Still
Slim.

It had been years since Derick Jones and I had been in the same room.

Long enough for careers to change. Long enough for priorities to shift. Long enough that when I reached out about sitting down again, Jones admits the call caught him completely off guard.

But some things are immediately familiar.

The first time I interviewed Derick Jones, he didn't exactly arrive alone.

He arrived with an entourage.

Friends, associates, people moving in and out — the whole thing had less of an interview atmosphere and more of a mobile party that happened to stop long enough for somebody to ask Slim a few questions.

This time, the door opens and Jones walks in by himself.

No entourage. No portable celebration following behind him.

Just six-foot-four of Derick Jones in blue jeans, a white T-shirt, Carmine Jordan 6s, Cubans and Cartiers.

The celebrity presence hasn't disappeared.

The crowd around it has.

And even the presentation has changed.

Years ago, Jones occasionally approached jewelry with what could politely be described as a more-is-more philosophy. Bigger stacks. More pieces. More spectacle.

Today, the swagger is still there, but the need to prove anything seems to have disappeared.

Less look at me.
More you already did.

After a few minutes of catching up, we got back to the thing that has connected nearly every version of the man sitting across from me.

Music.

Voss: First and foremost, it really is good seeing you again.

Derick Jones: First off, Aiko, it is great catching up after all these years. I was blown away when you reached out to me.

Voss: I figured it had been long enough. And hearing what you're doing now, I've noticed something. You seem much less interested in what you're "supposed" to do — musically, stylistically, all of it. When did that happen?

Jones: Once I realized there really aren't any rules to this, I started putting myself first.

Voss: Meaning what exactly?

Jones: Translation: my mixes became more me.

Driven by my skills — or lack thereof — more, "There is absolutely no way this works…but let's make it work," and less, "Somebody said this couldn't be done and still sound good."

My entire life I've pushed boundaries.

Why should music be any different?

Voss: So it stopped being about proving somebody wrong.

Jones: Exactly.

Voss: It became more about following your own ear and seeing where it took you.

Jones: Right.

Which is basically how that Taylor Swift, Eminem, Creed and Paula Abdul mix you like came about. [Laughs.]

Voss: I still maintain that combination sounds completely irresponsible when you say it out loud.

Jones: [Laughs.] That's kind of the point.

Voss: Was there a point where that approach stopped feeling experimental and started feeling like your actual signature?

Jones: Yeah.

There was a time when I would deliberately go looking for songs that had no business being together.

One of the early ones was the Tupac and Frank Sinatra mix, "Thugs Get Lonely in the Night."

That was one of those moments where I realized, okay, this doesn't have to make sense on paper for it to make sense in my head.

Once I started doing that more, it became second nature.

That eventually led to stuff like Morgan Wallen and Nate Dogg, and then the Taylor Swift, Eminem, Creed and Paula Abdul mix we were just talking about.

At this point, I don't really sit down thinking, what's the weirdest combination I can come up with?

Now it's more like, "Hey, I like this song. What can I do with it?"

Voss: So "Thugs Get Lonely in the Night" was almost an early proof of concept.

Jones: Yeah. Exactly.

Voss: You built the muscle until your ear stopped hearing barriers and started hearing possibilities.

Jones: Pretty much.

The experimentation came first.

Then the instinct.

Now the strange combination is no longer the point.

The point is whether Jones can make it feel natural.

Voss: Did that instinct also change when you moved between different places and scenes?

Jones: Absolutely.

When I left Vegas and went back to Georgia, I was still concentrated on making music for the clubs and to dance to.

One of my childhood friends, James Hardy, pulled me aside one day and was basically like, "Man, look. The music you're making is good music. But nobody here is looking for that kind of music."

He was absolutely right.

Once I started making my hip-hop edits, they took off.

That's when I realized the issue wasn't whether the music was good. It was whether I was making the right music for the environment I was in.

Voss: So it wasn't defiance. It was adaptation.

Jones: I wouldn't go so far as to say defiance.

It was me taking a lane that I felt comfortable in and knew, and adding my twist to it.

You want dance music? You want hip-hop music?

I'm gonna give you both so you don't have to decide where you're gonna listen to the music at.

Don't make the listener choose.
Find the connection.
Then make it work.

Voss: Obviously I've kept up with you over the years, so let's talk about Silky Slim. Where did that come from?

Jones: Silky Slim was more of an idea.

I've got to credit the whole T.I. versus T.I.P. concept with some of it.

The thought was, I wanted a split album — Slim Jones versus Silky Slim.

