By: Bryant “B-Boy” Worthing @bboyworthing | Artist: Scru Face Jean @ScruFaceJean
People are right to assume the great state of Nebraska is dominated by a love for college football, cornfields and cows, but it is also a state with an artist that is turning heads in hip hop coast to coast in Scru Face Jean. Pronounced “John” Scru is a kid that grew up in Kearney, Nebraska fairly close to Omaha after his family moved to the states from Nigera at just four years old. At the tender age of 11 is when he got into rhyming originally which carried over to his high school years where he was making his own mixtapes and selling them to his classmates straight out of his back pack.
“By my senior year I had my first mixtape for sale,” Scru explained.
In 2015 Scru was on the road a lot being apart of three tours working with Mark Battles which has been a big part of developing his fan base. Since a lot of people were already hip to his music through blogs and social media Scru spent time linking up with fans in every city he touched down in. Something he says has done wonders for his buzz and creativity alike.
“First tour was like 20 cities, then 13 cities and then about 10 cities,” said Scru. “It was really the first time for me getting out of Nebraska and creating my own fan base which parlayed my tour coming up for 2016 we getting ready to go in starting February.”
The upcoming tour is titled Another Night named after his latest and most successful project to date after premiering it on the Hot New Hip Hop blog (http://hnhh.co/mgpsq) where it blew up instantly with high user ratings being the third most downloaded tape from last spring. That latest record was a solid follow up to The Man and The Myth and a three part mixtape series titled Inside Out Swishers all of which gave him the foundation of popularity he has today. All his projects are available on all digital retailers and units have been moved, something Scru says is because of the organic hard work put into it.
“I could say that it is the most important record I have dropped,” Scru said. “The first mixtape I dropped had 1000 downloads, Another Night had 1000 downloads in one day.”
Another key element to Scru’s successes are woking with his cousin Doe Doe who does production and overall management for Scru as a whole. Together they also do their own photos and graphic design enabling them to put projects out fast and efficiently. The constant progression of the two’s work ethic is creating a monster hence how hectic the schedule is becoming for them both. Being from Nebraska Scru says it is important to take care of the home base and they in return take care of him.
“I can be the first major artist out of Nebraska,” Scru said. “It means a lot when we win the whole state wins I think people are starting to realize that too.”
