Eselina Barnett

JAM AMMY, KRIP HOP ARTIST

I met an incredible man by the name of Leroy Moore who, together with Keith Jones, is the creator of Krip Hop Nation, an organization dedicated to promoting the talents, history, rights and marketability of Hip-Hop artists and other musicians with disabilities. I read about his organization and reached out to him. I told him all about my son Jam, who is on the autism spectrum, and his music. He invited Jam to be on Krip Hop Nation's 10 year anniversary CD! The celebration continued with a live anniversary showcase in which Jam Ammy (aka Jam) was invited to Oakland, California to perform live! It just so happened that Jam Ammy was making waves in Arizona as a local rap artist with autism who uses medical cannabis to help with the complications associated with autism. The same people that were doing the documentary in Arizona for autism and cannabis thought it would be a wonderful idea to follow Jam to Oakland to film his experience and his performance in Oakland and add it to the Arizona documentary. This was an experience I will never forget. Being able to travel with my son and watching him on stage doing what he loves to do meant the world to me! It's amazing to watch him live his dream!!

Click on the following link to watch short documentary of Jam performing and discussing his work an autistic krip hop artist. https://youtu.be/TJkxYU8jsoE

Jam Ammy writes many of his own songs. Here are two of them. The first song is "Vegan Chick". The idea of this song came from Jam Ammy's familiend (which means a friend who is family) TNT. TNT and Jam worked on the song together from beginning to end. They each wrote their own verses, total track produced by Jam Ammy. The song Vegan Chick is inspired by the life that Jam Ammy and TNT live. They are both vegan, pure plant based life style. They just wanted to show some love for all the Vegan Queens out there in the world.

Here is a second song, "Papa Og". Jam Ammy was asked to write a song for his dad for Father's Day, by his dad. Jam did not want to write the song! After a whole lot of talking to I finally convinced Jam that this is his chance to tell his dad his feelings the best way he knows how, on the mic! It took him all if five days from making the beat, recording the live vocals, by Jam's familiend Stacey Lee Davis, recording his own verses, back ground, and finally putting everything together. Jam Ammy says, "Papa Og was originally not what I expected it to be, it came out ten times better!"

*Editor's Note: This piece is a follow up to Eselina Barnett's essay in the June 2018 issue of this journal "Being a Mother to an Aspiring Black Hip Hop Artist with Autism".

Eselina M. Barnett is a single mother of two boys. She is the Momager of the dopest lyricist with Autism JAM. She is a proud advocate for Autism Awareness and Autism and hip hop, and a member of MAMMAS (Mother's Advocating Medical Marijuana For Autism). Barnett was born in 1975 and raised in Watts, California. Raised by a single mother herself, she has worked very hard on raising her black boys to break that vicious cycle of absent black men in the free world. Her goal is to help her son Jam wake up the world by sharing his messages through music.