“Are you stronger than yesterday?” How J Hus Built his Cult Fan Base

In a time before social media, celebrities were like Demi-Gods, only having parasocial relationships with their fans. These types of relationships are one-sided, where one person extends a lot of emotional energy, interest and time, and the other person – the celebrity – is largely unaware of their existence. But social media has forced celebs to form close relationships with their fans to remain relevant, and sometimes even achieve success. رهان اون لاين Only a handful of musicians have been able to cultivate distant parasocial relationships. bwin   These artists focus solely on the music, disappearing when living and creating, only reemerging to promote an album and tour. Some of these include Adele, Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Stormzy, and the U.K’s favourite – J Hus.

Scrolling through your TL on a normal day you’re likely to see at least one of 3 topics; the U.K being bad vibes, dating and people asking when a new J Hus album is dropping. So when Jae5 teased that a new album would drop on January 15th, it sent his fans and the TL into a frenzy. Even though the 15th was a Saturday, and albums usually drop on a Friday, fans still had faith in their crazy Eastender. A quickly deleted tracklist with features from Dave, Stormzy, FKA twigs, 21 Savage and PA Salieu gave them a taste of what was to come after 2 years since Big Conspiracy’s release. It was like manna from heaven, rainfall after a long drought. But there was no album, and nothing since from his management announcing an official release date. It was an emotional rollercoaster and anti-climatic. Though chaotic and dysfunctional, the fans loved it, love this about Hus – and I’d go as far to say Hus loves it too.

J Hus, born Momodou Jallow, has never taken a conventional approach to the music industry. He simply does what he wants. He won’t turn up to the BRITs to accept his award, declines performance invitations and barely does press or features.  The “cool kid” everyone wants to work with but everyone knows their chances are slim to none. He’s so sought after and remains so elusive. 

We never know what we’re going to get, nor when we’re going to get it. Will he post a song snippet that his management will quickly delete from his socials? Or will he tweet incessantly from his iPad, referring to himself as a Top Militarian and ask us if we’re stronger than yesterday? The chaos and volatility creates an allure around Hus and makes fans want more, to know more. 

The little they do know,  they attempt to piece together to form their own narrative about the Stratford native. A recent father, of Gambian descent and a frequent practitioner of traditional religion. Fans attempt to fill the gaps in his story through his music and whatever rumours they see online deemed plausible. Recently it’s been fans and theorists trying to figure out which friend Hus was referring to when he regretfully admitted on Fight For Your Right to sleeping with a friend’s girlfriend.  

It’s almost unheard of to have this sort of impact with just 1 tour, 2 albums and infrequent press. His silence is as loud as words, his absence as moving as his presence. He’s among the few in the industry that has this effect en masse. مواقع القمار In the age of filters and fabricated lifestyles, it’s hard to get your head around his authenticity and somewhat mad approach to music. But this is Hus, organised chaos.

Elements of this chaos creep into his lyrics, but not his approach to music as his sound remains  succinct and unique. He’s one of the few artists to have survived the silent death of Afroswing and has continued to evolve his sound with every one of his releases. His sound perfectly encapsulates his global citizenship; Gambian blood, reared on 50 Cent and Grime and surrounded by Dancehall and Afrobeats –  the sound African and Caribbean migrants brought with them to the U.K. He’s incomparable to his peers. His music sounds timely, yet somehow still ahead of time.

J Hus is an enigma. A figure we’ll probably never understand and it seems he doesn’t want to be understood. In a time where most artists take to social media to explain and frankly over-explain themselves, there’s no surprise that fans are obsessed with his nonchalance and indifference to everything. J Hus is all about the music. It’s unclear how long Hus’ hiatus will last, so in the meantime, his cult fan base will sit and wait for the Bouf Daddy to return.

Words by Akachi Priscilla