Joseph J. Jones strides onto the scene with his distinctive growl as he transforms two of Kanye West’s most played tracks ‘Love Lockdown’ and ‘Blood on the Leaves’ into something almost entirely unrecognisable. The leftover melody in key lines “love lockdown” and “I’m not loving you the way I wanted to” is the only remaining vestige of Yeezy’s work. You won’t often find blogs raving about reworks, especially with tracks from well known artists, as they tend to stray into territories of cheese or try-hard, but here Jones easily evades grounds for dismissal. The beauty of ‘Blood Lockdown’ is that JJJ never intended to make a Kanye tribute for an audience; this is the result of a genuine fan’s private experimentation. Alongside his producer Rich Frenneaux, the 23-year-old musician took to the studio to have fun. As Jones tells it: “There wasn’t any plan to put anything out but ‘Blood on the Leaves’ and ‘Love Lockdown’ worked well so we tried to do something a bit different and develop them hand-in-hand to work as one.” This artist takes the interpretation one step further with a self illustrated lyric video. - HT