Being a doctor or lawyer are promising career choices, but senior JaCouree Bunn knew he wanted to do something different once he graduated high school.
Bunn was a growing young artist who loved to draw, so he picked a career path that best suited his interests and talent.
Bunn started at the University in 2012 as a digital art major. He was ready to hone his major into his passion, or so he thought.
As semester after semester went by, Bunn realized drawing wasn’t his true passion but a different kind of art would fit better – music.
Bunn said he had talent with a pencil and paper when he was in high school. It was also in high school when he found a love for music and became interested in rapping.
“In 10th grade I had got a laptop for Christmas, and I had a little mic,” Bunn said. “That’s when I started recording and playing around with it.”
A relative of Bunn, Lafonda Jackson, said she has always supported him in everything he’s set out to do.
Jackson struggled to find the right words to fit Bunn’s personality and their relationship.
Nonetheless, her message was clear.
“Watch out, Baton Rouge,” Jackson said. “The next best thing is about to come out. Jacouree Bunn.”
IRAI Ouree, Bunn’s rap name, soon started a group with friends who shared the same interests and passions, named Almighty Genius. The group’s members take on individual projects, and they are “more of a group to inspire,” than a group that solely focuses on rapping together.
Group member Therance White, TK Osaze, said he remembered when they first started recording themselves on cell phones in high school before graduating to recording on the laptop. The group started out with just three members, but the roster has grown to six, TK Osaze said.
Their path wasn’t always so smooth, he said.
“We would spend every day after school like it was practice just recording and making songs, and when we put our first project out, everybody clowned us on Twitter and everything,” TK Osaze said. “They were destroying us on Twitter.”
TK Osaze said the fallback made them work harder. Since then, they’ve released projects every year. The latest are Almighty Genius Cypher video, a music video where members take turns freestyling, and a JaCouree Bunn music video.
TK Osaze and Bunn’s relationship has grown and so has their talent, but Baton Rouge is full of aspiring artists. In order for them to stand out, they have to create unique pieces.
According to Bunn, his music is packed with emotion and relevance, something that today’s music is missing, he said.
“Musically, we’re in a day and age where it’s soulless,” Bunn said. “It has a subject, but everybody’s talking about the same things, and there’s more to life than drug, sex and money … When I make music I try to put some livelihood into it. I try to make it touch something else ­— give emotion, give soul, give a different outlook.”
Bunn said his collegiate career hasn’t been a waste. He plans on incorporating his musical talents with the skills he’s learned as a digital art major. Though it isn’t exactly what he wants to do anymore, his major courses teach him how to edit video and pictures.
In the future he wants to produce an animated music video, he said.
“There’s a good side and bad side to everything,” Bunn said. “I try to find that medium … we all have problems, we all have soul, we have goals, we all have dreams. I try to catch people on that side of things — try to catch them where they still want it and strive for it.”