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[ambient traffic noise]
[train rumbles]
♪
CHRIS MOTEN: I know what I want,
and I know what I wanna be.
♪
It is a little tough having to perform with celebrity artists.
♪
I've played for--
I've toured with over a hundred celebrity artists.
It's fun, you know what I'm saying?
I love being on the road, I love touring,
I love seeing different cities.
When I first started traveling,
I used to get caught up in the hype
of being with the artist,
kinda piggybacking off of what they had.
I had to realize that that wasn't mine.
You should definitely be trying to find something
that is your own.
Y'all don't wanna be 50 years old
trying to play on the road with Justin Bieber or somebody.
It's not gonna work.
♪
The exposure that we gain from that,
doesn't amount to the gift that God gave me and my destiny.
[cassette deck clicks]
[sound warbling]
♪ eerie music playing ♪
[whooshes]
[warbling continues]
♪
♪ upbeat hip-hop music playing ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah... ♪
PERSON 1: Atlanta is still the Mecca of the south.
PERSON 2: We come from a place
where we do what we want, how we want, and when we want.
♪ slow trombone music playing ♪
♪
Atlanta is a city, but Atlanta is country at the same time.
There's a lot of confidence that comes from the culture of the city.
We're defiant, we're disruptive-- [clipper buzzing]
[customer chuckles]
T.I.: We're passionate.
And for the city to be thriving right now on every front,
from music, to films, to art,
and all aspects of the culture, it's good.
You know what I'm saying?
We're still here having fun.
♪
Atlanta is, it's just where it is.
Everyone's trying to get here.
[motorbike rumbles]
For us to be a region
to where there's no, like, real, like, major record labels here
like in LA or New York, for us to move like this,
we grindin'.
You mean you ain't heard of Ludacris?
You ain't heard of OutKast?
TLC, Pretty Mob, Toni Braxton, Usher.
PERSON 3: Like, they created the sound here.
I feel like every city duplicates us.
It's-it's so much great music coming out of Atlanta.
It's really not a sound that is specific to just one genre.
It's a DIY market in the sense of building music
in their homes, but it's great music.
You make a room of people moving Atlanta,
that means you can move the world.
CHRIS: Everybody has their own idea
of how they want to contribute
their music to the world.
That's crazy.
This is just mine.
Trap Jazz is a movement.
Trap Jazz is a sound.
And more importantly, Trap Jazz is a band
of a lot of friends and brothers that I started with
from the beginning.
Started first with Devon "Stixx" Taylor
and then adding on Cassius Jay
as the world-renowned producer.
We bridge the gap between jazz and hip-hop.
The three of us along with a lot of friends and family
is a collective as the band, Trap Jazz.
♪
[inaudible dialogue]
It always come back to 3000 at the source of it.
The south got somethin' to say, that's all I got to say.
DJ TOOMP: That sparked somethin'.
♪
♪ synthesizer music playing ♪
♪
CHRIS: ...some new stuff.
[keys clack]
♪ high-pitched jazz music playing ♪
CHRIS: Trap Jazz is exactly what you think it is when you say it.
It's trap, and then there's jazz.
Eclectic improvisation mixed with, like, street gutter sounds.
♪ upbeat jazz music playing on laptop ♪
♪
♪ music stops ♪
I was listening to "A" Train
'cause I wanna trap that out.
'Cause that's-- basically it's trap jazz,
there's a trap beat and there's some jazz music.
Real jazz, not like a form of jazz, you know?
So that makes a difference. [clicks touchpad]
That's gonna be tough, 'cause they swingin'
and they doin' a different beat than what we do nowadays.
They're like--
♪ scatting ♪
I can move it around,
I just gotta find the right beat to go with it.
♪ upbeat music plays ♪
♪ slow upbeat music plays ♪
[clicks touchpad]
♪ classical jazz music playing on laptop ♪
♪
♪ fast-paced electronic beats join classical jazz ♪
It's too fast.
[keyboard clacking]
♪ classical jazz music playing ♪
♪
♪ electronic beats join classical jazz ♪
♪
♪ music grows louder ♪
Ah! It's already, like, exciting me.
♪
CASSIUS JAY: I just remember Chris coming up with the whole idea.
And I ain't even have a clue how we was finna do this.
All I knew was I know how to make beats.
♪ hip-hop music playing ♪
CHRIS: No more than a week after,
I felt like Trap Jazz was something that I could do.
I called Cassius.
I knew it was gonna be right in line with the sound that Atlanta loves.
Because if you don't know Cassius, you're losing,
like, probably gonna be the next king of trap.
- [camera shutters clicking] - ♪ Dat boi Cassius ♪
[inaudible dialogue]
I've produced for a lot of well-known artists
like Future and Migos, Bankroll Fresh, Young Thug.
CHRIS: And you got Cassius coming up killing everything.
He's beyond his years in music especially.
Like, most kids don't dig that deep.
He a real church musician that can play like, you know, like a fool.
JAZZE PHA: And then when you hear him play, you'd be like,
"This dude gotta be in his 40s or somethin'."
You know what I'm saying?
'Cause he's just--
His musical palette is just, you know, magnifique
'cause he's just--
It's somethin' special.
CHRIS: I called Cassius and I was like,
"Bro, like, I need some beats.
"I just need whatever you would give to, you know,
"Future, Young Thug, Gucci, like,
"whatever you would give to them,
"give that to me.
Like, give me, like, five of 'em."
He's like, "Well, just send me all your wack beats,
"beats that you know you ain't gonna give to nobody.
Just send it to me."
He's like, "I promise you I'll make somethin' up."
CHRIS: When I got 'em, I just, like, ripped 'em
in, like, two weeks and I sent 'em back.
CASSIUS: I was fuckin' amazed.
I was like, "How in the hell did you come up with that?"
Like, how?
I didn't even believe he did it.
I was like, "I'm finna come over to your house and see this shit."
It automatically feel like it's about to turn up.
Like, okay, we already--
They almost vibing to it.
Females will be like, you know, "Okay.
We don't hear no words yet,"
but then we get here--
♪ hip-hop beats playing ♪
♪ classical trumpet note joins hip-hop beats ♪
And immediately, even you, you just changed your vibe,
because it's like...
♪ classical trumpet note plays ♪
...now you trying to follow what this is saying,
but this is already saying something to you.
What is the music saying?
♪ gentle peppy music playing ♪
♪
First song that h-he gave me,
I took it to Jazze Pha and Jazze went crazy.
Like, "This is the new shit, this is the next shit."
He was like, "This what you did over his beats?
This what you did?"
I was like, "Yeah, it just-- that's my idea of trap jazz."
♪ fast-paced drumbeating ♪
♪
DEVON "STIXX" TAYLOR: Ah!
♪
I played for some pretty cool artists.
Zendaya,
Mary J. Blige, Usher, Jagged Edge,
Backstreet, Monica, Justin Bieber.
Shout out to JB, man, I appreciate it.
Love you, boy.
[crowd cheering]
♪
- How are you? Good to see you. - You look nice.
STIXX: Chris and Cassius linked up,
they did some stuff.
Chris was just like, "Man, you need to play drums on it.
He's like, "Little bro,
"we really need to start a band.
"Playing behind artists and stuff is cool,
but don't you think it'll be cooler if, like, we played our own shit?"
♪
CHRIS: Dev is drummin'.
I need that, because in Trap Jazz he had this sound.
When he played everybody in the room was just like--
Up until that point,
I hadn't seen no other musician make people move like that.
TERRACE MARTIN: Trap is a language.
They're playing that at a very high level.
It's not just, "I could do it."
So I'm just like, "No, let's pract--
"Let's get it sounding. Let's--
"Let's put this Black music on one of the highest pedestals we can."
♪ playing classical music ♪
CASSIUS: Chris, Chris is a monster.
Chris is a hell of a musician.
STIXX: Man, his sound is like no other.
The way he mixes certain sounds
and the way he plays certain things, and--
Even just his arrangements.
His mind is amazing, man.
God really, really blessed him.
♪ piano music playing ♪
♪
J-FLY: Chris was actually a prodigy.
Like, he got awards as a jazz pianist.
He has natural talent, a creative ear,
but he also has the theory.
Those elements in one human body, like, oh, my God.
We gotta get the music out there to get people used to trap jazz.
Then after that, we just try to get our stuff played on the radio, and--
But what would we play it as?
'Cause it won't fit in smooth jazz,
it won't fit in jazz fusion,
it won't fit in standard jazz.
CASSIUS: Chris was like, "Man, I'm finna try this trap jazz.
I can't wait to tour because I know it's gonna be big."
I was like, "Well, listen."
I was like, "You do the work,
"here go the beats.
"I'll pay for the sessions, I'll get it mixed.
"I'll pay for the musicians, I'll do the financial part.
You just do the music part."
STIXX: Me, him and Cassius,
we booked, like, three days at Glow in the Dark Studios.
He already had like a lot of songs already,
you know, tracked out and mapped out.
But, you know, he gave me creative control
to put my own drum parts and everything on it.
So, we came up with everything together,
in one studio session.
CHRIS: The main reason I'm doing it is for musicians.
It's definitely important to me to leave somethin' behind.
My mom bought me this $500 little Yamaha,
and I started making beats.
And I would take it to school and make beats
and plug 'em to the speaker in the room.
I was literally, like, making trap beats.
That, you know, mixed with jazz,
I think that really probably was the beginning
of, you know, what we call Trap Jazz.
♪
♪ mellow music playing ♪
[indistinct conversations] [laughter]
♪
CASSIUS' BROTHER: Get him, grandmama.
He cussin'.
You know better, you don't talk like that.
