Since moving to Charlotte from Akron, Ohio, in 2004, Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon has been one of the busiest rappers in North Carolina. He released more than a dozen projects between 2019 and 2023 alone, and this year released "As Of Now," his debut for the UK-based Lex Records.
Lex has been one of the world's leading labels for alternative hip-hop since 2001 and in the past has worked with legends of the genre like MF DOOM and Ghostface Killah.
"As Of Now" is Ogbon's first release since 2023's "I've Really Never Been Better" and has quickly gained him new fans across the globe. Creatively, it's a big step up from that project.
"I just decided to make a new vision," he said. "'I've Really Never Been Better' was rooted in 90s hip-hop, but with 'As Of Now’ I decided to break down all those barriers of thinking it had to sound a certain way."
While in the past Ogbon would release two or three records a year, for his Lex debut he wanted to take his time and make sure it was as great as it could be. He knew that this would be a lot of people's first impression of him and introduction into his world.
"With this record I wanted to experiment with some different sounds," he said. "I feel like all my other records could be seen as mixtapes because I didn't put a lot of thought into them, but that's not the case here."
Growing up in the early 2000s, Ogbon was able to get a foot into the local hip hop scene by writing about it. He had a blog at the time that was well received by the local rappers he looked up to.
"People were rocking with it and they'd thank me when they'd see me," he said. "Everything was positive. I only wrote about the people that make music that I like."
The blog wasn't only about pushing the music he loved. Ogbon was also able to use it to push his personal endeavors and the music he was creating himself.
"I was blogging, I was putting on shows by myself, I was putting other people on shows," he said. "I was just well versed on the music scene and a lot of people embraced me for that."
Because of all that, Ogbon made moves quickly in Charlotte but after some time realized there was only so much the city could offer him. He says that leveling up was a challenge because the industry hadn't taken off yet in Charlotte.
"I was looking at other scenes like in Chicago and New York and was like, 'Damn, I want to do all that here,'" he said.
Ogbon says one of his main challenges was getting his music heard by people who would write about it for a broader audience. To make that happen, he ended up spending some time in other cities like Atlanta and New York and building audiences there.
Around 2019 he felt like he was starting to get noticed. That year the Denmark-based label Copenhagen Crates put out his mixtape "Infinite Wisdom (Food For Thought 3)" on vinyl.
"As Of Now” sounds like a grand statement, and the fact that the album boasts more than a dozen producers is a big contributing factor. Ogbon says that he has a core group of beat makers that he likes to work with, but is always on the look out for up-and-comers, too.
"I'm always browsing on the internet looking for who's mastering their craft out there," he said. "A lot of the producers I already had a relationship with, but some of them I just met on Instagram."
This past February the record earned the coveted "Best New Music" stamp from Pitchfork. Ogbon says he was happy to see the praise, but wasn't surprised either. "It was a big thing," he said. "I'm happy that my friends got to see it but to me, my last three records have all been Best New Music worthy."
