Rapper June Nature gets Youngstown’s vote

By John Benson

Suffice it to say, surviving being shot nearly a dozen times would change anyone’s life.

For Youngstown native Laytton L. Lenoir, this 2005 wrong-place-at-the-wrong time shooting was a sign from above to not only change his mindset but pursue his dreams.

“Ever since I got shot — I took 11 bullets and got shot twice with an AK that almost blew my right arm off — I just figured from that point on I just have to use my talent that God gave me and writing music is all I really ever had,” said Lenoir, 29, who was born on the east side of Youngstown. “So now in my later 20s, I’m just trying to push my career and give it a try.”

Three years after turning over a new leaf, Lenoir is quickly gaining fame around Northeast Ohio as hip-hip artist June Nature. Rapping since the age of 13, the emcee – who moved to Atlanta for 10 years before moving back to Ohio for high school – said his main influence is OutKast, which gives him a unique Down South-meets-Midwest sound.

Although so far he’s released three studio albums (most recently 2005’s “Zenith”) and various mix-tapes (2007’s “Free The Hood, Vol. I” and 2008’s “Free The Hood, Vol. 2”), his success has been limited to how many CDs he can sell out of his trunk.

“A lot of people feel like I could really be somewhere if it wasn’t like the little city we’re from and the little promotion people get here,” Lenoir said. “If I was somewhere like Atlanta, a lot of people believe I could have made it.”

Feeling like a lost fish in a small pond, Lenoir experienced a twist of fate earlier this year when he performed at the Lucky Penny Family Reunion show Labor Day Weekend in downtown Youngstown. The WRBP-FM JAMZ-101.9 show was packed with audience members who watched 25 local and 10 national acts performed.

It was during this show that WRBP General Manager Skip Bednarczyk took notice of Lenoir and his local peers.

“I had no idea there would be exceptional talent in this area,” said Bednarczyk, who also oversees WGFT-AM 1330 and WASN-AM 1500. “That gave me an idea to recognize local talent in our area, and we came up with the concept of ‘Home Jamz.’ We’re trying it out on Saturday nights between 8 and 10 p.m. We play eight songs that fit our format done by local artists, and then listeners have an opportunity to go to our Web site (www.jamz1019.com) and vote on it.

“Every week the two least performing groups come off and two brand-new ones go on. The artist with the highest number of votes gets their song played the following week in regular rotation on the air.”

For Lenoir, this was the break he was looking for. Already working on his next studio release “A Cry in the Dark,” which is due out next June, the rapper submitted his Youngstown-inspired song “Try Harder” to “Home Jamz.” He feels what happened next was nothing short of fate.

“I think in nine weeks I’ve won first place seven times and second place twice,” Lenoir said. “So it’s been going really good. People have been calling the station asking, ‘Who is that dude with the Youngstown song?’ I’ve been handing out free CDs, and on my Myspace.com page I get four or five friends requests every day. I’m on there sharing my music and keeping in touch with people. A lot of people have already told me they’re going to buy my album when I get done with it.”

From a local standpoint, Lenoir couldn’t have asked for better promotion regarding “A Cry in the Dark.” Not only does he soon plan on releasing his next single “Yes, It’s Over,” what he calls a farewell song to President Bush, but he’s also hoping his Atlanta connections will start playing “Try Harder,” which he describes as a motivational song.

“I had a hard life, but I survived,” Lenoir said. “I grew up in the streets and did all of that stuff with the drugs but I gave it up. I’m trying to turn a new leaf and trying to use the talent that God gave me. So now I’m making more motivational songs. I’ll still be a storyteller about stuff that happens in the hood, but I’m not trying to be that gangster rapper rapping about guns and drugs and violence and stuff. I can get real deep with political stuff and get real deep like a poet, instead of just rapping about crime and violence.”

He added, “I definitely feel like this is something I’ve been waiting for. It might not be a record deal but I’ve been doing this for so long, and I’ve been known as one of the best here in Youngstown without really no radio play. So I definitely feel like this can take me further than what I’ve been doing.”

Someone else that believes the same thing is Bednarczyk. Not only has “Home Jamz” proven to be a success, but it has exposed the radio programmer to the quality talent that exists in his own backyard.

“I work with record companies every day and the songs they bring to me, many of these songs are not as good as what I’m hearing from the Youngstown-Warren-Sharon. Pa. artists,” Bednarczyk said. “It’s just that these poor guys haven’t hooked up yet with a major recording company with a major label. And I think it’s just a matter of time before a number of artists come out of Youngstown.”