Toronto artist Jimmy Yitty (formerly Jimmy From East York) kicked off this week by dropping a diss track aimed at DillanPonders titled “Triggered.”
Produced by Josh Grant, “Triggered” comes to us following Jimmy’s recently released Before The Wolves EP, which dropped earlier this year. Jimmy has always had a very dark edge to his sound. But that EP was mostly sad boy vibes. This track is straight, fiery anger.
Jimmy kind of reached a breaking point earlier this year when a situation arose with his ex-girl, and a supposed “friend” of his. Jimmy decided to stop feeling sorry for himself, and decided to channel all his feels into his music.
As much as this track is a trigger shot at Ponders, it’s also a platform for Jimmy to work through his own sadness, grievances, and anger. Listen to “Triggered” below, along with our new interview with Jimmy. You can follow him on Twitter @JimmyEastYork.
Q&A: Jimmy Yitty
HipHopCanada: Start off by telling me about the significance of this track to you, personally.
Jimmy Yitty: This song is very personal and very real. I made sure to say some pretty wild things. I think this is one of the more honest tracks. Like nobody would expect me to say these things. I mentioned a serious situation a friend is still going through. It was recent so it seems very real for us still to hear it on wax (digital) and the mention of two of my dead homies. The line coming after that foreshadows retaliation. Although a past experience… still very real to us (people who knew them) today.
HipHopCanada: There’s a very noticeable change in your vibe, compared to the songs on Before The Wolves. That project seemed to be rooted in sadness, whereas this song is straight up angry and hungry.
Jimmy Yitty: The change in the vibe was just a natural thing, as my personal life is constantly throwing my moods around. If BTW (Before The Wolves) sounded sad it was probably because at the time I was in a space where I was feeling sorry for myself for what I was going through; a lot of stress and uncertainty. Things were pretty much in limbo around that time. You hit it right on the nail using the word “hungry” because in May a situation involving an ex-girlfriend and a close friend (or who I THOUGHT was a friend) literally “Triggered” something in me. And I said “Fuck it! I’m not gonna feel sorry for myself I’m just gonna nyam food! I’m hungry and I’m coming to kill everything and then eat it!”
HipHopCanada: I feel like “Triggered” has several meanings to it …because on the one hand it’s in reference to feeling “triggered”, and it’s also a reference to actually pulling the trigger – lyrically – and firing shots all around.
Jimmy Yitty: You’re right! It has a few meanings. Another meaning it has – and I think I got confirmation last night when I performed it for the first time – is the lyrics themselves are pretty outlandish. And that in itself may trigger some emotions for the listeners. Super ironically… and I learned this last night… people think the “Shoot to kill/ We don’t fuck with leggings” line is a sneak diss at DillanPonders. Now with our past history this makes a little sense. But I literally was just using the slang word “leggings” as a leg shot. I seen his management start watching me on social media after that song came out. So clearly they were “Triggered”.
HipHopCanada: I know you’ve worked with Josh Grant before… but how did you two end up working together on this one, and what was your process for creating the track from start-to-finish?
Jimmy Yitty: Me and Josh are actually a part of a collective group called “NVDR” pronounced “INVADER” (which the world will know more about soon). So we will be working a lot in the future. This song was actually cool to work on. The arrangement of the beat and my lyrics were completely different at first. Josh rearranged it after hearing what I had done to it. It was recorded during the Before The Wolves sessions as it was supposed to be a bonus track. The stems were sent through a few people, which I rarely do. So that made this song feel different than all my others.
HipHopCanada: So who are you pulling trigger shots at in this track? What are you trying to kill?
Jimmy Yitty: I’m tryna kill all that weak shit that got everybody excited [and] anybody tryna run up and trying to stop me from being great! Like I said… I’m hungry now and I won’t let anyone fuck with my meal. Anybody tryna discredit what I’ve done in the last few years. I’ve cut off a lot of people this year alone and it’s just like… y’all dead to me. And finally as mentioned before maybe subconsciously, more specifically, DillanPonders.
Interview conducted by Sarah Jay for HipHopCanada
