the collective Thethyrday, he was featured on the group’s The Perfection Xperiment 2 in 2005. His solo album, The Sky…, was distributed online in 2008 and he continued with a mixtape project entitled Earl Manigault, a nod to the street basketball player known as the G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time). He is the co-founder of the Red Eye Lifestyle label, and counts hip hop great MC Lyte as one of his mentors in the game. Gunn has been selected as a 2012 BET Music Matters artist. - BET.com

Weigh In – Should J GUNN Quit His Day Job?

Bio:

?On June 29, 1984, a Legend was born. Born Joshua Gunn, this Durham North Carolina native began performing as early as his voice could pronounce words. Known to his fans as J. Gunn, he would sing in talent shows and even door to door for money to satisfy his thirst to perform even before he was old enough to attend school. Surrounded by the musical influence of his father’s passion for soul and funk records, and coupled with his older brother’s love for hip hop during its golden era, J. Gunn became quickly drawn to the art of emceeing. After penning his first rhyme at the age of seven, and performing that same song in a talent show that year, people immediately recognized that this was no ordinary young man. At just nine years old, J. Gunn began to enter every talent show possible and started winning prize money for his performances. While his lyrical ability was obvious, his subject matter more closely reflected those of his early influences such as Common Sense, Big Daddy Kane and Nas, than those typical of a rapper his age. His non-traditional lyrics proved to be an obstacle for J. Gunn to gain the attention of major labels.

As he matured into his early teens, freestyle and battle rapping became his forte. He entered and won his first major freestyle battle (the inaugural “Dual of The Iron Mics”) at the age of 13. Continuing to “battle” throughout his teenage years, J. Gunn accumulated nearly 200 freestyle championships garnering him major credibility within his region. It was evident that now was the time for J. Gunn to pursue a record deal. At the time J. Gunn signed his first independent record deal he was recording under the name “Baby J”. The year was 1999 and the deal was with Mike City of Hectic Records. Though the Hectic situation was short lived it allowed Gunn to record a song entitled “Blaze It Up” with one of his childhood idles, Big Daddy Kane. J. Gunn then entered a management period with Terminator X of Public Enemy and officially changed his moniker from Baby J to J. Gunn to reflect the maturity and growth he had obtained as an artist. A demo/album was recorded and was shopped to labels. Though some positive contacts were established, a record deal to release the long awaited J. Gunn project was never solidified. The following fall Gunn would enroll in North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and continue his reign on the local hip hop scene conquering on campus battles and local shows. During the entire growth period Gunn’s close friends (K Slack and Killa K) remained by his side. This loose partnership in rhyme eventually would develop into a group known as THETHYRDAY (pronounced The Third Day, in reference to the rebirth of hip hop). Together they began working on the first installment of 9th Wonder’s compilation, “Mr. Dream Merchant, Vol 1?.

The Group first began to operate under the direction of Terminator X, but later signed with the indie label Street Flava Entertainment started by their mentor and local college radio Deejay DJ Samps. Touring across the east coast and releasing an album (“The Perfection Xperiment 2? which featured production from 9th Wonder, Krhysis and Nicolay of Justus League fame) created a legion of internet and international fans. THETHYRDAY would later disband in 2006 due to creative differences. Rising from his tumultuous musical past, Gunn remains one of the most highly sought after and anticipated artists in North Carolina and the greater Hip Hop underground. After a short partnership with the now defunct Nxlevel Music Group, which produced one critically acclaimed project entitled “The Sky…” Gunn and his long time friend Rashad Ladson created the joint venture known as Red Eye Lifestyle. Red Eye Lifestyle is a lifestyle brand that will promote the music, entertainment, and digital media centered around the lifestyle of young entreprenuers. The first offering under the Red Eye umbrella will be “Earl Manigault,” a mixtape of original material set to be released in the early weeks of August. To know Red Eye is to experience it, and we formally welcome you to a new chapter in musical history, welcome to the world of J.Gunn, and welcome to The Red Eye Lifestyle. “No Sleep ‘Til Success.”

Listen to J GUNN on the Morning After:
http://teamyee.tv/2010/09/01/dont-quit-your-day-job-j-gunn/ - www.teamyee.tv

North Carolina's own J. Gunn is prepared to be your favorite rapper and provides many reasons to be. His latest video "Pinot Noir" is rapidly gaining popularity on YouTube along with being an In A Fabulous World favorite. We had the privilege to speak with J. Gunn via Skype and we now can say he is one of our favorite rappers!

Check out J. Gunn's lastest video "Pinot Noir"
In A Fabulous World: So tell us about J. Gunn. What inspired you to rap and why should you be our favorite new rapper?
J. Gunn: It’s really hard to say what inspired me to rap. I have always wanted to perform since I could talk. At 5 yrs old I wanted to be a singer, like Michael Jackson...couldn’t (and cant) sing, so I started to get into writing raps, and it came very naturally to me. I wrote and recorded my first song at 7 years old. My big brother was heavy into hip hop of that time period (early to mid 90s) and kept me up to speed on what real hip hop should sound like so those two things...and then Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt in ‘96 made me sure that this is what I wanted to do with my life.

continued.... http://www.inafabworld.com/2010/10/music-monday.html#more - www.inafabworld.com

North Carolina's own J. Gunn is prepared to be your favorite rapper and provides many reasons to be. His latest video "Pinot Noir" is rapidly gaining popularity on YouTube along with being an In A Fabulous World favorite. We had the privilege to speak with J. Gunn via Skype and we now can say he is one of our favorite rappers!

Check out J. Gunn's lastest video "Pinot Noir"
In A Fabulous World: So tell us about J. Gunn. What inspired you to rap and why should you be our favorite new rapper?
J. Gunn: It’s really hard to say what inspired me to rap. I have always wanted to perform since I could talk. At 5 yrs old I wanted to be a singer, like Michael Jackson...couldn’t (and cant) sing, so I started to get into writing raps, and it came very naturally to me. I wrote and recorded my first song at 7 years old. My big brother was heavy into hip hop of that time period (early to mid 90s) and kept me up to speed on what real hip hop should sound like so those two things...and then Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt in ‘96 made me sure that this is what I wanted to do with my life.

continued.... http://www.inafabworld.com/2010/10/music-monday.html#more - www.inafabworld.com

To be perfectly honest, I almost passed J. Gunn's music off as another rap about alcohol, getting drunk and smashing some chick. As I do with most who send music to my inbox, I give everyone a chance. To check his latest video and the concept, I raised an eyebrow and was impressed. Dude's got something. And to do a little research, I see he's gained the attention of Terminator X of Public Enemy fame, who signed him to a management deal and to have recorded a single with his idol Big Daddy Kane.

Peep the "Pinot Noir" video he released a couple of weeks ago and check out his flow. His Stay Home CD that contains this single is available on Amazon and iTunes. Visit his site for links to download the album, features and other material.
- www.djkoolemdee.com

Above is the follow up single to J. Gunn’s Stay Home called Pinot Noir, off of the forth coming project Earl Manigault. Keep on the lookout for it. - www.notquitemillionaires.com

Above is the follow up single to J. Gunn’s Stay Home called Pinot Noir, off of the forth coming project Earl Manigault. Keep on the lookout for it. - www.notquitemillionaires.com

Watch below, “Pinot Noir” directed by Daniel Craig. Look out for North Carolina emcee, J. Gunn’s forth coming project, “Earl Manigault“. Production on this track is by The Jake. - Jessica Dilla

Damon Dash is trying to launch his new media company and promote his new artist(Joshua Gunn) but he’s in the middle of a custody battle that keeps hitting him where it hurts. - BET