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An Interview with Ben Jee

Ben Jee is a multifaceted artist from Israel, who grew up in Brazil. In this interview we delve deeper into his music, the lyrics, his personal battles, artistic influences and much more.

Can you tell me about yourself; where are you from? What’s your background? And what made you want to get into music?

 

Sure, I was born In Israel, then grew up and lived all of my childhood and teenage years in Brazil. I’m now living In Israel for a while but still move around a lot, never really like to stick to one place...

 

I’d have to say Kid Cudi is the reason that I’m an artist today. He made me want to create music. I remember hearing him for the first time ever, I was 15 years old ordering a cab early back from a party because of my introverted stoner ways, I was feeling blue in the backseat of the cab till Day N’ Nite came on the radio, I was so shocked by how much I could relate to his lyrics (I didn’t even like hip hop before, I was strictly punk/rock). I ended up coming back home downloading the “A Kid Named Cudi” mixtape, then proceeded to shed tears when Man on the Moon played and I had a sudden epiphany… He made me realize I’m not the only one going through this shit, and that it’s possible to create something so beautiful from something so ugly, that I just had to try it out for myself.

 

You were born in Israel, but spent your teenage years in Brazil and you now live in Israel again. Moving around at a young age (especially to a country that is very far away from your home country) must have had a huge impact on you? Could you maybe speak on what influences these different cultures have had on you and your music?

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I attended Brazilian, American, and English schools across my stay abroad, I was lucky enough to have experiences with people from so many different countries, it taught me to respect everyone regardless of nationality. 

 

Having to attend so many schools and changing states/countries, I had to change and adapt. I experienced what I like to call a social hierarchy high school rollercoaster. I experienced being liked to being bullied to being an outcast, switching in between all the time, it was tough.

I am grateful for the opportunity, but it’s a real bummer having to leave people you got to know deeply and learned to love behind and move on to the next place. Looking back at it, around the age I hit 16 I moved back to Israel at 11th grade. It fucking sucked, I didn’t know anyone and I really felt alone, that’s around the same time I started recording and uploading my music to an old YouTube channel called “the1benji”.

Shit If I wasn’t so lonely back then, and my summer nights weren’t filled with weed and beats in my bedroom all alone, then I would have never thought about the possibility that I would be creating music and uploading it to the internet, but shit that’s the way life goes, it forced me to make music.

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When listening to your music it becomes clear that you are very diverse in terms of sound. Songs like ‘’FEELS’’ and ‘’Pick me up’’ have an alternative r&b sound to it, while some songs that are featured on the ‘’Lo-Fi Motel EP’’ are more rap orientated. Is this something that is reflective of your own personal taste in music and the artists that you are influenced by?

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I just love to create different sounds, I don’t like to stick to one genre. I try to just make something that can express how I feel at that same moment. Sometimes I want to turn up with the gang and blast some ignorant shit and at other times I need that melancholy ballad bumping in the whip at 2 am.

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Certainly, I think some of my favorite artists had an impact in terms of my Influence, I grew up a huge fan blasting blink 182 almost every day, “Feeling this” and “Violence” were my get hype tunes and “Adam’s Song” and “Stay Together for the Kids’’ were my cry to songs, yeah, I was a real emo kid back then, my first concert was My Chemical Romance. And I’m pretty sure I lost my virginity while Paramore’s “Misery Business’’ was playing in the background. But I also listened to more kinds of rock like Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys, I wasn’t that “open minded” to other genres back then to be honest with you. Today I’m proud to say I listen to everything and enjoy everything, If I had to state any specific artists that influenced me in terms of song creating, I would have to go with Blink 182, Linkin Park, Lil Wayne, Frank Ocean and Nirvana.

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Speaking of the aforementioned songs; A lot of the lyrics on songs like ‘’FEELS’’ and ‘’Pick me up’’ seem very personal, touching on darker themes such as drugs and mental health. I personally believe that it is important that artists and people in general are opening up about serious topics like these. Can you speak on your own experience with these topics? And what was the response like (from your own environment) when you released these songs?

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I think everyone needs to talk about it to a certain degree, it would take pages to open up about my share in this and my experiences of depression and for the sake of the interview and some privacy I’ll try to summarize it. I wasted most of my childhood years with the fake perception that I needed to be older to enjoy my life, so I always hung out with kids older than me and it led me to messed up situations, I was seeing and doing things a kid shouldn’t do at a young age. It eventually led me to seeing the doctor a lot and getting diagnosed mentally, depression and anxiety were the winners. 

 

Prescriptions fucked me up rather than helping me. I was relying on Xanax and Valium daily to a dangerous level experimenting with all kinds of drugs, fucking my grades up and messing up my relationships. This all in the end thankfully led me to make music out of all that isolation and darkness. I changed countries at age 16 and became even more alone, but more motivated to release songs on the internet. I was spending my summer nights with a crappy microphone anticipating to see the response from people going through the same shit that I was going through. It made me happy and gave me the strength to keep going and so I did.

 

I imagine scrolling down the YouTube comment section of some of your music videos and reading all the positive comments must mean a lot to you? Seeing all the positive feedback from, which I presume are mostly people you’ve never met, must give you some sort of peace of mind, seeing that there are more people out there who are dealing with similar things?

 

It means the world to me, making music and having that connection with that person regardless of age, origin, gender, we have that in common, that darkness, call it what you want, but we’re dealing with it and we’ll help each other go through this, that’s how I feel and it gives me peace of mind when I release a song that in some way can help someone in a certain situation. They could be getting over a break up, turning up at a party or driving in their car, I was able to be there. I enjoy that.

 

Musicians and artists in general can have a huge impact on individual lives as well as the world. Even though you are still very early on in your career; do you ever think about what type of impact you want to make on the world or are you more in the moment, so to speak?

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I feel like the less I think the better, I live in the moment more and it’s doing me well. The only impact I currently care about is making music that resonates with my feelings and that others would enjoy hearing.

 

If my research is correct, as of this very moment (August, 2019) it has almost been a year since you’ve released new music. I can only imagine that you’ve been hard at work on some new music this past year. Can you give an update on your plans for the future and any new music you might be releasing?

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I have been, in past attempts to make music and release them online I was always under pressure and always felt like I had to rush a certain project to finish it. This last year I’ve been working on music and not releasing it yet because I want to take time to create a good product stress free and organically. Hopefully in the next 2 months, the roll out will begin.

 

Personally, I love discovering new music and finding out what other people listen to. With that being said; if you could recommend one artist, or one song or album to the rest of the world, which would it be?

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Currently I’m bumping Nirvana and Nina Simone in the morning, Frank Ocean and Linkin Park at night, If I’m driving I’m bumping OutKast. And I Listen to MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular whenever I see bright colors. My all-time favorite album (even though it’s not that old) is Frank Ocean’s Blonde, all the songs on there…especially Nights. The world must know Frank by now, I love the way he tells a story.  Blink 182’s self-titled Album Blink 182 has to be my most played album to date, it’ll always be the soundtrack to my teenage years.

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Final question; If you could collaborate with any artist in the world, who would it be? And why?

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If I had to pick one songwriter, I would collaborate with Frank Ocean because he really delivers a near perfect product in my eyes, he’s able to make me picture entire worlds through his lyrics. And right now, If I had to collaborate with a band, I would be honored to make a song with The Roots. I need that feature from Black Thought, I feel like Black Thought is so underrated. He's in my top 3 lyricists of all time for sure.

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