He's been raised in the church.
He know right from wrong.
CASSIUS: Lemme see you do it.
CASSIUS' BROTHER: Let me see you, Nate.
Hey. Come on, Nate.
CASSIUS: Get it! Get it! Get it!
Outta all my friends,
I'm like the big dog,
and they follow me because I'm their big brother.
I was the one out, out the whole group,
out of Devon and Chris decided, you know what?
I don't wanna just be a church musician no more.
I wanna be a producer.
♪
Right now, today, it's Father's Day, it's my day.
And these are my beautiful kids. We're hanging out.
Having kids kinda slowed me all the way down.
Even though I was in church and stuff,
it slowed me down when I had kids
because it gave me somethin' to live for.
Gotta little girlfriend? CASSIUS' SON: No.
CASSIUS: So you gonna leave your shirt off?
And show your muscles? CASSIUS' SON: Yeah.
You got muscles? CASSIUS' SON: No.
FAMILY MEMBER: Let's see your muscles.
Show your muscles. Come on, turn around, show your muscles.
- FAMILY MEMBER: Come on, don't be shy. - Show your muscles.
Hey!
The stuff I learned from my dad, I put it in my kids.
My daddy the reason why I'm a musician.
♪
[indistinct chatter]
CASSIUS' MOM: This is the rock of the family.
My husband was in the ministry
and they needed music in the church.
So my husband,
he let my boys pick out the instrument
that they wouldn't mind playing.
♪
CASSIUS: Like, drums, everybody could play drums.
Bass wasn't cool enough.
I-I feel like bass players real laid back,
and I ain't got no laid backs, period.
Like, I'm real hype.
So I was like, I wanna play the piano or organ.
And organ was the first instrument I sit on.
CASSIUS' MOM: Everybody looked up to his dad, too,
would love to hear him sing and preach.
CASSIUS: I'm just like my daddy. I'm same person.
Everybody say I act like him, I dress like him.
My dad was real flashy.
CASSIUS' MOM: My husband died suddenly.
He wasn't sick, no one could believe it.
I was thinking I was going to the doctor to be with him,
but when I got there, they told me that he had passed.
He was trying to get out the car to ask for help,
but he fell out the car, passed away.
♪
And they told us he had had a massive heart attack.
We thought the world was over.
Me and my brother, we was like, "What in the world?"
Like, where do we go next?
Like, what's the next step?
♪
If it wasn't for my daddy,
I wouldn't be where I'm at right now
because my dad the one who put the whole
music into us, you know?
If it weren't for my dad, I would not be a musician,
first of all.
I wouldn't be a producer.
My daddy the one who told me I was gonna do this.
He prophesied it.
Every hit record I get on the radio,
I come up here and play it for my dad.
Point blank period.
I don't know if he could hear it or not, but I play it.
Ain't nobody ain't gonna never had to struggle
the way he had to do.
♪
[voice breaking] Like not one of us.
♪ somber music playing ♪
♪
CASSIUS' MOM: His dad had told me an hour before he passed
that Josh would make it.
Josh was gonna make it.
[Cassius sniffles]
[singing] ♪ Amazing ♪
♪ Grace ♪
♪ How sweet the sound ♪
♪ That saved ♪
♪ A wretch like me ♪
♪ I once ♪
♪ Was lost ♪
♪ But now ♪
♪ I'm found ♪
♪ Was blind ♪
♪ But now I see ♪
♪ drums music playing ♪
[indistinct chatter]
One, two! PASTOR TAYLOR [on microphone]: Dr. Jesus make everything alright.
♪
I don't care what you're going through
but your problem is nothing.
Jesus will make everything alright.
Do I have anybody in this house, who don't mind--
STIXX: My dad got called into the ministry.
And so I started playing in church in 2003.
I think I was around, like, nine or ten.
That opened up the door for me to do everything that I'm doing now.
♪
PASTOR TAYLOR: Sing it one more time, folks!
Come on now. Let's go.
[singing] ♪ Oh, Dr. Jesus ♪
♪ Dr. Jesus ♪
♪ He said ♪
♪ Said he would ♪
[laughter]
♪ indistinct singing ♪
♪
♪ Dr. Jesus ♪
♪ He said ♪
♪ Said he would ♪
STIXX: That's-that's where I got my start.
You know, that's where I was able to do
whatever I pretty much put my heart to.
You know, in church there's not really no rules.
Like, that's when you're really able to play freely,
and, like, open yourself.
It's kinda like jazz,
like, it's not structured.
♪ indistinct singing ♪
♪
STIXX: 'Cause even with church, you still gotta go to rehearsal.
You still gotta learn the music.
It's still a gig, it's still work at the end of the day.
♪ Say it again ♪
[inaudible dialogue]
♪ indistinct singing ♪
♪
♪ He's gonna make everything alright ♪
PASTOR TAYLOR [on microphone]: Now, come on, give God your prayer. Repent.
Praise to Him!
Whoo!
♪
And, you may be seated in the presence of the Lord. Amen.
God bless you all on this day.
[applause] PASTOR TAYLOR: Thank you, thank you.
I wanna say Happy Father's Day.
All the men stand up.
All the men.
All the men stand up. Amen. [cheers and exclaims]
PASTOR TAYLOR: We salute the men today on Father's Day. Amen.
Ladies, come on, make some noise.
Make some noise. Real loud, ladies. Scream in here.
[women cheering]
PASTOR TAYLOR: Amen, like it's your favorite entertainer,
scream in here like it's Luther Vandross,
or whoever it is that you might listen to.
Scream and cheer these men.
[screaming and cheering]
All praise. Amen.
Thank you, guys.
Thank you all. Thank you all so much.
Amen. Amen. Amen.
♪
DEACON SCOTT WILLIAMS: I started noticing Devon's talent
when I used to play with his father.
I went to his father and told him,
"Hey, man, you know, I like playing the drums.
"I really do, I love 'em.
But your son is anointed to play the drums."
[indistinct chatter]
And they had noticed, you know.
Whenever he's playin', he's smilin'.
You know what I'm saying? You can see him with that smile.
I believe, uh, you will not catch him not smilin'
while he's playing the drums, and, uh, because he loves it.
First gig was with my parents, was with my father,
with his group.
He had a gospel group and it was called Interfaith.
♪ indistinct singing ♪
As Devon was comin' up, I was in groups,
and, uh, Devon was there watching our drummer, Scott.
And he would sit right there,
right there up on Scott,
right there looking dead at the drums.
And Scott had to say,
"Back up, back up a little bit, Devon.
Back up a little bit." [laughs]
DEACON SCOTT: There was a song that Interfaith used to do
that gives the drummer special little part in it
where he can do his thing.
PASTOR TAYLOR: He had to be about eight or nine years old.
He just was like, "Man, you're not ready yet, son."
[all laughing]
He'd say-- He said,
"Dad gonna let you play." FAMILY MEMBER: Yep!
DEACON SCOTT: His father finally gave him a chance.
He said, "Okay, okay, we gonna, we gonna put this in the routine."
♪
We made up this a little skit.
Like, Scott, you just gonna act like you just tired,
you-you done, you tired playin' the drum.
And, uh, we was doing a concert.
Devon right there, right next to me,
like he always would be.
And I stood up from the drums and I told him,
"I can't do this no more, man, I'm-I'm tired."
He said, "Man, I-I need, I need a drummer.
Any drummers in the house?"
And lo and behold, little Devon raised his hand.
"I can do it, Dad, I can do it."
Gets on the drum set and get to the part where
the drummer gets his solo.
And I'm talkin' about he had the whole house amazed.
I would follow him everywhere and then I would just play that one song.
And that was like my first gig ever, you know, playing with my dad.
His father went halfway around the world.
Devon is gone all the way around the world.
♪ fast-paced drum music playing ♪
♪
CASSIUS: When I heard Devon, I was like,
"Whoa," like, I want you to be my friend forever.
And I stuck with him.
I never would let him get away from me.
♪ upbeat drum music playing ♪
STIXX: He was playing organ for us.
I was around, like, 13 or 14 at the time.
And Cassius, he-he used to always tell me like,
"Bro, you are killing, bro."
Like, you know I was a little kid,
like, "Thank you, man," all hyped, just smilin'.
And then he told me, he was like,
"Man, playing the church is cool,
"but, bro, you can go so much further with, with your gift,
with what you're doing."
♪
CASSIUS: No matter how big we got, he called me Big Bro.
"B-Big bro, what we doing today, Big Bro?
Big bro, where are we going?"
I just go pick him up.
STIXX: I remember Cassius used to come pick me up from school
like, every other day.
[chuckles] I used to get in the car with him.
We would ride to the studio,
we'd be recording where he had me doing like, gigs and stuff.
He was just introducing me to people around town.
♪ upbeat drum music playing ♪
♪
CASSIUS: I introduced Stixx to every drummer, every artist,
'cause I knew he could outplay everybody.
He was young and I was excited
to see a young musician outplay the oldest cats in the world.
I'd take him over Chris' house and little share with Chris.
♪
CHRIS: Sometimes they'd come to my house.
Everybody know I had this basement where I had like two drum sets.
I had a, a bass rig, a guitar rig, five, six keyboards,
all this stuff, you know.
And everybody would just come there and play.
So a lot of times Devon and him would come by,
and then I realized there's somethin' about this guy.
Like, he had this sound,
and every time he played a rap beat,
everybody in the room would, like,
they'd start movin'.
And it was, like, you could be a dope drummer
but it's hard to make everybody in the room
move at the same time.
♪
I describe my sound as real aggressive.
♪ fast-paced drumming ♪
I like for people to feel what I'm playing,
to feel my energy.
