“Don’t call me a socialist. I’m an anti-socialist,” Jaz Frazier tells me. Mallwalkers’ frontman and Hop Hop MC is forward about their introvert tendencies, too: “If I’m not in bed by 9 o’clock. I’m in bed by 9 o’clock.”
The 25-year old musician/performer attributes the illusion of them as an extroverted performer to tunnel vision: “I just do whatever I have to do. Remember to breathe and not throw up on anybody.”
I first saw Frazier perform at the Mallwalkers’ album release party at Sugar City this past October. They never stopped moving; if you blinked you’d miss something. You could only keep up with them by focusing on the purple-haired wig they was donning that night. Their movements were unpredictable and noncontinuous and this is exactly how they speak.
It’s impossible to tell if it’s the caffeinated libations that cause non-linear narratives to spill out one after another or if it’s genetic. They say that growing up, several of their sisters were on Adderall and Jaz was the only one left bouncing around.
Whatever the reason, Frazier, who was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in small town southern Alabama and subsequently Pensacola, Florida, puts that slow Southern drawl stereotype to bed. This is even more heard through their work as Hop Hop, a project they share with Brandon Schlia, the founder of local indie label Steak and Cake Records and their musical soulmate.
Frazier is unsure about the percentage split between them and Schlia on the project but is clear on one thing: “I am Hop Hop.”
Soulmate or no soulmate, Frazier states working with other musicians can also be difficult since verbalizing isn’t their strong suit and if there’s a musical language they speaks, it’s nameless. In their formative years, Frazier couldn’t read music or tabs. Guided by their aural senses, they held their ear up to the neck of their amp-less bass to feel the vibrations.
“Everything is by sound. I’ll just feel around until it feels good…It makes it kind of difficult to work with other people because I sort of lack a structured language.” But, the benefit to this nameless approach is, “When it’s right, I feel it.”
Though their narratives are non-linear and their musical language is nameless, there is clarity in the sense of themself as a creator. They are upfront when admitting that they are difficult to work with and that they struggle to keep their id caged because “I don’t like when people take the reigns of my shit.” They highlight the necessity for a finalized track to imbue Hop Hop’s sound, a sound they describe as hip hop, of course, but also as real as possible and ultimately music that radiates their touch and emanates their ownership.
Ownership is a pertinent aspect of Hop Hop. Frazier notes that one of their favorite tracks from the “Play All Day” album is “Typical Girl,” which gives a shrug and a side eye to the daily expectations of how to properly be a woman as they rhyme:
At work, dude tosses me the fashion section of the NYT
As if the politics section wouldn’t interest me.
Like being a purse-lover is all I should be.
Girls staring at me weird when I go to pee
if I use the men’s restroom when it’s empty.
When asked if they have experienced misogyny in the Buffalo music scene, Frazier throws a matching shrug, but the kind that most give when the dailies roll right off their shoulders. “Oh yeah, with sound guys…” However, in terms of diversity in the scene they have more than shrug to give.
Growing up in the south under the guidance of their white mother, Frazier is of mixed-race, and was told by their mother to misidentify: “Honestly, even when it came to like, bubbling in SAT demographic bubbles.” While growing up in small town southern Alabama, Frazier found themself with questions of identity. “I moved to a mostly white town. It became really hard to explore who I am, who I really am, because I was just constantly surrounded by white people. And, sometimes I would look at myself in the mirror and think, ‘Oh, wait.’”
“When it comes back to the scene, I’m bringing all of those complicated things from when I was a kid and forgetting who I am until I look in the mirror…I’m looking around at the show and thinking, ‘There are all kinds of people here.’ And by all kinds of people, I mean, there are girls here and there are guys here and there’s like a gay person over there. We’re all living in harmony. And then, I look in the mirror and I’m like, ‘Oh wait, I’m the only person of color here.’ So, I realize again that I’ve immersed myself in a scene that is primarily white, which is fine but, where is the balance?”
This was how they wound up seeking different music scenes in the first place and that led them to hip hop. They were delighted by the visibility of themself and found comfort in not being the only POC in the room. Ultimately they went in search of new intersections while not compromising who they are but embracing all that they can be. “You can listen to whatever you want. You can be all of the things at the same time because people are really complex.”
Their new album, tentatively titled “Mondo’s Collection” and due out in spring, promises to exude all of that.