Nelly had played with something similar too. I liked the idea of being able to put two different sides of the same artist on one project without forcing either one to become the whole identity.

Jones isn't describing an entirely foreign idea in hip-hop.

OutKast famously divided Speakerboxxx/The Love Below between Big Boi and André 3000, allowing two radically different creative personalities to exist beneath the same album title.

JAY-Z used the two-disc structure of The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse to separate contrasting energies, while Big K.R.I.T.'s 4eva Is a Mighty Long Time would later use its double-album format to explore the divide between his larger-than-life rap persona and a considerably more vulnerable side of himself.

Jones was interested in that same basic architecture:

One project. Two temperatures. Both authentic.

Jones: Not everything has to be for the streets. Not everything has to be for the clubs.

Let's have some stuff we can ride out to during a sunset or on a rainy day.

Or, hey, even for baby-making sessions.

Voss: There he is. I was wondering how long we were going to stay respectable.

Jones: [Laughs.]

Voss: But that's really the distinction, isn't it? Silky wasn't replacing Slim. He gave another part of Slim somewhere to live.

Jones: Exactly.

Voss: What did that softer side allow you to do?

Jones: I had an option to be more emotional with the music.

And that brings us to Fractured Melancholy.

The tone changes when Jones talks about it.

There is a deeply personal story underneath the album, one he shared privately during our conversation and specifically asked me not to publish.

So I won't.

The specifics are not necessary.

The emotion is.

Voss: That emotional side is pretty much the driving force behind Fractured Melancholy, isn't it?

Jones: Yeah.

That is probably one of the most emotionally driven projects I've ever made.

Voss: Without getting into the private details, what should listeners understand about where that project came from?

Jones: Raw emotion.

Heartache. Pain. Sadness. Disbelief.

All of it went into the project.

I don't want anybody feeling sorry for me. There are a million other people with their own stories.

I don't think people need to know every detail.

But they can know that the emotion behind it is real.

There are records made because an artist has songs ready.

Then there are records made because something needed somewhere to go.

Fractured Melancholy is clearly the second kind.

Voss: And now you're having Fractured Melancholy pressed on vinyl. Why does that mean so much to you?

Jones: We aren't there yet, but I think this is gonna be my greatest achievement to date.

Vinyl is making a comeback, but it's more than that.

There are gonna be about 20 to 30 copies made specifically for the people in my life who have been part of this journey from day one.

Whether you have a vinyl player or not, you have a piece of me with you.

If you have the vinyl player, great. You can listen to some of the tunes and understand my heart.

If you don't, this is still a piece of artwork for you to put on your wall and remember from day one.

Voss: So those aren't really twenty or thirty customers.

Jones: No.

Voss: They're twenty or thirty people you're saying thank you to.

Jones: Exactly.

For those copies, the record is not merchandise.

It is memory.

Voss: If somebody who has never heard your work asks what they're about to get, how do you describe it?

Jones: I typically tell people to get ready to hear some of the best mixes that they never knew they needed.

Or, to simply put it —

Get ready to have an eargasm.

Voss: There goes whatever respectable reputation this publication had left.

Jones: [Laughs.]

Voss: What has you genuinely excited about hip-hop right now?

Jones: Oh man, look at all these OGs coming back.

You talk about Rakim. Masta Killa. Daz. The Game. Kurupt. Busta Rhymes. T.I.

There are so many artists making music right now that, for all intents and purposes, I honestly thought were out of the rap game.

And now they're coming back around and not only making records again, but making genuine bangers.

This is an exciting time to be a hip-hop fan, for sure.

Jones is visibly animated here.

And it isn't nostalgia for nostalgia's sake.

What excites him is the coexistence.

Artists who helped shape his musical vocabulary are creating again while newer generations continue building their own version of the genre.

For a DJ whose whole philosophy is built around refusing to accept that two things cannot share the same room, perhaps that is exactly the kind of moment he would appreciate.

Voss: You've also got this collective of people you've met over the years. What's happening there?

Jones: Right. So I've got a collective of individuals that I've met over the years. We all have a deep passion for music. We are all scattered around the globe, so the music is a very eclectic sound.

We're in the works of getting a digital radio station together where we can all stream our individual music as well as the music we like.

Voss: And I'm guessing there are pieces of that idea you're deliberately not telling me.

Jones: Absolutely! But I'm keeping that hand close to my heart.

Voss: Good. I'm not helping somebody steal your ideas in my own article.

Jones: [Laughs.]

Voss: And because one project at a time would apparently be too easy, there's also a cookbook.