♪
CHRIS: I don't think I ever wanna do the Trap Jazz show without Devon
because he just sounds just like what we need.
♪ fast-paced drum music playing ♪
♪
♪ bright piano music playing ♪
♪
♪ music ends softly ♪
CHRIS: That one's called Carrie Lee.
My grandfather's first and middle.
I've always liked that.
The second melody, the--
♪ slow piano music playing ♪
♪
It really makes me think, like, about, like, the happy times.
[laughter] And some of the sad times, too.
So, I like that song so far.
I'm not even finished with it
but it's still fun to play.
[distant traffic noise]
♪ organ music playing ♪
CHRIS: What up, bro man?
CHRIS' DAD: Hey, man, what's happening?
CHRIS: Good, how are you?
CHRIS' DAD: Just got back in town? CHRIS: I did.
- Your phone work? - Sometimes. Sometimes.
- Aah. - Sometimes it work, sometimes it don't.
Sometimes that it don't.
- CHRIS: Actually. - Where you been?
Uh, New York.
How it go?
Most of the time New York, based outta New York,
and then going everywhere else outside of that.
It's been fun.
You enjoy your Father's Day, without me, your favorite?
Uh, Yeah, right. [Chris laughs]
- You like it? - I can do a lot with it, yeah.
Got my pads, faders, and, you know, we like all that stuff.
- CHRIS' DAD: Yeah, yeah. - So that's pretty cool.
CHRIS' DAD: That's the next generation, just--
- I got, I got mine. - You enjoying your new organ?
Yeah, man, I love it.
- I love it. I love it. - Yeah, I think it's nice, too.
Open it up a little bit.
Lets see what's it sound like.
Oh, it sounds good.
CHRIS: Open it up a little bit.
♪ plays high-pitched note ♪
Ay!
That's, uh--
♪
You don't feel nothing? CHRIS: Amen.
♪ plays notes ♪
- Oh, it's nice. - Yes, Lord.
♪ plays notes, tempo decreases ♪
♪ plays note ♪
- CHRIS' DAD: What we gonna play? - Yeah, that's nice.
You get yours over, we'll play something together.
I just wanted to hear it open up a little bit.
- So I can learn something. - That's the thing.
- That's what make you go crazy. - You can teach me something
- before you go back on the road. - That's that, ay-ya-ya!
♪ soulful organ music plays ♪
My dad, you know, of course is an organist,
very popular organist in the church.
And my mother's a very popular singer.
Know what I mean?
CHRIS' DAD: Our house was filled with music.
Chris grew up with a Hammond organ
in the living room.
We were constantly in church
because I was constantly playing or his mother was singing.
So he grew up in church.
♪
I can't do that.
♪ playing lively music on keyboard ♪
CHRIS: Yeah, I remember that one.
♪
I remember that one.
You remember that one?
♪ fast-paced organ music playing ♪
♪
Yeah.
♪
CHRIS' DAD: He would always sit on the organ with me
or sit on the drums.
I bought both of my sons drumsticks,
sometime I think it was a mistake
because the furniture turned out to be a drum.
CHRIS: That was the first thing I did.
And then out of nowhere my grandfather [chuckles] was like,
"You got enough drummers in the family.
"Go-- Why don't you go play that?
Why don't you go play piano?"
And he literally forced me to get on the piano.
♪ peppy organ music playing ♪
♪
♪ piano solo ♪
CHRIS' DAD: Oh, I like that.
CHRIS' MOM: I remember going to his room
and he'd have the radio on,
and he'd be listening to the radio
and playing behind the radio.
So, when that started happening, I just knew,
you know, he had that connection.
It was all God, you know.
♪ peppy organ music playing ♪
♪
Ready?
♪
Ah! CHRIS' DAD: You know I'm old.
CHRIS: You can play, man, you got it.
Eh.
CHRIS: I still need-- Got some stuff to learn I see, huh?
CASSIUS: Every piano player, every organist
from Atlanta, Georgia looked up to Chris' dad.
I just happened to meet Chris at the time,
and then after I met Chris,
after I realized who his daddy was.
His daddy was my daddy's best friend.
So then we just started, like, showing each other things.
[Cassius laughs]
CHRIS: I tried to start playing more when he came up here.
[laughter] CASSIUS: Ah.
♪
I look like my daddy, don't I?
[laughter]
CHRIS' DAD: All of this look like your dad.
[laughter]
What's up, man?
That's crazy, eh?
CASSIUS: Listen. CHRIS' DAD: Look at you.
CASSIUS: Just like all the producers
wanted to be like Zaytoven,
all the musicians wanted to learn
how to play the organ just like you.
[laughter]
CASSIUS: Chris' daddy has a style in the church,
we call it a COGIC style,
the Church of God in Christ style.
It's like real, real, real churchy.
CHRIS' DAD: Josh is just like another son.
I haven't seen him since he was a kid.
CHRIS: I've always known Cassius.
I known him as Josh, like, I know that's his producer name.
But this is-- I just know Josh.
We grew up together.
His father sang, like, praise and worship
while my father played organ.
This the first song you taught me.
♪ slow organ music playing ♪
♪
Of course your chorus was--
♪ fast-paced organ music playing ♪
[laughter]
CASSIUS: Chris' dad, through my whole family,
my mama, my grandma, all my aunties,
if it wasn't for him being friends with my dad,
I would not know Chris Moten.
[inaudible dialogue]
♪
CHRIS' MOM: They just clicked.
I guess it was the music that drew them together.
He had somebody that understood him.
CHRIS: This is uh, Decatur, straight from the deck,
Decatur where it's greater.
Decatur is very much like the hood.
You know, then there's a good part of it, too.
There's a lot of families.
You know everybody in the neighborhood,
you know everybody a street over.
All the families know each other,
all the parents know each other,
You know, keep a look out for all the kids.
[children laughing]
CHRIS: This is the house I grew up in.
The house I know most for growing up in.
We moved around a little bit,
but this is the-- where all the memories were created.
Um, this is where I got my first keyboard.
- Your first drum set. - First drum set.
Um--
This is even where piano first came into my life.
Uh, there was a piano in the living room.
And, uh--
Uh, as crazy as it seems
we was having church every Sunday in the living room.
And, um, so just family members would come over
and just like church normally, you know, they'd open the doors,
everybody come in with their church clothes on,
sit down at regular chairs.
Set up like it was a really, you know, a really-- a real service, you know?
♪ poignant music playing ♪
I remember just being in this driveway.
It was a very sentimental moment.
I don't know, I didn't know what was happening.
- [insect buzzing] - But I know my mother had gathered us up
and, you know, they told us a few things,
but we've been young, 12, 13.
And then, you know, I didn't, I didn't wanna believe
whatever was, was getting ready to happen,
but it seemed like it was really eerie.
After my dad was, like, you know,
"I'm basically leavin' for a while, and will be gone for a while."
I remember after that, it just didn't seem real.
♪
And, uh, I probably was like ten years old, maybe nine, ten.
So at that point in my life I felt a,
a responsibility to, like, really take over.
I didn't, I didn't think my mom could tell me what to do.
'Cause I was like, you know, "I'm the man of the house now.
"Dad said I got it.
He ain't here so I'm-I'm in control."
She like, "He didn't mean that."
- [Chris's Dad laughs] - "If you really think you the man of the house
you need to be paying some bills."
- You know what I mean? So-- - So you settled down, then?
CHRIS: Yeah, I settled down.
And I mean, and I did, you know, when I turned 14, 15--
CHRIS' DAD: I spent, uh, 20 years in prison from 1996 until 2016.
It was a very difficult time for all of us,
my entire family.
Um--
I sent Chris music as often as I could.
CASSIUS: Chris' daddy used to send Chris cassette tapes
of him playing because, of course, he was incarcerated.
♪
[tape whirrs]
CHRIS' DAD [over tape]: Hey, Chris, check out this new song.
I redid Amazing Grace and I changed it to Grace Amazing.
I kinda make it my own.
♪ keyboard music playing ♪
CHRIS' DAD: And watch the change right here.
It'll flow right into it, the solo.
I'ma do the organ first.
Now here's the piano.
I was thinking about you when I did the piano
since you like the piano more than you like the organ.
CHRIS: Not learning music with him versus him sending tapes
and talking on the tape
and telling me how it's supposed to sound
versus him being right there next to me,
that was tough.
Um, along with just not growing up,
you know, without a father right there.
CHRIS' DAD [over tape]: Now Imma come back with a symph.
Watch the bend, watch the bend.
CASSIUS: But he would just tell us like,
"These are the chords, one by one. A flat, C, E flat."
That was a triad, of course, A flat, major cord.
He'd just tell us stuff like that.
CHRIS' DAD: He would send me back cassette tapes,
and he'd have a thousand questions,
and I would always have one answer,
"Figure it out.
"Because if I tell you,
you're not gonna get it."
CHRIS: My dad was always like,
"Even though you wanna know what I play and play like me,
"you know, always have your own sound.
"Don't ever wanna be like nobody else.
"Don't ever wanna sound like nobody else.
"You know, just develop something that's your own off of,
you know, what you learn."
CHRIS' MOM: Me looking from the outside in,
I could say his father was a, uh,
a-- and still is, an awesome musician.
So when I look at it,
how many things could he have shown Christopher?
There were a lot of things that
I know he could have been taught,
or he could have learned from his dad.
I think I was the last person you probably talked to
before you actually-- CHRIS' DAD: Left.
Maybe walked away and left.
You know, like the last time we saw him
before we would see him, uh, incarcerated and have to visit him.
