At 21, this musician from Overland Park has a Grammy nomination and a bright future
Five years ago, Justus West of Overland Park got bitten by a spider.
The teenager didn’t gain superpowers, just a rare and violent reaction to the brown recluse wound. It resulted in 30 days in the ICU at the University of Kansas Hospital.
“I was in full organ failure,” West says. “But somehow it made my musical dreams more attainable. Once I walked away from that — and nobody can explain how or why — it affirmed I had something to do on Earth.”
So far, West is not wasting the opportunity.
The Shawnee Mission West High School alum just earned his first Grammy nomination for co-producing the hit “Ballin’” by Mustard (featuring Roddy Ricch). On Sunday, he’ll learn whether the song wins in the best rap/sung performance category at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards.
But to limit West to a “rap producer” is underselling the 21-year-old’s diversity in skills with various genres. To use a sports metaphor, West is what they call a “complete player.”
A virtuoso guitarist, West can be heard performing on the tracks “Needy” and “Make Up” from Ariana Grande’s album of the year nominee “Thank You, Next.” He’s also toured as a guitarist for artists such as Mac Miller and Ty Dolla $ign. Bolstered by his reputation on “Ballin’,” West is now producing tracks for Alicia Keys (who is hosting the Grammys). And he’s a fine songwriter and solo artist with an ethereal, angelic voice.
“They respect me because I’m different,” West says.
“I’m from Overland Park, which is by far the least ghetto place on the face of the planet. Being black has allowed me to traverse through these rooms and learn their world — them being from Los Angeles and most from the Crenshaw district. They could call any guitar player. But what I present as a guitar player, and my sound and tone, are just way different than the regular guy.”
How did a sick kid from suburban Kansas City end up one of the hottest musicians/producers in Los Angeles? The story begins with a most unlikely meeting.
What a difference a year makes
“Getting bitten by the spider left me bedridden for quite a while. I lost all my strength. I had to kind of relearn how to play,” says West, who started playing guitar when he was 8. “It took forever to the point where I could lift the guitar. I’d gone back to being homeschooled, and I was bored.”
When passing the time, the high school junior stumbled across a Guitar Center contest asking fans to make a video of playing along to country superstar Vince Gill’s new single. West became one of 6,000 entrants.
“I eventually get an email saying I’m in the top 100, then in the top 20. All of this is happening a year to the date of me getting bitten by the spider. September of 2015, I’m in the bed like literally dead. September of 2016, I’m finding out that I’m possibly going to L.A. to play with Vince Gill,” he says.
West made the top five. As a finalist, he got to perform “High Lonesome Sound” onstage with Gill in Los Angeles.
“Vince told me, ‘I was scrolling and saw your video. I immediately felt your heart and could feel that you were a great dude through your playing. And I told them that no matter what, you needed to make it here just so I could meet you,’” West recalls.
“He also said, ‘You should come to Nashville and hang out with me, and I could put you on some gigs.’ That was what started my journey out of Kansas City.”
When West turned 18, he drove his mom’s minivan to Music City, USA. That same month, he was signed to an endorsement deal with Paul Reed Smith, one of the top high-end guitar manufacturers in the U.S.
After three months working studio and live sessions in Nashville, West learned that Gill had joined The Eagles for a tour.
“It kind of left me a little stranded,” he says.
“Nashville is great. The food is amazing. There are a crap-load of great guitarists. The only reason I didn’t like it was for the obvious reason: There is a lot of racial tension there. You drive up and down the highway and still see KKK monuments that are 15 minutes outside of downtown. It’s real off-putting.”
That was one of the reasons West headed to Atlanta, where he toured as guitarist with the female R&B quartet Xscape. Not loving the situation (“I actually hated Atlanta,” he admits), he took a gamble and moved to Los Angeles, where he now lives.
“My primary focus is on being an artist. That’s why I drove 27 hours to get to L.A. Then people heard my songs and were like, ‘Oh, you can produce and you can program?’” he remembers. His only previous employment prior to the music industry was at the Aldo shoe store in Oak Park Mall.
