Upon first glance at a music festival’s lineup, the name “Jazz Cartier” may seem posh. Despite speculation, the Toronto emcee’s performance is stuffed with powerful choruses laid over bass-boosted instrumentals, and mosh pits formed at Cartier’s behest. Articles of his SXSW performances occupied the hip-hop blogosphere in the first quarter of 2016. Noisey documented his performance while swinging upside down from a ceiling fan, and Red Bull chronicled his face-plant into a birthday cake.
Cartier’s demeanor off stage, however, is calm, thoughtful and deliberate. He strolls around Austin City Limits Festival's press lounge bouncing between interviews clad in a forest green Nike t-shirt, and sporting a WWJD - What would Jesus do? - bracelet on his left wrist.
At 23 years old, Cartier has graced the cover of two Canadian magazines, and his single, “Dead or Alive,” sits at over 7 million listens on Spotify. For now, Cartier is without a record label. His entourage is lean; the only person accompanying him during his festival set is his DJ, Fourth. “I still carry all the bags,” Cartier says.
In 2015 Cartier released his first album, Marauding in Paradise. Throughout the project’s introductory song Cartier refers to himself as ‘Cuzzi, a shortened version of his second go-by, Jacuzzi LaFleur. “LaFleur” stems from Cartier’s obsession with the meticulous daily care that is integral for flower’s survival. It serves as the inspiration for his life’s ethos. “I use flowers as a way to tell my fans to nurture their relationships [...] Every song I drop and every shirt I drop is like a seed, and over time it will grow.”
If 2015 served as a sowing season for Cartier, 2016 has been his harvesting year. He played just 29 shows in 2015. Since the spring of 2016, the Toronto native has more than doubled his previous year’s dates due to a 16-date headlining tour in Europe, and an opening slot on Post Malone’s 41-date Hollywood Dream Tour. He has increased his booking fee nearly 10 times, ultimately boosting his performance rate by 50% in Canada in the past year.
The spike is a byproduct of the release of his sophomore effort, Hotel Paranoia, with the growing popularity of the single “Dead or Alive” from his debut album. In early 2016, the single began surface as background music to sports highlight reels and Vine videos. At a time when it’s not uncommon for a viral video to increase an artist’s popularity seemingly overnight, Cartier claims, “It didn’t happen fast, but it happened at the right time.”
His “que sera sera” attitude doesn’t waver. Even in the midst of disappointment, he finds solace in speaking his wishes into fruition. According to Cartier, Hotel Paranoia’s “100 Roses,” was a strong candidate for a synch placement in Suicide Squad, but was pulled in the eleventh hour. Rather than sulk, he tweeted, “I will get [my song in] a big movie and video game soon though.” Not only was the song was picked up in an episode of Ballers two weeks later, but Cartier was contacted by video game developer Ubisoft, and asked to use Hotel Paranoia’s third cut, “Red Alert,” for the global campaign of their car racing game “The Crew.”
Music licensing is just one of the many revenue streams that Cartier has tapped into. Depending on where the merchandise table is placed in the venue, and whether or not he shamelessly plugs his products on stage, ‘Cuzzi sells an average of 60 t-shirts per night around $35 per. Using some quick back-of-the-envelope math, he stands to bring in just over $85,000 in merchandise sales from the 41-date tour he embarked on this fall. But Cartier admits this is small beer compared to his online store, which saw an over 2500% increase in revenue in the past year.
Cartier and his retinue design shirts that commemorate milestones in his career, such as “Dead or Alive” reaching over 20 million streams across multiple streaming platforms. In an effort to remain in-demand, he keeps an inventory of less than 200 shirts per design. Once it sells out, he opts to create a new design rather than restock. It’s a time-tested method that encourages fans to act swiftly, because once the product is gone, it won’t be back.
Cartier admits that he should wear his own products more often. Instead he has appeared in campaigns for Nordstrom and the Roots Canada clothing line, and is cultivating a relationship with Nike. His budding partnership with the latter could lead to apparel collaborations; however, one of Cartier’s dreams-in-progress is to blend his knowledge as an accomplished tennis player with the sport of hip-hop. “I’m trying to be everything a rapper shouldn’t be,” he claims.
Aspirations aside, Cartier’s immediate focus is music. He claims that his future works will pull from his time spent as an adolescent in the Houston rap scene, and his exposure of various cultures in foreign countries. But despite his extensive traveling, he ensures that the influences of his hometown will be the source of his creativity.
“I graduated [high school] in 2012,” Cartier adds. “And I wanted to come back home, establish myself in [Toronto] and be at the forefront of the post-Drake era. Four years later that’s what I did.”
