Cognito of Massinfluence remembers hiring Jax at Fat Beats

Cognito of Massinfluence – another mainstay in Atlanta’s late-’90s indie-rap scene – managed Jax during their days working at the now closed Atlanta record store Fat Beats on Mitchell Street. He currently lives in Los Angeles.

When Fat Beats opened up, cats would always be falling through. Just hanging out, listening to music, coming through, just checking to see what was new. Jax was one of them cats that would just come through all the time. And pretty much he’d never say anything about it in the beginning, but at the end of the conversation before he was about to leave he was just like, “Yo, man, let me know when y’all are hiring.”

So once I had an opportunity to be able to hire somebody, he was definitely the first cat on the list. He’s actually the only other employee, other than the original employees, that ever got hired there. Like, all the original cats were the original people that were there in the end. And he just fit the bill. He just fit right up in the matrix for us.

It was just joy every day, man. The cat was confident, a comedian, always positive energy. It’s crazy, like, just thinking about him and just thinking about the relationship between him and Flux was so crazy. As long as I’ve known those brothers, I don’t think I ever saw them cats argue with one another. I’ve seen Jax get mad, but it was never anger towards anybody else. It was always just mad at a situation or whatever, but I never saw him have any type of drama with anybody. He was that dude who was always trying to bring peace to the situation. And he brought that just by being there.