Orlando bred rappers Jon Young and J. Cash met each other during their freshman year in high school.  Thanks to their love for rap music and custom cars, the two hit it off immediately and began writing and making music as a hobby. Their big break would come in 2006 when Jon Young's single, “City I Luv”, would become a major underground hit in their hometown.

Since then, the duo has been featured in various rap publications and are on the radar of every major label.  We recently chopped it up with duo about their career and their future plans.

With people like Wes Fif blowing up, it seems Orlando is getting a lot of attention, where do you guys fit in the picture?

Jon Young:  That's a good question but I'ma put it like this.  We're from Orlando, been here all our lives so how could we not fit in.

J. Cash:  Yep, this our city just as much as its someone else’s city.

Jon Young: We represent a different demographic than Wes Fif and Dee Boi and all the Orlando artists but that's why we're respected.  We're not trying to come off like we're dope boys or anything but at the same time we've grown up around all that so we can touch on that aspect of the O.  I grew up primar ily on the eastside; Semoran area and J. Cash on the westside; Lockhart, Pine Hills.... so we can reflect on a lot of different things.

J. Cash: We definitely got our place in the Orlando scene, and a lot of Central Florida artists are seeing that now.  They know we just about making good music and most the people who really wanna do something in this town and industry are bout the same thing.

Jon Young: Orlando is kinda divided in half.  The East has alotta Hispanics and people
from the NorthEeast, so you get a lot of that influence and the West there's a big influence from the black community.  It's a good mixture throughout so we're able to absorb all these elements and come out with music that can appeal to a lot of different people.

White rappers from the South are interesting, because cats in the South have such a specific swag, is it hard being White and being in the Southern rap scene?

J. Cash: The white thing something I tried to never look at.  We knew it was there, but we were like "Let's just worry more bout making hot songs."  We did a CD signing in Orlando at the J-Mart and these kids in front of the market saw our poster and that we were there and said "Jon Young and J. Cash... I thought they was black." cause all they
ever heard of us was from mix CDs.

Jon Young: Yeah, the South is all about your swag.  From everything to how you talk to how you drive your car.  It all really comes down to confidence.  I lacked a lot of that early on 'cause I started making music for fun and it kinda took off without meaning to so I was kinda caught like a deer in headlights when fans would approach me around town and shit.  But getting out there and doing these shows and connecting with the fans has helped a lot with being comfortable as an artist.

Lotta folks expect most rappers to be cocky n all that but I guess I'm an exception...I still feel the same as before.  But back to your question.  Being  white I think used to be a big issue but from my personal experience it hasn't been a problem.  I don't even mention race in my music so that makes it more universal.  I get emails from fans that have never seen me telling me they thought I was Asian, or Spanish, or Black and that's kinda my goal.  I want my music to touch as many people as possible.

Do you get the same love as everybody else?

Jon Young: I'd say so.  The little bit of hate we get compared to how much love we get is really incomparable.  If you make jammin' music that's real then people will see that and respect it.  If you front about somethin' you're gonna get found out sooner or later.

J. Cash: Exactly. When the music wasn't that good we didn't get love. And I can't blame them for hating (Laughs), but that made us work harder to figure out what would work.  Now there's one hate message every couple weeks and its just "You're wack"... but that’s about all the details I can get out of em.

You recently recorded a track with Lil' Boosie. What was that like and how did it come about?

Jon Young: Yea, the track is called "Post Up."  Not to brag or nothing, but the track is a banger.  It's gotten a lot of love on XM and Sirius satellite radio and FM radio across the country.   It's slowly spreading around.  We actually did the track several months before we got Boosie on it.

J. Cash: Did it and redid it, then redid it again with Boosie.  I had even named dropped Boosie in my verse.  The buzz is growing on the track, its on a DJ Scream mix CD, a DJ Smallz mix CD, buncha Lil Boosie mix CDs, even on his new Touched Down And Caused Hell DVD which I'm still trying to figure out what exactly is on it cause it says
there’s a video.

Jon Young: Yeah, so when our label asked who we wanted to get as a feature it was a no brainer.  We had a connect with this dude A.B. The White Boi and he made it happen.  Boosie was coming in to Lauderdale for a show so we got some studio time at Lil Wayne’s spot at the Hit Factory in Miami and banged it out real quick.

