Jackson Whalan

If you look at the story of any successful artist with longevity, the middle chapters are always the most interesting. Usually, there is a personal or professional crucible. For artist-producer Jackson Whalan, that transformative time occurred in the wake of a lost weekend stretch out West.

Whalan was a teen hip-hop wunderkind who once performed at the United Nations in front of a star-studded audience. As an adult, he became known to the public for his infectious jam, “S.N.A.G. (Sensitive New Age Guy),” which has amassed over a half million streams. But just two years later he was aimless and entangled in toxic dynamics. Whalan has profoundly turned his life around since then, and he has done nearly the impossible. He’s become a profitable, full-time independent musician.

“I was on a path that felt like it was controlling me, and I had to get away,” the Western Massachusetts and New York City-based artist says. “I locked myself in the studio and rediscovered hip-hop—which has always been authentic to me—and I started to seek business advice for my music career.”

Whalan is known for his fierce flow, his uplifting and genre-bursting hip-hop, his versatile beat-making skills and production, and his dazzling freestyle rap chops. His 100-plus song catalog bursts through perceived confines of hip-hop, veering into pop, electronic, and jam band territory. Whalan’s oeuvre includes LPs, EPs, singles, and features. His latest album, Vocal Points, is a collaboration with legendary producer, musician, and playback engineer, GES (Missy Elliott, Logic, AlunaGeorge, Jon Bellion, Caroline Polachek).

Whalan has produced hip-hop heavyweight KRS-One, and collaborated with Rittz, Just Juice, Mega Ran, and award-winning cellist and composer Dave Eggar (Frank Ocean, Talib Kweli, Beyoncé). He tours and performs extensively both solo and with a live band. He’s performed with Brady Watt, and opened for Moon Hooch, GZA (Wu-Tang Clan), Mega Ran, RJD2, Wax, Talib Kweli, and Thundersmack, among others.
He’s a fixture at the legendary “Producer Mondays” series run by The Roots’ keyboardist Ray Angry (D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill, Mark Ronson).

From the beginning, Whalan made beats so he had original music to rap over. As the years have gone by, his production evolved and his skills have opened the doors to new opportunities, such as producing other artists, releasing instrumental collections, and licensing his tracks for film, TV, and commercials. Whalan has had sync placements with Reebok, Xfinity, Champs, Bluehost, Harney & Sons Tea, Footlocker, Huawei, Smart Car, Monster Energy, Vice, NFL, Netflix, and BET.

Growing up in the small town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Whalan saw firsthand an underbelly of drug addiction and struggle. The stark realities of life hit closer to home when his parents divorced. He found solace in an assortment of 1990s hip-hop CDs his older brother left behind. “I identified with the storytelling, and the rawness of the sound,” Whalan says.

There wasn’t much hip-hop in Western Massachusetts, but Whalan found guidance and mentorship at Railroad Street Youth Project, a local youth group, and from artist/activist Regi Wingo (Dominik Omega). These associations climaxed in Whalan having the opportunity to
perform at the United Nations when he was just 17 years old.

Whalan would go on to study turntablism at The New School under DJ Rob Swift (The X-Ecutioners), and record with Grammy-winning engineer John Davis. His band, Technicolor Lenses, became a fixture on the jam band/electronic music scene. His immersion in the enlightened side of this community inspired Whalan to study Integral Sustainability in India. He later lampooned his self-evolution on “S.N.A.G.”

During this time, Whalan worked on cannabis farms on the West Coast between albums and tours. There, he found himself embroiled in various compromising situations, and he moved back East. Upon returning home, Whalan sought guidance from a state-funded business development program that profoundly shifted his perspective from just making music to having a music career. Since then, Whalan has earned prestigious sync-license placements, opened for Talib Kweli, produced a beat for KRS-One, and he had the legend feature on one of his solo songs. In 2022, Whalan’s son, Fynn, was born, bringing a deeper purpose and intention to all of his endeavors.

His latest album, Vocal Points, is a collaboration featuring Whalan’s rhymes and GES’s tracks. The 11-track album is a prismatic but cohesive collection of textural and positive-minded hip-hop. On the ethereal, “Hope,” Whalan grapples with finding peace in the wake of missed opportunities. His militant flow pierces through rugged beats and dreamy ambience on the rousing “Coming Alive.” His penchant for writing undeniable pop hooks is evident on “Moving With You.” Here, the verses rhyme swaggeringly, and the choruses boast a sensual, sung melody.

Whalan explores narrative songwriting in the mesmerizing, “A Bicycle Story.” This true-story epic details how he bizarrely found his stolen bike. “It’s a crazy New York miracle,” Whalan says. One standout stanza is: I woke up and walked back to my bike/Suddenly a cloud covered up the sunlight/Started pouring rain flash flood-like/And my ride was nowhere in sight.

The chances of you finding your stolen bike in New York City are almost as good as maintaining artistic integrity while thinking like a business person. For Whalan, however, the rewards of the hustle aren’t monetary—being self-supporting helps him serve a greater purpose. “I want to make a difference,” he says. “I want my music to touch as many people as possible.”