I think the last time I saw him before then was like,
watching him walk on the driveway kinda confused,
but I know the last thing he said to me, he was like,
"Everything's gonna be alright.
Don't worry about it."
And, uh-- CHRIS' DAD: Well, did I lie?
No, you didn't lie.
It wasn't, it wasn't alright for a long time, you know.
- But such is life. - But it turned out alright.
Um, but you gotta go through those things
in order for it to be alright.
You'll never know what alright is if you don't see it all the way through.
- CHRIS' DAD: Exactly. - And I'm really glad that we did.
We did. And made it the rest of the way. CHRIS' DAD: Exactly.
Yeah.
That's a good father.
I appreciate it.
- Love you. - I love you, too.
♪
I think that's always gonna be a part of Chris that
is untouchable,
because I think he closed himself off
in many ways while I was gone
because he didn't know how to deal.
♪
CHRIS: Holding it in definitely does seem better a lot of times.
You're more comfortable when you're holding it in because nobody knows.
As long as you don't deal with it,
you think that it'll just go away, you know,
but it's not going away.
It's actually festering and growing, you know.
So, as easy as it was to hold it in,
at some point, it-- I would have to let it out,
you know, and deal with it.
Chris is like me, we don't show emotion and stuff like that.
Chris would more or less put in his music.
He don't have to say it, but you'll hear it.
People sit back and say, "Oh, music's just music."
Nah, music is life to us.
Because without the music we'd probably be somewhere
we don't wanna be.
STIXX: I definitely do think Chris has the capability to be a leader.
I know things make it hard for him
as far as being able to push certain things
because he has a million and one things going on right now.
So, you know, you kinda gotta stay on top of him, like,
"Yo, Chris, don't forget, bro, we gotta do this."
ZAYTOVEN: The hurtful part for musicians
is the money or the compensation.
As a musician, it feels good to play the music
in front of all these different people,
but when it comes down to the money,
it's like, it's not-- it's almost not worth it.
I was gonna go to Whiskey and just play there and have fun, but,
then they called and said they needed somebody to play.
So, now it's turned into a gig, turned into work now.
So, ain't got no choice really.
Wanted to make some money to pay some bills.
CHRIS' MOM: Most gifted people,
they're one-track mind,
they're-- their mind is on their gift.
Their mind is on what they want
and what they're dreaming of.
[door rattling, squeaking]
CHRIS' MOM: Christopher is not a selfish person,
but I see where sometimes his gift will cloud him
of other things that are going on in life.
CHRIS: What's the ETA for The Cats, 8:45?
PERSON: Yeah. CHRIS: Cool.
He supposed to start at 9:00.
He probably won't start till 9:30.
[indistinct chatter]
CHRIS: Where the bottle at?
KEVIN MCKINNERY: When it comes down to music career-wise,
nothing's easy.
You have to really put in your dues,
playing, going out, marketing yourself.
If anybody ever tell you that that's easy, they're lying.
Can you grab that stand, please? Thank you.
I'm sorry.
Uh-oh.
PERSON 2: You gonna push it down.
CHRIS: You wanna go backwards? PERSON 2: Yeah, back.
CHRIS: I didn't want it to be on top of your stuff.
PERSON 2: No.
CHRIS: Maybe I can hold it in front of me.
PERSON 2: See?
CHRIS: And being on tour with all these, all the celebrities,
you know, it's fun to do that, but it's just, it was, it's a job.
EMCEE [on microphone]: Cafe 290, what's happening?
How's everybody feeling on this Friday evening?
Y'all alright?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
EMCEE: You all sit back and enjoy yourselves.
[applause]
CHRIS: It's very important to me that when I'm gone,
like, there's something that y'all gonna say.
Like, if there's one thing Chris wanted to be carried on,
what would it be?
And it's gonna be an easy answer for everybody.
It's gonna be Trap Jazz, like keep that shit going.
♪ gentle piano music playing ♪
♪
With this particular song,
the melody was the first thing I came up with.
♪
Whitney Houston does this one run that everybody stole.
Like, if you are a great singer
and you, like, riff a lot with your voice,
or try to be acrobatic or whatever,
you gonna do this run all the time.
♪ plays piano notes ♪
You know what I'm saying?
So I wanted to find something that people can relate to
and that they can sing.
And then when that, when I'm not doing that,
then I'll play some other stuff and go crazy.
But, for that melody, when I was playing it--
♪ plays high-pitched note ♪
I just heard it like that.
♪
♪ plays high-pitched note ♪
And I knew that wasn't it,
I was like, there's gotta be more.
♪ plays high-pitched note ♪
♪ jazz piano music playing ♪
♪
Now repeat that.
♪
I knew that I needed to find something.
If people are gonna like Trap Jazz, they gonna be able,
they have to be able to sing it.
'Cause the reason why they don't listen to jazz now
is 'cause they can't sing it.
They don't understand it.
It's too much going on.
It's like all this.
♪ playing fast-paced jazz music ♪
♪
Man, you can't sing that.
I mean, it's all a part of, like, making sure that to me,
make sure people feel like what they would normally feel
in a rap song.
Like, if, if they don't feel like they're not gonna label it
the same type of music, you know,
so if they feel like this is a rap song
and like some girls is up on the couches and chairs
twerking, shakin' their ass, like, I like that.
You know, because I feel like they're-they're-they're doing
what they would normally do in a rap concert,
and if they're doing that at a jazz concert,
we've accomplished something.
♪
♪ Dat boi Cassius ♪
♪
PRETTY KEN: Music is a feeling.
So when you're trying to mesh two different feelings together,
you really have to find somethin' special.
You really have to find the groove.
You really have to find it.
♪
Because jazz is such a calming coolness.
It's the unstructured playing
and just, it's that movement of the music.
Trap, it's nothing movin', it's just a vibe.
♪
So you're trying to blend this energy with this energy
and it's gonna be hard.
CHRIS: What makes it hard is not having
lyrical content in the music.
If the song feels sad,
then typically it's gonna be sad lyrics.
So the music will always go hand in hand with the lyrics
and us not having the lyrics in the music,
is kinda tough to get people to understand
what it sounds like or what we're trying to say
if we're not using words.
♪
YUNG JOC: For people to really take the music serious
or to really move with the music,
♪
I gotta relate,
and I think that's one of the hardest parts of being a artist,
is trying to figure out how to bring people together
and get on one accord.
[pool ball clacks]
Oh, wow. CHRIS: Damn, that's crazy.
CASSIUS: See I do the, I do the hard part.
My job is to produce,
my job is to make the trap beats.
Chris' job is to, to do the jazz.
Chris is a jazz musician.
It's my job and it's-it's my calling
to make sure I help all my brothers.
It's my job to help them. It's my job to give them beats.
They want the beats they just afraid to ask.
STIXX: For sure.
CASSIUS: And I don't know if y'all--
I wasn't afraid, I called him 20,000 times.
- I sent 'em a track call Red. - Red.
STIXX: The Red. Hey, Red go hard.
- Wait till y'all hear Red. - It go hard now.
- We gonna play Red Tuesday at the show. - Yeah.
I've created probably six different,
seven different shows.
But this one that we're gonna do is a show that we never done before.
CASSIUS: What songs are y'all playing though for real, for real?
Man, we gonna play Scream.
- CHRIS: Royalty. - It's the original.
Royalty, Cassius produced it, Young Dolph.
We gonna play Boot Up, of course.
We gotta really bring out all the stops,
you know, we gotta go crazy,
you know, we gotta really play and let them know that this is Atlanta.
This is what we sound like. This is what we do.
It's gonna provide a bunch of new opportunities
and big old doors for us to knock down and run through.
That's really big for us.
Definitely one of the biggest things we've done.
CASSIUS: When I think of jazz, I think of older,
the older community.
I don't think of the young community.
Young people don't listen to jazz, they listen to trap music.
So now we get to bring the older generation into trap music.
So I think Trap Jazz is gonna bring a whole 'nother community together.
STIXX: For sure.
♪ playing slow drum and percussion notes ♪
♪
♪ notes grow louder ♪
♪ piano joins drums and percussion ♪
PERSON 1: I am not a fan of jazz music.
My mother is a fan of jazz music.
I've never got into it.
♪
PERSON 2: I'm not open to learning more about jazz.
It's like something that I never
was interested in hearing.
♪ music grows peppy ♪
LALAH HATHAWAY: You know, If you go to places
that you're supposed to be kinda classy,
there's-there's jazz,
but there's not really, um, an appreciation in this country
as a whole for that.
♪
RAY MURRAY: Has cobwebs on it,
which is why people run from embracing it.
It's the term, it's not what it is.
It's your instant visualization.
When you say "jazz,"
you think of a bunch of people snapping their fingers
and somebody on stage.
That's an old reference and it's stereotype.
♪ peppy piano music playing ♪
♪ percussion and sax joins piano ♪
♪ music tempo increases ♪
♪
DORATHA "DODIE" SMITH-SIMMONS: Jazz used to spell J-A-S-S.
Do you know what that stood for?
Jackass music.
That's what white folks called it
as one white musician told me in polite society.
♪
CHIEF XIAN ATUNDE ADJUAH: In that space, it meant one thing.
In larger space, I think when people use the word "jazz,"
really they're talking about creative improvised music.
♪
SONNY EMORY: Jazz is different than any other genre,
just simply because of the freedom
that it allows the player to have.
There are no boundaries in jazz.
♪ fast-paced jazz music playing ♪ [audience cheers and applause]
CHRIS: I used to watch these jazz videos of, um,
Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis,
Jelly Roll Morton, Pagnell, Art Tatum,
Oscar Peterson, who was my favorite.
He's my favorite piano player in the whole wide world,
Oscar Peterson.