J. Cash: Like 4 hours notice... for a 3-hour trip.  They told us "Come to Miami" and we stopped everything we were doing and made the trip.

Jon Young: We rerecorded our verses and Boosie wrote his on the way to the studio and knocked it out.  It was a cool experience coming from doing songs in my bedroom to
being in a big studio with a major artist.

What plan did you guys use to gain such recognition; did you have a specific marketing plan?

J. Cash:  There wasn't really a plan.

Jon Young:  Like I said before, we really didn't plan on gettin' to this point.  I mean anyone who raps or does music would love to be on the radio & TV n shit but we didn’t really sit down and say, "This is what we wanna do for a living."  We just did songs 'cause it was somethin we liked doin.

J. Cash:  We would make a song or two every couple weeks on a Friday night as something fun.

Jon Young: Somebody had told me about MySpace back in like 2004 or 2005 and I decided to make a page. I had this track called "City I Luv" that people I knew were tellin me was tight so I put that on there and maybe 1 or 2 others and it started spreading like
crazy.  There was also confusion about the song being by Yung Joc so it was gettin downloaded nonstop on Limewire.  So the marketing all kinda developed as we went along.  I do graphic design too so I'd make the page as professional as I could so folks thought we were major artists.

J. Cash: Jon Young's page jumped off first and we had a Jon Young and J. Cash page but MySpace deleted it last November thinking it was a fake Jon Young page, so that's why we have seperate pages in case ya'll were wondering.

Do you have specific producers you work with?

Jon Young:  We've done a few things on other producers’ beats but I do all our production.  We do it like that not only for financial reasons but also for our style; I know what will work best.  We might not necessarily sound right on someone else's production.

J. Cash: I love working with Jon Young as the producer.  I put my input in on tracks at what can be where and stuff like that, but there hasn't been a beat Jon Young's sent that I didn't like.

Have you ever left your region to do any shows?

Jon Young:  We've done a couple shows outside of Florida.  In Milwaukee and Dallas.  They were for the Core DJs retreat.  We're really trying to focus on our area first to make sure we got Florida ridin' with us.

J. Cash: We got people from everywhere wanting us to come to their city but we know that will come once the buzz is high enough for the radio plays, and the radio will bring the bigger demand for shows.

The Southern fans are very loyal. More so than other regions, why is that?

J. Cash: The South always sticks with the south because we get enough hate from other regions sometimes.  And we wanna see us coming up and doing good.  The Ssuth always been tight knit, not just in music but in life, it's love down here.

Jon Young:  I think it's because Southern artists create a whole movement that surrounds them.  You're getting more than just an artist when you listen to someone like T.I. or Chamillionaire.  Even back in the No Limit days, bein' 'Bout It' was like a whole lifestyle.  They were droppin movies and everything so you could really get wrapped up in the atmosphere they create.  Southern artists will make you feel like you riding through their city when you listen to 'em.  We've got people all over wearing 407 hats, people that never even been to Orlando.

J. Cash:  New Era... we want our cut ya'll!

Can we expect any more big name collaborations?

Jon Young:  Right now we're just focused on gettin this music out to the masses.  Once we get more exposure it'll make it easier to make those collabs possible.

J. Cash: We've done real well being us and people like that.

Anything you'd like to tell the fans?

Jon Young:  Just wanna thank everybody that's been jammin our music over the past couple years.  Y'all have changed my life drastically and I appreciate it so much.  Things might get a lil rough over the next year or so 'cause we're making that move into the actual industry.  It might seem like we've disappeared for a lil while but we just out here tryna make the best moves for us.  So the music won't change or nothing like that, we still going be dropping those type of tracks that made you feel us in the first place.

J. Cash:  In one of my new songs I say, "If it wasn't for the fans. I woulda quit a long time ago" and that's the God's honest truth.  When the labels, lawyers, DJs, A&Rs, any music industry people get us down, I know I can go on my MySpace and have pages of unread messages of motivation.  Ya'll make all this possible so keep the messages coming
and just tell anybody and everybody about Jon Young and J. Cash, the more people just knowing of us will get this shit bigger and bigger.

It's a crazy feeling to know how our music has influenced some of ya'lls lives. We've had people get song titles of ours tattooed on them because they were that powerful.  Thank ya'll for everything and stay reppin for ya boys,  Jon Young and J. Cash!