What does it take to me one of the hottest producers in urban Christian music, build a multifaceted media company, and be a dedicated family man? Chris “Rock” Belmont takes on these roles with the finesse that only God’s anointing could produce. Chris sat in the Zoe Life Magazine hot seat to discuss music and rising above family tragedy.
Zoe Life: Tell me a little bit about how you developed Jahrock’n Productions.
Chris: Well it well a gradual process. In 2001 I had the desire to produce music. I’ve been singing since I was 16 in the gospel industry and I had a group called Blessed Hope from 16 to 20. I love being an artist and being on stage, but more I loved seeing artists grow through producing them and their music. I trademarked the name in 2005, I actually incorporated. it was birthed by my desire of really wanting to help artists musically in their careers.
Zoe Life: How many artists do you have right now and who are they? The one’s that you’ve signed.
Chris: Three artists are exclusively signed to our company . One is Louie Cortez, I would say he’s a pop, R&B, pop/soul Latin artist. Then there’s a girl named Heesun Lee, she’s an Korean born rapper, a Christian rapper, dope Emcee, and the last artist is named SeDa, who’s also a rapper out of New York City.
Zoe Life: Being in the production seat, what pressures do you experience, knowing that you have artists that are looking to you to get their music out and earn income, and how do you handle those?
Chris: With artists that are new at this and we’re producing their first album, I would say there’s even more pressures because everything is up in the air. That process is tough because artists want to preserve who they are and as producers we have to find ways to preserve who they are, but also make it digestible for people to understand it.
The pressures that we have is one of quality, you want to make sure that the music is of a quality production value. Producers are the catalyst between sounding like it should be on mainstream radio or sounding like you should be playing in your home or….
Zoe Life: …In your bathroom.
Chris: Yeah, In the bathroom, you know what I’m saying, or through a cassette tape.
Zoe Life: Some artists think that there’s a fine line between ministry and producing music for income and there’s artists who don’t have the business mindset. They think since it’s ministry and they’re not thinking about making money. What is your opinion on business ministry?
Chris: You can’t focus on making great music and also focus on the business side. People got to understand that you have to use business to do ministry. Business is just the structure of what you’re working with. When you have structure you’re able to do what you do night in and night out, over and over again. Without that structure you’ll go broke in weeks, not even months, but weeks.
I would suggest artists get this book called “All You Need to Know About the Music Business” by Donald Passman. It’s a very good book written by an entertainment lawyer that shows you the nuts and bolts about the industry What you do is a ministry, but it is a career. It is a business in which you operate. So I really do wish artists were more business minded, it would make my job a lot easier.
Zoe Life: As far as the music goes, what are some of the trends you see that are happening right now?
Chris: I believe that in urban Christian music we’re at a point where we can start creating our own sound and our own way of doing things. I believe that we are transitioning to that, we have a lot of artists who are starting to lead the culture in some positive ways of creating sounds. On the unfortunate side there are artists that still copy a lot. We’re still try to sound like what’s hot at the time and that’s always going to leave our genre ten steps behind.
Zoe Life: What’s your opinion on LeCrae’s appearance on BET Cyphers a while back?
Chris: I think if Lecrae said Jesus 300 times in rhyme it still wouldn’t have been enough. He knew going in that he was not going to please everybody. As a matter of fact, he was going to make some people angry, you know what I’m saying? Just by him being there and them not being there. You’ve got to remember there’s a lot of jealousy out there, even in this Christian thing.
You’ve got a lot of Christian rappers that feel like they should have been there and they would have been better and more effective. I actually like what he did. At the end of the day, to be honest with you, he was there. He was there and that’s all I cared about. It pushes our genre to places that I don’t think a lot of people really know.
Zoe Life: You went through losing a child and it was at the same time of losing your father-in-law. Now that you have a child, how has that changed you or changed your perspective?
Chris: A lot of people don’t even know what 2010 was for me and my family. I don’t think I’ve ever talked it on an interview. But yes, I’m not afraid to say, yes we did lose a child in 2010, our first baby. We lost him and then three days later we lost my wife’s father. Then my wife lost a job two months later. So 2010 was a tough, tough, tough, year for us.
God was teaching us something. He was teaching us faith and perseverance. I feel like I got a tiny piece of what Job went through. You know, it can’t compare, but the feelings were still there so I felt how Job felt and described it in the Book of Job. I believe God is making me into something that is better than what I can even imagine because I never saw that coming.
On August 18, of 2011 our daughter was born and we’re extremely happy to have her. She’s our bundle of joy. We
were very nervous about having another one so fast, but we were able to have her and we just thank God! God is faithful.
Zoe Life: With 2011 over, what are your plans so far with Jahrock’n and where do you want to take your company?
Chris: 2011 mostly was about growing the company and positioning the company to be something bigger than it was. Every year I believe we’ve grown in steps, but I wanted to take the bigger, significant step so this year we saw the debut of our new website Jahrockn.com. We definitely want to make our mark as a company, our sound, who we are, and what we represent.
2012 is going to be the solidification of all the plans that we made in 2010 and all of the precedents that we set in 2010. You’ll see the release of these artists [Heesun Lee, SeDa, and Louie Cortez] and you’ll see some campaigns behind them
Zoe Life: What are some of the first few things a Christian artist needs to have in place, if they really are serious about being a Christian artist?
Chris: I would say the first thing is write, create music, get in a studio and stay there for a long time! Keep making music because you’re not going to go anywhere on two or three songs that you think are hot. While you’re doing that, the second step is to start building your team. If you get successful you’re not going to be able to take care of everything that comes your way. Start building your team now! And psych yourself up, start to serve, get out to some of these conferences. Get yourself out, serve, be a part of them, and learn from the best. You’ll be able to see a pathway carve itself out for you.
- Jahrock’n family and friends celebrating SeDa’s win at the Kingdom Choice Awards, 2011.
- Proud daddy with daughter, Cadence Belmont.
