Greetings, precious ones, and welcome to the artistic alter ego of Jo-Jo Rose! To some degree, NXNES {pronounced ’NUNS’) is simply a musical veil and blanket, wrapped and covering Rose since 2007. But it’s far deeper than that in mission and scope. We hope to break down all walls of division, and reinforce people with confidence in unity through music and visual arts. The covering of the faces in our representation is a subtraction of the artist from the content, with hope that the audience will include themselves; sort of a “your face here”. “We are one, we are NXNES!” is the mantra.

Starting in 2001, Rose began his musical journey playing in various metal and punk (sometimes ska) bands as a young teen in his hometown of New Bedford, MA. At the time, he was only comfortable playing bass, but privately he was on a quest to ‘cut out the middlemen’ by learning multiple instruments (primarily guitar, bass, and drums), embracing audio engineering, and performing solo. He and his childhood friend recorded the first NXNES material as something called “Estramound”; taking from the first line of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting For Godot”.

The true baptism came between 2004 and 2010 when he lived in Washington, DC and attended Howard University. Unlike Massachusetts, DC/HU provided a space for him to socially feel comfortability, opening him up to truly delve into his knack for the musical craft. He connected with the DC hip-hop/soul/r&b scene and took on mentors who helped him flourish and pushed him to understand the Dilla-ism of creating with negative space. This became fundamental to everything he created. The level of artistry was so high and inspiring in DC, it pushed his aesthetic to new heights and NXNES was truly born in 2009 when he started performing with just an acoustic guitar.

2011’s Love and Hunger, NXNES recorded with a computer mic and the qwerty keyboard. It was the beginning of building an aesthetic focused on rhythmic and soulful energy that has carried through the rest of his career. It was also the beginning of his understanding that although he is creating something with the familiar feel of R&B/Soul, it’s also profoundly unique especially in message. Supporting women, songs about love as it equates and intertwines with death, addressing the mental health of the black community as it relates to the United states while also speaking as an American, and the all important talks with and of ‘God’.

In 2015, KIM, NXNES’s second release, was a deeper journey into ‘being’. Questioning what you know while remaining confident in who you are was at the focal point of that collection of songs. The sentiment only deepens with each release. This journey can only be made through connection and sincere interaction with audiences and other creatives. NXNES believes that a universal ego death and subsequent embrace can solve much of the world’s societal issues, starting everyone at 0…none. WE ARE ONE, WE ARE NXNES!

This piece is just the beginning of an exploration of patience and depth in a genre all too riddled with archetype and margins. This album is for my father, EC, and Holli.