One recent evening in the Grant Park neighborhood of Atlanta, Funk Volume’s Jarren Benton was in rare form. “Normally, Jarren Benton videos are f-cking retarded,” says the rapper with a shrug. “There’s always a bunch of crazy sh*t but what I wanna do is more visuals that look like art versus the crazy story like, how many people can I kill in a video?”
He’s right. For at least four years, the Atlanta MC has raised eyebrows—his double-time shock lyrics and the videos he pairs them with, creep up on rivaling the horrorcore that rap vet Tech N9ne thrives on. Things are different this go-round, though. With the release of Benton’s new Slow Motion Volume 1 EP, he’s trying something new, in memory of a friend.
Just over a year ago, Jarren Benton was on set to record the video for “PBR & Reefer” from his My Grandma’s Basement LP. The shoot proved challenging as the night went on. The rapper’s day-to-day manager, a hulking 6’5” gentle giant, affectionately referred to as Slow Mo, paced back and forth outside of the East Atlanta home rented for the taping. “People that promised to come by a certain time, they ain’t here. Sh*t so stressful, man,” he said, sighing.
True to the theme of the song, Pabst Blue Ribbon cans littered the home’s interior, clouds of weed smoke hung low from the foyer to the back patio. Still, even with all of the setbacks on that evening, the crew got it done. Slow donned a curly wig and ridiculous glasses for some of the scenes and was finally smiling by the night’s end. Five days later, Slow Motion was gone—passed away in his sleep to the complete and utter shock of everyone in the Atlanta music industry. He was 36 years old.
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Photo: Instagram
The project as a whole pays homage to Benton’s late friend and manager but there are still sprinkles of Jarren throughout. “It’s not completely dedicated to Slow but there’s a lot of him, especially this one particular song on the EP. There’s a lot of emotion on there, it’s crazy. You don’t hear a lot of ‘I’ll stick you in the dryer…’ Not a lot of that sh*t but it’s like a tame Jarren. In a good way.”
So, yes, this recent evening with the “Skitzo” creator is a little different. The video set for “Diamonds & Fur”—his mellowed-out lead single from the project — is a bit more subdued than his usual. “The concept of the song is talking about life before chasing music,” he explains. “It’s a lot of sh*t you go through, not just personally but with family, girls, whatever…”
“And you’re going through all that sh*t, in the midst of, and damn it’s so simple,” he says, trailing off. “‘Damn, I just wanna wear a fur coat and rock some f-cking diamonds.’ So it’s basically just capturing the struggle to the point of getting a fur,” he adds, fingering the multicolored coat his producer Kato jokingly calls ‘the Unicorn Fur.’ “Hopefully I have a real fur one day…”
The 8-song EP, almost exclusively produced by longtime collaborator Kato, boasts quite a few featuresincluding his Funk Volume family Hopsin, SwizZz and Dizzy Wright. According to Benton, he had enough music to create a full album but the plan is to spread the work out a bit. It’s a notion that ought to hold his insatiable fanbase over.
If Benton didn’t know the extent to which FV fans are committed, he learned after Hopsin’s prank in December where the imprint head feigned leaving the rap life behind. “Hopsin do Hopsin man…,” Benton says, smiling. “If there was a definition of Hopsin, it would be in an encyclopedia. I knew he was joking because he called us and let us know beforehand.”
“Yeah, he told us way in advance,” Kato interjects. “People were on Facebook talking about killing themselves and all that…”
Jarren adds, “I was like, ‘These ni**as is crazy.’ Some of these fans scare me. I appreciate the love for the music but it’s like, ‘dude things.’ Like, I’m chillin’ after the show, drinking, I’m down to show love, take pictures…”
“I appreciate the fact that they appreciate me,” he says, pausing. “But I don’t really wanna chill with you after the show, dude. After I get drunk and I’m on the tour bus, headed back to the hotel…”
These are the moments where Slow would come in and do work, presumably. “Slow was the ni**a who was supposed to be a tour manager on the road and he’d get pissed off and stop being a tour manager,” the rapper says, laughing. “I’m like, ‘Ni**a, how you gon’ do that? You can’t quit being a tour manager in the middle of the f*cking tour!’ That was him. We were like, the not-so-odd couple, we used to bicker about the dumbest sh*t but I miss that about my ni**a man.”
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