I was listening to all these amazing jazz musicians,
and what I really loved about them
was it seemed like when they were playing
they didn't have to play a certain thing.
It was like structured chaos, you know.
It was like they knew what to play
but they was coming up with it as they was playing it.
That's what really made me like jazz the most.
♪
CHIEF XIAN: There's this air about it that you could make an argument
that it's arguably the most sophisticated
sonic art form in the world.
But it-- there's also this air about it
where it's, like, it comes from Black people,
so it can't be that sophisticated and nuanced.
MR. ROBERT COLN: Growing up as a kid and being African American,
the things that you listen to are very limited.
♪
On a normal day, and during that time,
you couldn't even put your face on a album cover,
much let's say you gonna go somewhere and play.
Jazz got the African American musician out into being seen,
and that was done through...
[camera shutters snapping]
MR. COLN: ...Al Capone,
and all of the gangsters.
And they would ask the Black musicians to come in and play jazz
because that's what they liked.
But jazz has a origin, too.
Gospel.
VOCALIST [singing]: ♪ Trouble in my way ♪ CHOIR [sings]: ♪ Trouble in my way ♪
- ♪ I have to cry sometimes ♪ - ♪ I have to cry sometimes ♪
♪ Trouble in my way, yeah ♪
♪ Trouble in my way ♪
♪ I have to cry sometimes ♪
MR. COLN: Gospel has an origin too, the blues.
CHOIR: ♪ I lay awake at night ♪
Blues has an origin, slaves.
CHOIR: ♪ That's alright ♪
JAZZE PHA: Gospel is the sole provider
of everything that we do,
because as children we come from Sunday school.
♪ upbeat gospel music playing ♪
[singing] ♪ When the gates ♪
CHOIR [sings]: ♪ When the gates ♪
♪ Swing open ♪
CHOIR: ♪ Ohh ♪
♪ indistinct singing ♪
♪
STIXX: Church has bred so many musicians in secular music.
It's a spiritual thing, man.
You know, just God blessing us.
Church is definitely, like, a great learning tool
and a great starting point for a lot of musicians
to really see if this is what they wanna do in life.
♪ Every day I wish you'd just teach me ♪
ZAYTOVEN: When they create music,
it has a different passion, it has a different soul,
has a different heartbeat to it
than just somebody that just,
you know, that didn't grow up in church at all.
CHIEF XIAN: They're responding to the energy,
and the vibration in the space is important.
So if you've ever been to a Baptist church in Louisiana,
you are going to feel some things.
I don't-- You know, you could actually think
that you may be the most heartless person walking the planet,
and walk into that environment and it's a sound, man.
♪
♪ I know that you've been praying ♪
CASSIUS: Church, that's our foundation.
That's what have us grounded,
Stixx, Chris and all them.
CHRIS: In our music I want people to know that we from the church.
CASSIUS: We, we know where we came from.
♪ I got some news... ♪
LIL' JOHN ROBERTS: I went from church gospel music
to playing straight ahead jazz,
and then jumping into the R&B world.
You know, I see these guys doing the same thing,
like going from church,
now they're doing the trap stuff and all.
So, I like to see, you know, the variety mixed into their music.
Jazz, rhythm and blues, funk, fusion, hip-hop, trap,
they are all an expression from the street,
from people saying, "Here-here's what we wanna put into this.
"We want to interject this into the conversation.
We want our voices heard."
What is trap music? What does it do?
♪ I don't do the most, but I do a lot ♪
♪ I'ma make a toast 'cause we still alive ♪
CASSIUS: Trap music is the new pop music.
Like, you don't hear too much people talking about pop no more.
♪ I shoot the shot ♪
♪ Brr, brr, brr ♪
♪ I'm coming in hot ♪
♪
CASSIUS: Urban music is the biggest thing right now.
Everybody wanna be Young Thug.
STIXX: Trap music is Atlanta.
That's our sound.
That's how it has taken over, like, our city and our culture.
You know, I love it.
♪
[sirens wailing] [helicopter whirring]
♪
CASSIUS: The trap is hood stuff, gangster stuff,
gangs and drugs and guns,
and trap is the ghetto.
Once you in there, you in there,
there ain't no coming out.
It's a trap.
The house I grew up in,
literally right across the street was a trap house,
right next door.
Like, it just was a way of life.
That's all they knew, was how to sell drugs.
You gotta be in the trap to make trap music, man.
But this is where this shit started from though. Know what I'm saying?
This where this shit started from.
Trap music could be anything either.
Ain't gonna lie to you,
we talking about trap music it's been a little trap.
INTERVIEWER: It did?
So what trap mean to you?
The real trap is survival.
Man, there's a whole lot of narcotics on the, on the mix tape, man.
You know what I mean? You just spin your drug lingo,
you spin the discrete side of your lifestyle on music.
My second album was the first time the word "trap"
and the word "music" was combined.
The album meant to represent a large group of people
who were doing the same shit that I was doing,
and wasn't nobody speaking for 'em at the time.
You inspire them and let them know that
you too could come from that wreckage
and make something of the skills that you've acquired
and take it somewhere else.
I didn't go into making that album
as thinking that the world needed trap music.
I went into it thinking the niggas in the trap
needed trap music. [chuckles]
People think that it's strictly about, you know, selling drugs.
It-It might have stemmed from that,
but that's not all it is.
CASSIUS: If it wasn't for Zaytoven, there wouldn't be a Cassius.
And there's another way, I met Zaytoven at church.
Everything I came across was at church, church, church, church, church.
That's why I still play at church.
I started making beats like Zaytoven.
Everything he did, I would mimic, I would sit right there.
He had an MPC, I went and bought an MPC.
He would go get, uh, Kronos keyboard,
I'd go save up me some money, get a Kronos keyboard.
At this time I don't really got too much of no money,
but I'm hanging with Zaytoven, since like,
if I wanna be like him, I gotta mimic him.
♪ hip-hop beat playing ♪
♪
ZAYTOVEN: My definition of trap music is,
it's motivational music, spontaneous music.
♪
It's unpolished music.
STIXX: I think people are drawn to it
number one, because of how the beats sound,
that grimy sound is the trap sound.
You know, it make everybody dance soon as they hear it.
DJ TOOMP: Now you got effects that'll
take the music and warp it.
[imitates electronic beats warbling and warping]
And all the kinda filtering.
♪ playing piano notes ♪
♪
DJ TOOMP: It's a lot of technology, a lot of plugins,
a lot of different things that's really enhancing the sound basically.
DRUMMA BOY: It's the producers that are creating these new sounds,
creating these new waves for new artists,
really seeing the evolution.
And once you've seen the evolution,
you kinda can see how it's gonna keep going.
What I know of most of the jazz players
who are prolific and legendary,
they spent plenty of time in some traps.
[chuckles] You know what I'm saying? So--
The drug dealer and the musician has been synonymous
since the beginnin' of time.
YUNG JOC: It's a body of so much pain, struggle,
but at the same time, success.
When you had people like T.I. talking about stuff
he was going through,
and then at the same time still talking about coming up,
it's not just gangster music.
I must live in left field somewhere.
I must be getting old. Trap.
Man, trap jazz, I couldn't believe nobody was doing it.
Remind me of Kenny G.
Remember Kenny G would do all Janet Jackson songs,
but he'd play it on his horn?
Well, I-I got a good, I got a good idea why they probably don't do it.
There's a lot of, you know, the old,
you know, I call 'em the foggie stogies.
- CASSIUS: Okay. - You know what I'm saying?
They don't really want to mesh the two
because they feel like jazz is jazz, is to be revered and respected as,
you know, jazz is j-just jazz. CASSIUS: Right.
JAZZE PHA: It has a certain class to it.
Yes.
Jazz is very classy. CASSIUS: Right.
And so for, you know, some people,
a lot of "musicians and people," you know, might feel as classless.
People might think that, until they hear it,
and they feel it,
and they see the effect that it has on people.
♪ light, poignant music playing ♪
♪
CHRIS: My first experience with jazz
was at Columbia High School with Mr. Coln.
♪
[school bell ringing]
♪
CHRIS: Those years was important I think.
♪
They really, like, molded me
and taught me how to have my own discipline
in learning music.
♪
Hey, Mr. Coln, aah!
Oh, my God.
CHRIS: How are you, man?
- Good to see you. - What's up, dawg?
Okay, now explain this trap thing to me.
CHRIS: Alright, so, [clears throat] basically trap,
the trap part of it is, um, is basically the hood,
you know, like growing up in the, in the hood there's trap houses,
there's, you know, people talk, the rappers talking about trap
like, okay, like selling drugs, you know,
you know, the-the pimps and the prostitutes or whatever it is,
or whatever is going on in the hood, you know, color--
What's the objective?
Um, the objective is to,
to provide the type of music for everybody.
So now is this more instrumental?
CHRIS: It's instrumental, yeah.
We got some, some artists wanting to, you know, put dibs in on,
you know, who the first rapper or singer is.
But it's clean?
It's clean, but there'll probably be some,
you know, slightly dirty raunchy moments,
because we don't wanna leave that out.
It's a, it's a part of what's going on in-in our world right now.
Okay, are, are these negative, degrading?
No. Um, I guess if you call, you know, partying, having a good time, you know.
MR. COLN: You ain't referencing no drugs or nothin' like that.
Nah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't put drugs in there,
but I would definitely want the songs--
If somebody was to put lyrics on it,
I would want it to be about living your life, having fun.
Yep, and we gotta keep jazz in there.
That's what I didn't wanna leave out at all.
And you can write this on paper now?
CHRIS: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
[chuckles] We learned that, yeah, we learned that in high school.
