JAMAL On Imposter Syndrome and How Music Keeps Him Sane

We spoke with JAMAL about Stamina Sundays, the week he spent creating music with Adred, what a weird time COVID was, and his new releases.

Let It Roll Puerto Rico brought out incredible talent from all over the world. Joining this “On Tour” edition in the Caribbean was San Francisco’s own JAMAL, a mainstay in the Bay Area scene who’s known for his infectious energy and skillful sets.

With over 25 years of experience in the game, JAMAL started as a resident of Compression and Phuturo. Both residences exposed him to high-caliber artists and futuristic sounds, sparking a fire within him that still burns today. His quest to create quality music that’ll keep dancefloors jumping is why promoters stay booking him.

For the last 14 years, JAMAL has run the free Sunday weekly, Stamina Sundays, at the iconic F8 in San Francisco. Since its inception, the best in the genre have graced the stage and played until the wee hours of the night each week. As someone who was a faithful Stamina attendee for years, I was lucky to see many big names I otherwise wouldn’t have, all thanks to JAMAL.

But even as running a weekly DnB event hasn’t kept JAMAL too busy to steadily deliver music all these years. With releases on Commercial Suicide, CODE Recordings, PROJECT 51, Hospital Records, Metalheadz, Dispatch Recordings, and more, JAMAL knows what the masses like and continues to put out music worthy of a home on any of those labels.

We were able to snag JAMAL for an interview before he performed at the Discovery Dome Saturday night, where he played a lot of original tunes while also rocking some familiar sounds. He told us about how he was spending Let It Roll reconnecting with talent for Stamina, the week he spent creating music with Adred, what a weird time COVID was, and about his recent releases.

Stream JAMAL – One Fi One/Star Killa on Spotify:

How does it feel to be out here for Let It Roll?

Let it Roll is an amazing festival that is exclusive to Europe until now, so this is an exciting moment in drum and bass history. I have never been to Puerto Rico, and I was very excited to be asked to play. And I’m excited to be here. We’re on an island in the Caribbean playing drum and bass. I’m sorry, that’s pretty dope.

In case people don’t know, you run Stamina, a free Sunday weekly in San Francisco. Are you here to scope out some new talent?

Uh, no, but I’m here poaching talent that has played for me previously. Yes.

Can you name any names?

I’d prefer not to, but look, this lineup is great, there’s a lot of great people playing. It’s great to reconnect with people. I’ve had basically almost all the artists playing here through the weekly, and I think at some point there’s just this gap between conversations with agents, the weekly, and the travel schedules. And to be here, in one spot, and to connect with this many people has been great.

And there has been this, “Oh my god, yes, I need to come back” moment of the night regarding Stamina. It’s a free party, but from a pure sense, it’s all about the music, and I think that’s recognized. That’s why we’ve been able to sustain 14 years. I also get to come out here as a producer and DJ, so I get to wear two hats, because I honestly hate being a promoter. But I do it because I love the music, and I think we need this access to these folks, these people who tirelessly make music and DJ for people. So yes, I’m here, poaching — or giving little, gentle reminders.

There are a lot of drum and bass artists that I probably would never have seen had it not been for your Stamina weekly. I’m very grateful and happy that there will be people here who will come through the weekly again.

Yes, they honestly put together a great lineup. Let it Roll typically features a lot of neuro, which is why this lineup has a lot of it. They diversified the lineup in a lot of ways to entice people. Not everyone is a big neuro fan. I love all drum and bass, but that’s not my particular cup of tea. But if it’s good music, I’m into it. And this is great music.

Photo by Alex Conroy

I saw that you spent a week with Adred and have some new stuff coming out. Your last release together was five years ago?

Yes, we did an EP for Klute on Commercial Suicide, I had a release with him on his Metalheadz LP, and we made a bunch of tunes. Our last release was in 2020, but we were supposed to have something come out that was pushed back, so we went back and wrote a follow-up, a whole other EP basically. I’ll be playing some of it tomorrow night.

Is there a release date for this yet?

Not yet. We’re still shopping it because we’re still in the testing phase. And I’m going to say it: They’re all pretty good. But you always gotta go out and have revisions made, and I like to test V1s and then get this play-out feeling. And it’s instantly like, “Gotta do this and this and this.” But yes, it will have a home at some point. I did have a promo drop today with Flaco, an EP on Influence. And then about a month ago, on Halloween —

Is that the track with Philth?

Yep, had a release with Philth on Dispatch.

It’s trending really well, I see. You’re always so busy, got a lot going on.

It’s the only way I stay from going crazy. I gotta stay sane. Music keeps me balanced and from going insane. I feel very fortunate that I can do this, but it comes with a price. You have to be going constantly. A lot of people think that if you put out a release, you’re good. No, with dance music, it’s boom boom boom, and you’re only as good as your last release.

And in this attention span era, of like, [snaps fingers] and it’s gone, like I had a release a month ago, it might as well have been a decade ago. That’s the hard part about this. That leads to dissatisfaction with where you are and what you’re doing. I’ve had this conversation with many people who feel the same way. The term that gets thrown around is imposter syndrome, because some people will feel like they haven’t made it, but they’ll talk to other people who’ll say, “You’ve made it, you’re playing Let It Roll.”

You had a release on Metalheadz.

