User:Saevonivy/sandbox

= Jo The Villain =

Saevon Ivy (born January 30, 1998), known professionally as Jo The Villain, is an American rapper and singer. He is best known for his songs "Hustla of the Week", "Fake Friends" and "Wa$$up Wit It". With his music being described as "genre-ambiguous", Ivy incorporates hip hop, R&B, and rock into his music.

Early life
Saevon Josiah Gray-Ivy was born on January 30, 1998 in Holland, Michigan. A year later he moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan, where his mom had been attending Western Michigan University at the time of his birth. Ivy's parents never married but stayed in contact during the first years of Saevon's life. Being under his mom's full custody, Saevon would still regularly visit his father until 2006, in which he went to live with his father for a year and a half in Chicago, Illionois, while his mom finished getting her degree. This was where Ivy was exposed to hip-hop moguls like the names, A Tribe Called Quest, Kool Moe Dee, Slick Rick, Jay-Z, Nas, Busta Rhymes, Cassidy, and Big L, at the age of only 6 years old. This prompted him to start songwriting at just 7 years old creating the rap name "Lil LA", for himself.

Ivy's father exposed him to rock, but it was only limited to the band Nirvana. Ivy would later go on to discover and listen to many other genres of rock from bands like Metallica, Megadeth, AC/DC, Slipknot, and System Of A Down, in his early teenage years.

He played violin from age 9 to 14 for orchestra class. Ivy began to take rapping seriously in his sophomore year of high school, and in his senior year created the rap collective, Circa 98 along with childhood friends and fellow artists Roezart, and K-Swift.

Career
Ivy began to develop himself as an artist in his sophomore year of high school. His first track, "Jodeci" featuring Roezart, was released on SoundCloud in 2015 under the name Josiah (often shortening it to Jo), which is his middle name. Ivy recorded a majority of his first tracks using a cellphone and computer speakers, uploading them to SoundCloud in his sophomore year.

From 2015 to 2018, Ivy uploaded all of his singles and projects to SoundCloud. In July 25, 2015, he released his first mixtape, "Covers" doing remixes to Songs by Monica, J. Cole, Cozz,Kendrick Lamar and Meek Mill. Changing his name to Jo The Villain in 2018, Ivy decided on the stage name to bring to attention all the minority groups that are cast as "bad people" to the majority and common society.

In April 19, 2017 Ivy released R&B single "Wa$$up Wit It". The video was shot on Western Michigan University's Campus and amassed 25,000 views on Facebook and Twitter together.

2018 has seen 2 single releases so far from Ivy with Hustla of The Week (H.O.T.W), released March 27, and "Fake Friends" released June 5.

Musical style
Ivy states his musical influences as being genre-wide going from rock music to rap music. Ivy stated that his biggest influences are New York rapper Nas, North Carolina rapper J. Cole, California rapper Kendrick Lamar, and Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain. His other influences are Wu-Tang Clan, Frank Ocean, Nipsey Hussle, Mettalica, Tupac, Cassidy.

Ivy's music has been described as "fast and loose" with unorthodox and unpredictable music topics.

Personal life
Ivy currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ivy has a son, Ezra Leo-Lucas Ivy who was born October 27, 2017.