Let It Happen

In an era where the most talked about albums often sound like the result of a ‘marketing to millennials’ focus group algorithm’ed from Soundcloud favorites and Facebook interactions, there’s nothing more refreshing to the human spirit than the raw, honest feel that can only be found in the music of an artist like Jon Bap. Starting out on a heavy regiment of making beats and writing raps daily, Jon eventually went on to learn guitar to help forge a more unique sound to his production. Playing around with that for long enough, he then dug even further back in to his Gospel-inspired roots, adding live drums, bass, and keys into his repertoire as well. A handful of tracks culled from these preliminary creative fires would be compiled into his debut EP, ‘Let It Happen,’ an ode to creative freedom which Jon self-released here on Bandcamp at the end of 2014. With no marketing or social media push put behind it, the EP still managed to make its way to a few essential ears - among them: rapper/producer like of Pac Div, a number of musicians in Erykah Badu’s band, reportedly even Andre 3000 himself - and ultimately, onto our radar here at Fresh Selects. So moved by this raw talent in-the-making, we’re now proud to be giving ‘Let It Happen’ the proper re-issue treatment with a worldwide digital release and an intimate run of cassettes. Backed with an exclusive new B-side to the project, consisting of instrumental demos lost in a hard drive crash before Jon could cut vocals to them, lovingly dubbed, ‘Almost Happened’ - Jon’s debut offering will now be given a second go at finding the audience that so desperately needs this in their music collection, whether they know it yet or not. Jon even got to put his art school background to good use, painting his own nude self-portrait for the project’s cover, and designing the album packaging himself.