That means nothing if you can’t feel the gratification from it. But in this era that we live in, where it’s a TikTok generation, and people just scroll for ten seconds, how do you compete with that? You have to keep going to stay in it. I am ecstatic about the list of labels I can release on, it would make most people feel their lives are complete. But I feel like I’ve done nothing. I guess that’s also what makes great artists. To have that constant feeling that it’s going to be better, the next one is going to be better. That’s a hard space to live in, though.

I feel it’s the same way you run Stamina. Like, who’s the next considerable talent that we can book? Who’s the next person who will blow the minds of the people in the city?

Part of the ethos of the weekly is that there is no barrier to entry. I want people to experience this music. And it’s a Sunday night, that’s already a hard night to do. Why create any obstacle to something that I love, so that people can experience it? They will go out and pay for a bigger show or a festival, because people need access.

This music is unlike any genre, and listening to it at home is not the same as hearing it in real life. This is experiential music. And I can’t say that about many other genres. Maybe rock and roll, because there is a stage presence. But this music does not translate unless you have a banging sound system. You need subs, you need good mid range, and you need a little bit of the highs. Most places are tinny and thin, so people think drum and bass is just the fast sticks and think, “I don’t get it.” Because you’ve never heard it in the right space. When you do, it’s like, “Holy shit.” It moves your body and soul.

People need to go to Stamina when they complain about that kind of thing, because they’ve only heard it on a shitty sound system. F8 is a dive bar, but the sound system is designed for this kind of music.

The whole reason the club is so good is that when we started there, F8 was shifting from being Icon Lounge. It was Top 40 BS, there were booths, a half-circle DJ booth, powered Mackie speakers, and every time we’d drop — there was this particular DJ break tune, “Slow Down.” Every time we’d drop that, as soon as the bassline hit, it would shut the breakers off. So it became, yo, we’ve got to fix this. Every upgrade that’s come to the club has come through us. And we’ve become a main staple. They have a couple of in-house nights, and we are one of them.

When they approached me about doing Stamina, I said I really don’t want to do a Sunday weekly. But it pays homage to my time as a resident at Compression, which is the OG of Sunday nights. So I said, under three conditions: You pay for it, I do what I want, and there’s no cover for it. And they agreed. Now 14 years later, here we are. Every single Sunday. Christmas, New Year’s, Christmas Eve, Easter.

After Pride.

After anything. The only time we shut down was during COVID. And we reopened and livestreamed from there. Then when we did, you could only sit down and watch us DJ, which was the fucking weirdest experience I’ve ever had as a DJ. It was weird as fuck. [Laughs] It was so weird to be DJing for people who were dancing in chairs, staring at you. I felt like I was a geriatric DJ, DJing at a Vegas lounge playing the Strip. It was fucking great — and soul sucking, but at least I could get out of my house.

But see, that’s also amazing that you and the weekly survived the pandemic. Not a lot of things, not a lot of clubs, survived COVID.

It was hard because 2020 was poised to be one of my best years. I had the release on Metalheadz, Adred’s album came out, and we had a follow-up EP coming out in May. So that LP dropped at the end of February 2020, and it was gaining momentum. I had a bunch of dates lined up, and then March 14 or 15 was the last gig. It’s funny because I didn’t know that would be the last gig for 18 months. Then that EP dropped in May, and everyone thought we were going to die, and the world was over, and it might as well just never have come out.

To this day, I play it out, and people are like, “What is that?” and I’m like, “Oh yeah, that’s the EP that came out during the abyss, the grey period.” It was depressing. I wanted to quit. I wrote some of the best music ever, and I stopped making music for two years after that. I didn’t write a single beat; I was utterly depressed. I said, “I’m done.”

Well, I’m glad you didn’t stop and went back to it.

It took a lot to do it. All my friends encouraged me; all my peers said, “You were writing great music. You should not stop.” What would it mean if I were to start over? Because I’m starting over. I already started over in 2008 during the recession. Gigs had dried up. It’s tough to be an artist and live through these cycles; even the big guys felt it. It’s not like, oh, you weren’t big enough to feel it, no, it’s cyclical across the board. The other people may be able to go further and survive a little longer, but everyone’s feeling it.

I think it’s even more toxic, with the social media environment. People are pressured into doing things that I don’t even think are in their best interest, but they have to stay relevant. And labels aren’t benefiting from it. Now, people are going independent and doing their own thing. I feel like it’s this sea of loneliness. And it’s sad. To bring it all back to the positive, a festival like this, where everyone can get together — not often does drum and bass exist on this scale on this side of the Atlantic. But that means there is hope, there’s a new generation, and they’re into it. As long as it can be cultivated with meaning, not just for a cash grab, I think we’ll have longevity.

This Let It Roll is something special. Hopefully, it comes back next year. I know they’re doing one-offs, like they did a New York one-off.

Yeah, it was all the road to this party. I don’t know if people got the connection. I feel like they tried to do the branding in a way that if you’re in the scene, you could see it. But if you’re just like a random person, oh, Let It Roll in New York. What is it? That’s part of the game we have to play — it’s constant vigilance to bring brand awareness. Which ultimately means good music.

Let It Roll represents a specific section of DnB. It’s got a big franchise name, but it’s never been here. This is new, and it’s worth the investment. This is the way to be a strictly DnB thing and to get the whole experience. Four stages of drum and bass. It’s wild. It’s incredible.

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