Okay, now. CHRIS: We learned that.
Put it on paper, you know, okay. CHRIS: Yeah, we put it on paper.
We could write it out.
MR. COLN: Chris was like a isolated person,
and he was real quiet, laid back,
and I noticed him one day he was banging on the piano,
and I'm going, "Well, what are you playing?"
I was playing Brian McKnight, um, Anytime.
♪ vocalizing ♪
The females be like, "Oh, my God, this is my song!
Oh, my God, oh, my God."
They would come to the piano.
And he came up, he was like,
"Alright, Mr. Moten, you feel like you wanna show off?
You think you this, that and the other, alright."
And he put a blank piece of staff paper in front of me
and he was like, "Alright, since you think
"you're big and bad then," you know,
you know, "Why don't you write out the last
four measures of what you played?"
What I told Chris, said, "Look.
"You know where the keys are on the keyboards.
"You just gotta be able to transpose
what's on that paper to what your fingers are doing."
I think I almost cried but I didn't.
I was mad though,
because even the girls,
it was looking like, [clicks tongue] "Well, you can't write music,
you're not that fly," you know.
"You're not that dope, you're not that cute."
From then on I started learning, like, everything I could.
Let me hear some of this.
I got, like, my single that you can hear.
♪ Dat boi Cassius ♪
♪ Boot Up by Cassius Jay playing ♪
♪ upbeat trumpet note plays ♪
This the melody.
♪
Still got the trap beat.
♪
Now this is not really jazzy, but it's just a hint of it.
What about after that, that keyboard, supposed to be a jazz mix?
That's my jazz mix, but it symphs so we gonna keep it light.
MR. COLN: Okay.
And then we're gonna really go into the jazzin'.
Having the chance to show him what I came up with,
and, like, you know, that was kinda scary.
♪ piano notes and soft jazz tones playing ♪
Look at his face.
- [laughter] - Wait a minute, now hold it.
- CHRIS: This me. - This you?
♪ piano and percussion notes crescendo ♪
♪ tempo increases, recedes ♪
Man, blues changes, man. CHRIS: Watch this.
♪ peppy dance jazz music playing ♪
We're not there yet.
♪
♪ Chris humming trombone notes ♪
♪ fast-paced trombone and light percussion music playing ♪
Those are all jazz mix playing.
[laughter]
Whoa!
Well done.
♪
Those are all jazz licks that stay true to jazz.
♪ upbeat trumpet note plays ♪
Now we go back to the,
two, three, four, one, two, three, four. [laughs]
- One, two, three, four. One, hey. - No, wait a minute.
And he was happy to know that not only was I doing jazz,
but I'm doing something that works in this era.
Anybody can listen to this, man.
- CHRIS: Anybody. - It can go anywhere.
CHRIS: That's-that's the biggest thing about it, man.
Be classy and still a little bit raunchy
- and hood a little bit, you know? [laughs] - Yeah.
That will sell. CHRIS: Yeah.
I really wanted to make sure that the old heads would, like, approve.
It feels good for them to say,
"This is gonna work."
♪ Boot Up by Cassius Jay playing ♪
♪
I like the idea of almost a little commercial things in there.
Yes. Yes.
- That'll keep you on your toes, you know. - Yes, yeah.
JOHNNY KNAPP: And then also you gotta get something
that can get into a groove so that women dance.
Yes.
If women get involved, guys get involved.
STIXX: Yes, sir.
If there's a girl around, there's a guy around.
- STIXX: Yes. - And if the girl likes to dance to it,
then you're on your way.
[patrons cheering]
♪ Boot Up intro by Cassius Jay playing ♪
♪
♪ soft whistling ♪
♪
♪ It's strip club music ♪
♪ Gotta play Cassius ♪
♪
[cheering]
♪
CASSIUS: Strippers play a real big role in trap music
because without the strippers,
the DJs wouldn't even know about certain songs.
So, when I used to make trap music,
first thing I used to do is get my song,
I mixed it, took it to the strip club
and all the strippers started dancing to it.
♪
If you could get a girl to shake that ass to your music,
you got a hit.
♪
That was weird to see them dancing off Boot Up at a strip club.
But it was that trap shit.
So it's like, "Whoa, we got a hit then, goddamn,
we can run with this one."
♪
GUITARIST: That has it.
♪ drumbeats ♪
This is the first, this is the first time
everybody's about to play together.
♪
CHRIS: I'm definitely not prepared for Tuesday.
We're prepared musically.
We know what we wanna do.
But the-the biggest preparation of all is
in the rehearsal.
Don't fuck around, man.
I'm not, I don't-- I don't bullshit.
I don't bullshit like that.
So... so I'll do the first one, you do the second one,
you can do the third one. Hey.
♪ playing fast-paced notes ♪
Right there. Right there.
Let's pace that right there.
♪ piano notes crescendo ♪
Ah, hey!
♪ notes grow louder ♪
Hey.
I feel a little bit detached, like,
you know, it's so hard to get these guys in one room,
one rehearsal, one stage.
STIXX: Getting all the songs together,
arranging these songs, getting all the material together,
getting the band together,
still trying to do whatever we have to do individually
in between rehearsals and make rehearsals work.
You know, setting up studio sessions,
trying to get ahold of Cassius, you know.
Getting his busy schedule, getting my schedule,
getting Chris' schedule together, you know.
Chris flying in and out of the state doing tour shows
and preparing for this as well.
It's a lot of stress
and, you know, and a lot that comes with it.
Five, six, seven, unh!
♪
CHRIS: The magic is when we come together
and find the vibe and the correct chemistry
to give 'em a great show.
♪ high-pitched percussion music joins guitar solo ♪
♪
♪ music ends ♪
♪
[indistinct conversations] [laughter]
♪
FAN 1: Man, I'm always down to hear good live music.
So just to hear some people's shit,
it's always really inspiring to me.
FAN 2: I'm here to see the band,
I'm here to see Devon, really.
I wanna see them get down a little bit.
FAN 3: Trap and jazz? Okay, let's see what this is about.
I mean, I really don't know.
These boys are some of the most talented boys in the city.
♪
[people cheering]
♪
[indistinct chatter]
♪
[inaudible dialogue]
How y'all feeling tonight, man?
[crowd cheers]
Yeah.
♪ uplifting trombone music playing ♪
♪
♪ music intensifies ♪
♪
♪ rapid drumbeats ♪
♪ maracas join music ♪
♪
♪ fast-paced piano notes join music ♪
♪ powerful drumbeating ♪
♪
♪ jazzy trombone notes join music ♪
[loud boom, electricity surges] ♪ music stops ♪
[indistinct yelling]
CHRIS [on microphone]: Yeah, and we already knew it,
and we already knew it,
and we already knew it.
♪ upbeat drum music plays ♪
♪ music fades ♪
[indistinct chatter]
STIXX: Stuff wasn't right.
We still didn't have, like, a lot of the songs together.
Like, we still having patch issues
and power issues and shit like that.
♪ loud uplifting trombone music playing ♪
That sounds like the loudest it's been.
♪ percussion trilling ♪
CASSIUS: Chris got his own mind.
That night I kept saying,
"Chris, like you see this shit fucking up,
let's go to the next song."
So I get irritated.
He know I get irritated.
I'll be ready to fight.
Like, man, I'm finna pop you in your mouth, bro,
if you don't listen to me.
Which I won't do it because he's my brother and I love him,
but he irritates the fuck outta me.
CHRIS: I don't remember much about the beginning of that actually.
I don't. I was, like, having fun, I was lit,
so I was outta there, like--
[laughing] Chris was lit.
That's why we was frustrated, too.
'Cause that nigga was so lit, bro.
Devon says Chris looked at him,
and says, "Devon give me a-a-a drumbeat."
And says, "Chris, start rolling up a blunt."
[laughs]
Y'all make noise, real quick, make some noise.
♪ upbeat music playing ♪
♪
[indistinct yelling]
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
- [audience whooping] - What's up, guys?
Y'all make some noise.
Make some noise. Make some noise.
[audience cheering]
So, let's go back to the repeat.
Go out-- Jordan, I need something from Jordan.
[sings] ♪ Bye, bye ♪
You, shot.
Jordan.
STIXX: Chris treated it like a live recording.
You know, every time he heard something wrong he was like,
"Nope, come on, man.
You know we taping, we gotta get it right."
Oh, yeah, it, it was a lot of frustration.
The frustration came from everybody losing sight of the music.
♪ intense drum music playing ♪
Ready for the singing, man? Sing, sing. Go ahead.
♪ intense drum music playing ♪
♪
[people cheering]
CASSIUS: We all had a conversation afterwards
and we all shared our opinions,
and me and Devon was on the same page.
Chris, "You guys sound amazing."
That's what he said to me.
[laughs]
"You guys sound amazing."
That nigga Devon's like, "Nah."
When you see me smiling, that's me smiling,
some of it's frustration but some of it's just me looking at my brother like,
"This is a hard head joker right here."
But I love him, what can I do?
♪ light music playing ♪
♪
STIXX: Man, listen, man,
I've been waiting for Chris for about 30 minutes.
Listen, I'm about to get y'all--
Look, me and Cassius,
we about to call Chris one more time, man.
He probably ain't even gonna answer.
[line ringing]
STIXX: He gonna text me back like, "I'm on--"
CASSIUS: You know he a pretty boy.
STIXX: Of course. You know he gonna take a hour to get ready.
[ringing continues]
Nothing.
And he came. [laughs]
CASSIUS: And he gonna try come in with water and shit.
STIXX: Look at him. Wait, with cookie? [laughs]
Hungry, boy. STIXX: What's up, bro?