Jones: Yeah [laughs] I've also got a cookbook in the works, sharing some of my most cherished recipes that I've collected during my travels.

Voss: Of course you do.

Then I finally come back to something that has been bothering me since Jones walked through the door.

Not the clothes.

Not yet.

The absence of everybody else.

Voss: You know what else is throwing me off? You're alone.

Jones: [Laughs.]

Voss: Last time we actually sat down, you came in with what felt like an entire entourage. It was basically a mobile party. Today? Just you. What happened?

Jones: You've gotta understand, the last time we actually sat down and saw each other, I was a kid.

My lifestyle at the time was the party.

And looking back, half of those dudes? I didn't even really know them. They were just hang-arounds.

Once I fell on hard times, I noticed my circle getting smaller and smaller.

I've got a few cats I still rock with, but these days I try to keep it mostly solo.

Less drama that way.

I'm at a point in my life where I can't be getting caught up in dumb stuff or letting somebody else's decisions become my problem.

That kid you met years ago is still in here. I'm still a hothead. I'm not gonna pretend that part of me completely disappeared.

But I also don't need anybody around me negatively influencing my decisions.

Voss: So this isn't you becoming antisocial. It's you becoming selective.

Jones: Exactly.

Voss: Because I was about to ask whether at some point you realized you didn't need fifteen people around you for everybody to know Slim had entered the building.

Jones: [Laughs.] Come on, Aiko.

Voss: I had to.

Jones: [Laughs.]

Voss: Do you ever miss it, though? The chaos? Everybody laughing, everybody moving, the whole mobile-party energy?

Jones: You know, there are times I do miss the sheer uncertainty of it all.

But I can't live like that anymore.

It was fun and exciting, but there was always chaos. Always drama.

And now, I'm at a place in my life where the most drama and chaos I want is trying to figure out whether I can put Jon Bon Jovi, Elvis, Sabrina Carpenter and Lil Wayne all on the same track together and still make it a banger.

Voss: Somehow, with you, that sounds less like a joke and more like a warning.

Jones: [Laughs.]

Maybe that is the difference between the two versions of Jones sitting across from me years apart.

The chaos never completely disappeared.

He simply found somewhere better to put it.

Years ago, it followed him into the room.

Now it lives in the music.

Before we finish, I look across the table again.

White tee.

Blue jeans.

Carmine 6s.

Cubans.

Cartiers.

There is no chance I'm letting him leave without talking about it.

Voss: The Cubans survived. The Cartiers survived. But your taste in jewelry has changed a lot since I've known you. What happened?

Jones: The shift happened as I got older.

As you mature, you tend to realize certain things don't matter as much.

At one point in time it was all about putting on an image.

Now it's all about refinement.

I don't need to walk around with seven tennis necklaces stacked on top of each other so people look at me.

Once I realized that, it no longer became necessary.

Voss: So the jewelry didn't disappear. The need for it to prove something did.

Jones: Exactly.

That may be the cleanest metaphor for Jones' entire evolution.

The Cubans did not disappear.

The Cartiers did not disappear.

And Slim certainly did not disappear.

What changed was the need for any of them to shout.

Voss: All right, my friend. Last one. When you look at what's ahead, what are you most eager to make real?

Jones pauses.

Not because he does not have an answer.

Because he knows exactly how much of that answer he is willing to give me.

Jones: There is a company I'm looking at toward making my final chapter in music my greatest.

I'm not saying that I am at my final chapter.

But I know it's coming eventually.

And if all things go the way I expect — or the way I'm hoping for — it's going to be a pretty big deal.

Voss: And I'm not getting the name of that company today.

Jones: Haha, yeah, that's not happening at all. No.

Voss: Worth a shot.

A lot has changed since the last time Derick Jones and I sat down together.

The experimental mashups became instinct.

The dance DJ learned how much hip-hop could live inside his sound.

The harder versions of Slim discovered they could coexist with Silky.

The man who once traveled with a party learned the value of walking into a room alone.

And the artist accustomed to making records designed to move rooms discovered that some of his most meaningful music could come from allowing himself to sit still with an emotion.

Even his definition of style changed.

Still Cubans.

Still Cartiers.

Still Jordans.

Just fewer things — and fewer people — fighting to announce who he is.

Maybe that is the real story of growth here.

Not that Slim became somebody else.

That he stopped needing to.

The names, scenes, sounds, crowds and eras may have changed.

The through-line never did.

Slim.

And somewhere ahead, another chapter is waiting.

One Jones is not ready to explain yet.

Fair enough.

I've known him long enough to know he'll talk when he's ready.