IT’S BACK HO
Hip-hop star in Albany for collaboration with local talent
Jacier Pearson is bringing it all back home. The 28-year-old, professionally known as Money Montage, started his beatmaking and production career as a teenage upstart in Albany. Pearson left the Capital Region in 2014 to successfully grow his brand and work with national acts, but a recent trip home led to local inspiration.
On Aug. 20, Money Montage is releasing the five-track “For the Summer,” a collaboration with Albany-based hip-hop artists B. Chaps and Freedom Stratton.
“I met B. Chaps through (Albany multiinstrumentalist) Ayo B,” Pearson recalled. “Ayo B and I were making melodies together and I just locked in and started making a bunch of beats while back home visiting and I connected with B. Chaps.
“In the producer game, people have a certain way of working,” he added. “Ayo B is a good instrumentalist, but might not drum, so he’ll record a melody for me to make beats over, and then B. Chaps will come in and play guitar, and we’ll send things back and forth as mp3s.”
In working with B. Chaps and Stratton, Pearson was encouraged to see the area hip-hop scene has talent that’s focused on and primed for breakout success.
“It’s very hard to get through to artists; if you don’t know the basics, it’s not worth us working together. We’re not shooting for the same things if you’re talking about Youtube and Soundcloud and we’re not even talking about paid streams,” he said. “It’s fun to work with people that are real musicians and not people who think they’re the first to get 100,000 views on Youtube.”
Soundcloud and Youtube success are cool and hard to reach, but Pearson has larger ambitions and his resume reflects that. Under the Money Montage moniker, he’s become a Billboard platinum-certified producer with an impressive list of projects to his name.
“Since I was like 15, 16, I’ve been getting placements and landing records,” Pearson noted. “I got my first Billboard certification in 2018 for ‘The Growing Process’ by Dizzy Wright.
“I wanted to make a sound like New York (hip-hop in the late 1990s and early 2000s), something that sounded big,” he continued. “I felt pretty confident in my sound that I could compete with anybody by the time I was 17 or 18.”
It turns out that his confidence in himself and the New York City sound he cultivated was well-placed. Through steady outreach and networking, Pearson linked up with the next generation of hard-hitting NYC emcees, producing a slew of tracks for critically acclaimed Nas protégé Dave East and Styles P of the iconic group The Lox.
I wanted to make a sound like New York (hip-hop in the late 1990s and early 2000s), something that sounded big.”
— Money Montage
Pearson could have continued to operate in the boom-bap style of rap and carved out a nice little niche for himself. But his vision and his ear began to expand, and with it the amount of artists he’s produced.
In the past couple years, Pearson has racked up credits with major hip-hop stars Kehlani, Skepta, Swae Lee of Rae Sremmurd, Youngboy and Rich the Kid. Last September, he earned a gold plaque for his work on the Youngboy single “Carter Son.”
Now Pearson is looking to branch out. He moved from Albany to Florida for college and relocated to California last year to gain easier access to artists and studio time. With steady production and beat-making work with other artists coming in, he’s now looking to expand his own catalog and release tracks under his own name.
In addition, he’s looking to break through with talent recruitment, management and promotion. It’s a lot, but between the music and business Pearson is grinding every day to build his own entity
“I’m building my own streaming numbers and I do dope stuff on my own every day,” Pearson affirmed. “And I’m at a point
where I’m pretty established; I’m going to land artists (to collaborate with). I’m consistently on new artists and I’m building my own catalog of work for the label I own.
“You have to be really consistent, period. You have to do it every day,” he continued. “I’m much more than a producer, but that’s what I did first.”