- How you doing? - Straight.
- What up, baby? - What up, bro? You good?
- Yeah, bro. - Good to see you.
Good to see you, too, nigga.
All good? STIXX: Yeah.
So what y'all out here talking about?
STIXX: Damn, you, and David being late. [laughs]
I was asleep, man.
STIXX: What's up, man? What we doing, man?
What we gotta do to put this project out?
Cassius is trying to drop it on December 30th,
whether we like it or not.
That's cool, 'cause I wanna do a show in Atlanta.
They kept asking me why the album ain't done. I tried askin'--
STIXX: They kept asking both of us,
"What's-what's, what's taking so long?" Like, you feel me?
- Oh. So-- - Like, yeah, that's what--
Like, fans wanna know where the album at.
I'm pretty sure that the guys in the band
believe in Trap-- Trap Jazz,
but I'm pretty sure outside of me, us three,
it's not one of them that got their heart and soul...
- STIXX: It's not priority. - ...attached to it. Yeah.
CHRIS: I cannot ask them
to always come to the studio for free.
- STIXX: No. - You know, I'll wait for them.
Devon and I can.
I know he--
It's a different, it's a different motivation in him
to-to make Trap Jazz happen.
And so Trap Jazz ain't paying no $500 a day
to pay they thousand dollar rent and $200 cell phone
and keep them fly every day,
then, you know, we gotta do what we gotta do till we get there, you know.
Okay, well, Cassius is saying you just play everything yourself.
Play guitar and play horns yourself.
Nah, we can get guitar, but horns and shit.
We gotta get out of guitar.
- Alright, we'll just get horn. - Yeah, we can do that, too.
- You just play the horns yourself. - Or maybe, maybe sax.
I know you can do horns.
I need three days at the studio, time paid for, that's it.
And you gonna be there or nah?
Hell, yeah, you talking about eight hours.
I'd know if I call Chris like,
"Chris, let's go make some beats."
Chris not gonna show up.
He's gonna have an excuse or something.
I know my brother so I let him be him.
I respect him, you notice I don't bother Chris.
I let, I let Chris be Chris and I just do as much as I can for him.
I support him.
I think I take it more seriously than I should sometimes.
You know, like getting mad that certain things is not happening
and, like, sometimes I sit back and be crying, you know.
Because I'm thinking like, nigga, I'm 30--
How come you don't never share this frustration with me though?
I'm 32.
'Cause like it's-it's a matter of like--
You know, how we-- You know, where we came from.
You know.
My dad, your dad, you know what they taught us.
- Right. - You know what I'm saying?
We ain't no pussies,
we ain't no cry babies.
♪ light music playing ♪
♪
I'm capable of letting people down,
and I didn't like the way that it felt at all,
because I remember what it felt like, too.
♪
With me and-and my father it was love.
I trusted him that his love was gonna, gonna be there.
♪
I always sat with him at church on the organ.
I sat right next to him.
I wanted to be like him.
And the fact that I was playing like him and sounded like him,
it really made me feel like that was more of why,
you know, God chose him to be my father and me to be his son
is that we have the same type of calling.
♪
I do remember being confused
and... and lashing out and sometimes,
and being, you know, outta control,
and... um,
you know, disrespecting my mother and--
Uh, but I was definitely angry that,
you know, my father wasn't there.
[clears throat]
Uh, 'cause you, yeah, you want your father there, you know.
You want him to be there.
Um, so why he would lie and say
he's gonna be there if he's not?
Uh, that's pretty fucked up way to feel,
especially for your hero.
So who's next, you know?
Who else will I lose like that?
♪
That'll send you down a, a dark road
of beating yourself up
and, um, really refusing to try something else
and try to go back at it.
♪
♪ gentle piano music playing ♪
NEWSCASTER: His father was not around
when Christopher was a child...
♪
...and the family went through years of intense hardship.
♪
CHRIS' MOM: To watch Chris
go through the things that he went through
as his mom I didn't wanna see that.
I didn't know what to give him.
You know?
And sometimes he would just say, "Just say a prayer."
♪
[thunder cracks]
CHRIS: You know, some of that love that I'm supposed to be experiencing
with my father is not happening.
♪
I just held it in a lot, you know?
'Cause there was no way to deal with it.
[sound of a record scratching]
CHRIS: Can't fix it, can't change it, so just let it be.
♪ piano music playing ♪
I'm not gonna let nobody see that.
I'm not gonna let anybody experience that part of me.
Uh, you're not gonna be able to manipulate that.
♪
You're not gonna be able to know my downfalls
and know my anger and my issues
and then use it against me.
♪
CHRIS' MOM [voice breaking]: I know that sometimes,
as human beings,
we have to go through some things
to cause us to be stronger,
to cause us to think differently.
It's hard to see when it's your child going through,
but I know that it's all in his making.
♪
CASSIUS: I told Chris, "Chris, you need to learn how to follow."
I said, "You don't listen."
They always say that to be a great leader,
you gotta be a great follower.
I don't know nobody Chris has followed.
♪
Chris is in his own world.
He is a hell of a musician,
but he-he gotta learn how to follow first.
♪
♪ dramatic finish ♪
♪ jazzy trumpet music playing ♪
♪
CHIEF XIAN: Mm.
CHRIS: Yah! What's up, man?
What's up? How are you, man?
Christian Scott, I've been following him
for probably like two years, um, had never met him.
He's very sensitive to what he's playing,
and he doesn't just spit out a note
just, just to have sound or just to play,
which I do a lot.
And some other people, we, we are still learning to do that.
I would definitely take something like that from him
and, uh, that makes him to me a really, really great, um, musician,
a strong force in the industry.
Yeah, what did you hear?
Well, so I was on YouTube and saw some clips there.
- Okay, so probably like Boot Up. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Mm-hmm. - Maybe Red, that's all stuff--
No, Boot Up, definitely.
- Boot Up, definitely? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.
What you think about it?
Man, it's dope, but what you doing is like,
for me it's really important in this moment.
- Yeah. - To-to show the synergy
between those cultural spaces within a cultural space.
- Yes. Yes, absolutely. - You get what I'm saying?
I think a lot of times people when they-they think of, um,
you know, what's going on right now in the, the newer movement,
they like to separate those cultures as if
- they're like mutually exclusive things. - Yes.
- Right. - And, um, and it's the same people.
So, so finding a way to sort of to speak through generations
and context within a culture is really important.
So I'm glad about what you're doing.
When I listen to trap music, and I listen to Elvin Jones,
I can hear that those rhythms,
all of those things are West African rhythms.
To me I know that ancestral recall exists, right?
That's a real thing.
It's more than the color of your eyes
that's being rewritten when you're brought here.
This is why people that were denied
the ability to play drums
still ended up being so rhythmic 300, 400 years later.
♪ playing Boot Up on piano ♪
♪
CHIEF XIAN: And then Summertime was like--
♪
♪ trumpet playing Summertime joins piano ♪
♪
So it's all about these, these two chords.
CHIEF XIAN: Mm-hmm.
♪
Right. Exactly, right here. [laughs] CHRIS: Yeah.
♪
Yeah.
♪
That's crazy. PRODUCER: That's crazy.
That's sick. CHRIS: Fuck!
But I mean-- Right?
So, so, so-- CHRIS: Damn it!
CHIEF XIAN: So the thing is, I mean what we use all-- Summertime as a--
- We ain't lost nothing. - As an example.
The synergy between those spaces,
you don't have to look hard to find those things
'cause the-the-the cultural expression is still--
- Still there. - It's still the same culture.
♪ trumpet music playing ♪
CHRIS: I wanted everybody to be able to play this music.
It's more of an idea,
a movement for everybody to cling to
because we've always been a part of the blues, gospel,
turning into jazz and to rock and roll and to pop music,
rap, hip-hop, music all over the world.
We need to be able to connect,
and everybody has their own idea
of how they want to contribute their music to the world.
And this is just mine.
♪
♪ high-pitched trumpet music playing ♪
♪
CHRIS: I just found out we going on first,
so we gotta light that bitch up, bro.
[Stixx speaking]
We gotta light it up.
CHRIS: I think it'll be an explosion if we do it first, like--
It'll be clean tight and then hit 'em.
We received a call to play for Quincy's tribute in LA.
The call was crazy because prior to that
I was working on two or three of Quincy Jones' songs,
and I was going to trap them out like I did the other ones.
So, uh, when he called and he said,
"Man, just take some of his songs. Just do what you do."
That was already crazy 'cause it lined up,
again, just like do what you love,
stay at it 'cause these opportunities might just catch you
in the right time.
STIXX: It's gonna be an amazing time
because we mixing our stuff with his music,
so it's gonna be cool.
Like, to do like, all of his hits, but put our own spin on it,
which is the Trap Jazz.
CHRIS: If you know me,
you know Quincy is like my favorite from the beginning.
Just being in high school and knowing that he was like,
the greatest musician in the world, really.
Oh, yeah, Mr. Coln used to always hype him up.
I mean, he talked about a lot of other musicians,
but it seemed like when he wanted us to, like,
really be inspired by somebody,
uh, he would always use Quincy.
Movies, TV, um, pop music,
jazz, old school, Frank Sinatra.
Like, damn!
How much was you working every day?
♪ playing hip-hop music ♪
CASSIUS: I'm excited about it.
Earlier I watched the Quincy Jones documentary,
and got inspired to see how much work he had done done
in such little time.
It made me wanna go back to doing the trap jazz.
So Trap Jazz is--
it wasn't paying me no money so it just wasn't my focus.
But now me seeing the bigger picture of it, it's my focus.
