Escorted to J Osceola’s private party being held on the second floor, enthused by what we’d already seen, we knew it was going to be a night to remember. We were greeted by the very professional Team Osceola, told to sign in, and given gift bags. The gift bags were well put together, stuffed with promotional material including fliers, stickers, and a CD sampler. To say we were impressed would be an understatement.

After a personal greeting from the man of the night, J walked us in and pointed out the direction of the bar where food was waiting. In attendance wer every media team from the Columbus area including CBusted, Cool Kid Radio, and Jayonna of Fly N Fabulous from our WUGR family. But of course, it wouldn’t be a good listening party without local musicians like One Hood, Dommy Styles, AU, Trek Manifest, and Trav Dave. Needless to say, all the Who’s Who of Columbus were in the building, and the networking potential was endless.

After all the hugging, fist bumping, and my plate was fixed, it was time for the main event; the music. Since Fresh Face’s Mahonale and myself had already attended J Osceola’s focus group, we’d been anticipating hearing The Brain Food Project. One of the first songs we heard when we got there was Billion Dollar Dreams , which after the first listen became a favorite. The song is up tempo, full of bass, and fast. Just how we like it! Even though every song we heard was a BANGER some of the songs that stood out were:

Rainy Days- A soft, drum-filled song, dedicated to the ladies with Krate Digga and Mike Jaggerr
“I can make your brain wet”
You Can’t Stop Me- Motivational feeling, true display of J Osceola’s impressive lyrical ability, with Amal on the female vocals
“If you wore the same size you couldn’t walk in my shoes”
Sayonara- a trippy retro feel, with a stand out guitar sound that the hip hop heads will love.
“Dear whack rapper, consider this first sentence of a new chapter”

From what we heard last night, it was obvious that J Osceola is someone to be watching out for. His style can best be described as rhythmic, captivating, aesthetic, lyrically genius, while still remaining positive and not cursing. His sound is the embodiment of hip-hop, and a sound that Columbus has been missing.

As the event wrapped up, we said our goodbyes to the old friends, and exchanged Twitter follows with our new friends. Although our bellies were stuffed from the free food, and our hands were full with the goody bags, there were still hunger pains in our minds from the small sampler of music we were privileged to taste but not fully swallow. I guess we’ll just have to wait to get a plate on May 13th when The Brain Food Project is officially released… until then have a snack.

-Allie Jay