Unemployment Benefits
By Emma Castleberry
Asheville musician Josh Blake has released a new 13-track mixtape, Unemployment Benefits. The album features a number of collaborators including GRAMMY-winning Agent 23, Foul Mouth Jerk, Adam Strange, Spaceman Jones, Simon Thomas George of the Marcus King Band, C. Shreve the Professor and Jamar Woods of The Fritz, as well as Deep Banana Blackout’s Johnny Durkin and MTV Blaze Battle Champion Breez Evahflowin. “It’s somewhat of a return to my roots, working with people and emcees that I’ve had connections to for many years,” says Blake, who is also co-founder of the audio/video production company IamAVL and a longtime producer and engineer at Echo Mountain Recording Studios.
Josh Blake. Photo by Marisa Blake
The creative process for the album flowed alongside homeschooling for Blake’s child during the pandemic. “I’d spend time during homeschool putting on music—random things, old songs from all over the world—and when I found something that sounded interesting I would make a note of it,” Blake says. “Then, when homeschool was done, I would spend a couple of hours working in those samples and crafting a beat. I got super into that rhythm, and decided I would set the goal to make a beat a day.”
What started as a casual, “background music” project grew into a full album when Blake brought in his collaborators. The album’s title is quite literal, “because this project is a direct benefit of me and all the contributors having less gigs and work,” Blake says. “This record is a true collaborative effort, laced with social and political themes that represent the current state of affairs in our country. It would have never come to life, or even been conceptualized, if my daily routine hadn’t been interrupted by the conditions surrounding the pandemic.”
Blake says he’s “really pushing for that old-school hip-hop vibe with this record,” which he thinks fans will appreciate. Not all of the collaborators that Blake worked with were able to finish their tracks in time for this album release, so this is Volume One of Unemployment Benefits. “Producing beats is one of my favorite things to do musically,” he says, “so if this train has any steam I’m gonna keep pushing collaborative albums like this one out into the future.”
Unemployment Benefits is out on all streaming platforms and is available for purchase on JoshBlake.Bandcamp.com. For more information about the musician, visit JoshBlakeMusic.com.