CHRIS: Quincy is also, like, the definition
of, like, what you can do with potential.
Most people, we never live up to our potential.
We never really reach it.
♪ upbeat music playing ♪
♪
He clearly would know what the fuck I'm doing.
One, two, three, four.
[overlapping chatter]
CHRIS: He would know where I'm comin' from and how I wanna do it,
and why I'm doing it.
He's gonna know that 'cause he comes from that.
[audience cheering]
[inaudible dialogue]
CHRIS: For me to meet him,
that's really gonna be fun, man.
I can't wait for it.
And I'll just make sure I'm not nervous though.
Make sure I'm relaxed enough.
A special inspiration for me and our team
and our community is here tonight.
Ladies and gentlemen, make some noise for Mr. Quincy Jones.
[audience cheering]
[inaudible dialogue]
Make some noise for Trap Jazz.
[cheering]
♪ upbeat trap jazz music playing ♪
♪
CHRIS: I saw this moment.
A lot of people was trying to talk to him
but he was just looking and just listening.
He heard that-- them drums, and he heard the brass,
he heard his song, but he heard it differently,
than probably he's ever heard it before.
♪
This is an original song called Boot Up.
Everybody say,"Boot Up!"
[crowd cheering]
♪ Boot Up playing ♪
♪
He saw the people jumping
and I think that made him at least pay attention
and say, "Oh, this is... this is different."
And I-- that's what I would like to believe he was thinking.
Uh, so it was, it was mind blowing.
[indistinct chatter]
CHRIS: Meeting him, talking to him,
having, like, fun conversation with him.
Him telling stories, like, it was crazy.
It was definitely mind-blowing.
I couldn't believe that it was happening actually.
[inaudible dialogue]
That was--
That was a... a-a treasure, yeah.
I'll never forget that for sure.
First time.
STIXX: We're growing as a group playing-wise a lot.
We about to start working on some new music, too.
Like me, him and Cassius,
we actually was in the studio not too long ago.
- We came up with some, some new stuff. - New stuff.
STIXX: We still gotta get it mixed and mastered, you feel me?
Like, we still mixing certain stuff.
CHRIS: That's really all I'm doing is editing drums right now.
I'm taking every little beat
and making sure it is where it need to be.
CASSIUS: We haven't finished the album.
We ain't even shopped the deal.
We ain't even tried to shop the deal.
That's like, that's the first step getting the deal for it.
So that's the beginning stage. That's the good part.
But now we just gotta get the album finished.
It's just up to Chris to do his part, period.
♪ jazz music playing ♪
♪
CHRIS: Hmm.
CHRIS' DAD: Remember that one?
CHRIS: Mm-hmm.
♪ gentle instrumental music playing ♪
♪
This is the first one? This the first album?
CHRIS' DAD: Mm-hmm.
Is the first one? Yeah.
You would play this one. [laughs] Yeah.
- You like that one? - Yeah, I remember this one.
CHRIS' DAD: In the prison system,
I was fortunate enough to have
a lot of equipment given to me.
I had people that still believed in me,
and all I had to do was ask for whatever I needed
and eventually I ended up with a studio in prison.
I actually recorded a gospel CD while in prison.
A lot of talented guys were in prison.
Some-- many of my friends are out now
and a lot of them will,
you know, they'll never get out,
or it'll be many more years before they will get out.
But I take great pride in, um--
♪
[clears throat]
I take great pride in knowing that I left something there for them.
My physical body left them after 20 years,
but I left things in place where these guys can keep
polishing their gifts and keep working hard.
Of course, I know that's Amazing Grace.
But you didn't name anything different though, right?
I decided to call it Grace Amazing.
Grace Amazing. CHRIS' DAD: Mm-hmm.
Flipped it, okay.
And, you-- Yeah, you had limited equipment to work with,
whereas
in most studios today it's a, you know, big console.
- CHRIS' DAD: Oh, yeah, it was-- - A laptop, big computer.
CHRIS' DAD: The bare minimum.
And then you played all the instruments.
You went from piano to the organ.
- To drums. - Right. Well, I did all the music first.
You did the music first.
CHRIS' DAD: I laid down, you know, each instrument.
CHRIS: Mm-hmm. CHRIS' DAD: Uh--
It wasn't always right the first time,
but then you just do it over and over till you get it right,
and then once I mix it down to where I was satisfied,
then I would work on the vocals.
Grace Amazing was, uh, I think one of the first songs
that I heard that you recorded.
CHRIS' DAD: Mm-hmm.
CHRIS: And it wasn't like this, it wasn't fully produced.
Oh, no. CHRIS: No instruments.
Um, it was just you on piano.
And I remember learning it back to back,
me and Josh just sitting back, rewinding it.
The little chord changes you would do. CHRIS' DAD: Oh, yeah.
CHRIS: That was all, like, you know, pfft, you know,
explosive to us, so--
You would always not really teach us,
- like, in a sense of like a teacher... - Mm-hmm.
...or a professor.
You was really just giving us your, your sound or your--
the elements that you would use, you know, on chord changes.
Well, I always want you to understand
why I did what I did.
Hmm.
I always wanted you to have your own style.
And it got to the point where
when I, when I got most of your moves down
and started playing 'em the way you played 'em,
people would notice it.
- Mm-hmm. - They would notice it.
Some people would come like a mother in the church would come,
and say, "You know you sound just like your daddy?"
I'm like, "You ain't heard him play in 15 years,
how do you know that?" CHRIS' DAD: 100 years. [laughs]
But there is that church sound...
- CHRIS' DAD: Absolutely. - ...that I finally got down.
Yeah. [chuckles]
CHRIS' DAD: I love to hear him play.
I enjoyed watching him play
and I was extremely proud that this was my kid.
♪
I admire your durability.
Hmm.
You have endured a lot, a lot.
- Uh, some your fault, some not your fault. - Absolutely.
A lot of things you went through I didn't want you to go through,
but I saw how you stuck in there.
I think that's gonna carry you a long way
because you're durable.
Hmm.
You, you know how to stick it out even when it gets rough.
Of course I'm always on your side
- even when I tell you I'm not. - Mm-hmm.
I'm always on your side.
Always.
That means a lot.
And I want better for you than I ever had for myself.
And to me that's the evidence of real love
when you can celebrate somebody else as if it were yourself.
- Mm. - When you desire more of a person
than you desire for yourself.
You taught me how to be strong.
♪
You taught me how to stay focused.
♪
Even, uh, in the midst of things that I'm going through today,
I can kinda look at you and see how you stay focused.
Even when things are at their worst
you just keep going.
Before it is all said and done,
we doin' a album together.
Deal?
- After I get The Phantom. - Deal?
After I get The Phantom, we'll do it.
[laughter]
We'll see about that.
Maybe we'll rent one,
I'll rent you one and we'll do the, do the album that week.
[laughter]
♪
STIXX: I watched Chris change over the past couple of years.
His music, his energy, his priorities,
he's getting older, like, we not kids no more,
you know what I mean?
Like, we ain't out here just fuckin' around no more,
like, shit has to make sense.
CHRIS: I definitely learned to, at least as much as I can,
try to show up before everybody else in the band.
Not being there is, uh, keeping us
from making certain decisions that were very important,
that I didn't realize that they cared enough
for me to keep me in the loop about.
STIXX: We got a show tonight, baby.
We on the way to the stu.
That's when the best shit comes.
Every time.
The pandemic, it had a bad effect,
but then it had a, a good effect, too.
I was able to get, like, a lot of my own personal music done.
I wanna be one of those guys when song come on, you go crazy,
but I made the song, you know.
Something that's gonna be here for forever even when I'm long gone.
And I was able to spend time with my daughter, too.
I have a, I have a daughter now, two daughters actually.
♪
[baby coos]
♪
STIXX: Our music is unique and nobody else do it or duplicate it.
♪
If we get signed to a major record label, cool.
If not, cool, we'll still be able to do it independently, too.
♪
PRODUCER: If you could speak to your 10-year-old self right now,
what would you say to him?
I would tell him, um, don't wait.
Don't wait for what everybody else thinks
that you should be doing.
Don't wait for your family.
Don't wait for people who you thought were your friends.
Do it for yourself first,
and then try to help everybody else.
Everybody who knows me knows that I don't want fame,
I just want it to be about music.
Got a new sound, you just gotta hear it.
♪ gentle piano music playing ♪
♪ upbeat drum music joins ♪
♪
I definitely want my legacy to just be around
for like my children.
I used to go to the studio and watch my dad
and be at shows where he used to have me like on the Grammy.
♪
I want them to see that
you could do whatever you pretty much wanna do.
♪
CASSIUS: Trap Jazz is, it's gonna be real, real big, real huge.
There's no limits to it.
I think it's gonna probably be one of the biggest things in the next five years.
It's gonna almost be like how hip-hop was in Atlanta.
It's gonna take off and everybody gonna start doing it their own ways.
♪
CHRIS: I want people to really
enjoy music with their heart and their soul
'cause music is very healing.
It's, uh, very spiritual, it's very powerful.
If they can dance from it,
if they can play the music after losing someone
or just in the moment.
I want to serve people musically.
♪
STIXX: Really good music when it enters you,
it's like the one thing other than God
that can change the way you feel without your permission.
♪
CHRIS' DAD: That was new to me.
To see your child doing what he was born to do,
to see him absolutely...
♪
...free.
♪
PRODUCER: Whoo! And cut.
CHRIS: That'll work.
MAN: Play-play-play this record as frequently as--
[record fades] ♪ upbeat music playing ♪
♪
♪ music stops ♪
♪ smooth jazz music playing ♪
♪ music fades out ♪