With a careless expression, Jesse steps out of the vocal booth into a studio still aflame by the excitement he created just moments ago. While some people are still trying to process Jesse’s verse, others give him pounds at a loss for all words except, “Damn, you got it dog”. This is just the effect of one verse from the rap pages of Jesse Calico. Calico’s musical strength isn’t just about his talent but also about his approach. “I want to set a mood for an album. To be considered an artist, you gotta paint a picture and set a scene for the audience. That is how I approach each project. Clever wordplay and metaphors are what made me listen to hiphop. Clever songs and emotional albums are what inspire me to write. Maybe I can inspire someone else.” With a keen sense and peculiar outlook of the world, Calico has very wide ranging. From serious to jovial subject matters, he seems to make the jump quite easily. “I try not to get caught up in image cause’ that’s really the business or the marketing side of the music. When I write, I’m trying to place myself in the beat like I am the flute or something. So when I am in that frame of mind I can’t think about who might get offended or are cats gonna respect what I am doing. There are no such things as musical boundaries, or subjects a poet can’t touch. I always keep that in the back of my mind.” Throughout his adolescence, Jesse grew up in uptown Manhattan and a few other spots in New York City. He had trials and tribulations but by his accounts it was ”similar to what a lot of young people go through or at least can relate to”. Some of those trials are what helped shape Calico’s sociopolitical writings. In high school Jesse had made a practice of cutting class to read books about Plato or Stalin or Eldridge Cleaver (and the list goes on). The classroom setting sometimes stifled his thirst for knowledge. Although always into the hiphop arts, it was his best friend D who first introduced him to emceing. D had been rapping for a little while longer than Jesse and they would critique each other’s rhymes. Jesse’s book soon became a lethal arsenal of lyrical weaponry and musical schematics. Cali was introduced to Rain, an aspiring producer in the midst forming a Productions Company. “He was my ex-girlfriend’s brother. She had always talked about him but he never really liked me seeing I was dating his sister and all.” Jesse explained. “I was always trying to find some way to get into a studio but never had the money. One day she was real persistent and I took a chance, and Rain was cool about letting me mess around with the studio equipment. Soon we were talking about hiphop and the things we wanted to do once we got into the game, and strange enough we shared a lot of views.” Soon after that meeting came Illmortal Productions and the artist Jesse Calico.