Speaking two languages
The guitarist soon connected with 1500 Or Nothin’. The hybrid band/production company is run by James Fauntleroy, who wrote many of the Bruno Mars hits on “24K Magic,” and partner Larrance Dopson, a producer/composer for Justin Timberlake and Sam Smith.
“They signed me to a publishing deal. I signed the deal and then everybody’s like, ‘Wait, you can sing, too?’” he says. “That’s where I met DJ Mustard and Tommy Brown, and then went on to work with Ariana Grande. That’s where my whole L.A. journey started.”
Having become comfortable producing his own material on his self-released EP “Control” (on which he performed every instrument), West began getting hired to bring out the best in others.
“The biggest job as a producer when working with other artists is to try to cultivate their gifts and help them say what they want to say. Some producers are not musicians — they don’t play instruments, they don’t know music theory. But being a producer is first and foremost about your personality and how you’re able to interact with an artist,” he says.
“Justus’ strength is having the superpower of being a true musician (and) being able to tame it when it comes to producing,” says Angel Lopez, a multiplatinum producer who has worked with Kanye West, Timbaland and Coldplay.
“He knows when to let the ‘musical genius flair’ pop in, but he also knows when to leave enough air to breathe for the chords or structure of the record to take its course.”
That approach served him well on “Ballin’,” a track equal parts bouncy groove and profanity-laced screed. The single features an appearance by Roddy Ricch, whose album “Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial” currently sits at the top of the Billboard charts.
Complex magazine declared “Ballin’” the No. 1 best song of 2019, calling the “feel-good anthem … the beam that pierced an often dark and cloudy year.”
“It’s almost like a song of triumph,” West says. “Roddy is the same age as I am, and he’s experiencing this enormous success. It’s this summer song you turn on while you ride in the car, and it just makes you feel good and encouraged.”
In his Grammys category, West’s competition includes “Higher” by DJ Khaled (feat. Nipsey Hussle and John Legend), “Drip Too Hard” by Lil Baby and Gunna, “Panini” by Lil Nas X and “The London” by Young Thug (feat. J. Cole and Travis Scott).
“My world as an artist in the ambient alternative sound has been developing its own fan base,” he says. “A lot of these fans don’t even listen to trap (hip-hop) music. I’ll say it’s a very small percentage of people who really even know me in both respects. Part of the reason that many urban producers call me to collaborate is because a lot of alternative artists don’t speak both languages. There’s a big cultural gap between the style of music I do and the style I work on.”
‘He has his own sound’
West cites Nashville legend Chet Atkins as among his favorite players. But as for his personal style, West calls it “futuristic.”
“I know music theory, but I’m not formally trained in jazz,” he says. “I can chicken pick, but I never played country music except for the few months I lived in Nashville. I listen to metal, so a lot of my phrasing is copied from metal players. But I also do the R&B stuff because I did so many R&B tours. So that created a melting pot of different techniques, different types of phrasing, different styles. When I pick a solo, my opening lick might be a flare I got from John Mayer. Then the middle of it might be a bebop line. I might shred out of it with a metal legato line.”
“Justus’ work really stands out as being fresh. He has his own sound at such a young age, which is really difficult to do in this formula-filled industry,” Cory Henry says.
A fellow child prodigy, Henry has earned two Grammys with his experimental jazz and funk ensemble Snarky Puppy. The Hammond B-3 specialist most recently joined West onstage an NPR “Tiny Desk Concert” with the late rapper Mac Miller.
Henry notes that the quality of Justus’ original material “can put a smile on the face of any listener.”
West’s own smile will not be visible during the Grammy telecast. Despite his landmark nomination, he decided not to attend. Instead, he’ll settle for watching it on TV.
He explains, “I want to go for my first time when I’m nominated. I want to be there for solo producing a song or for it being my own stuff.”
Barring another spider bite, that’s a rather safe bet.
Jon Niccum is a filmmaker, freelance writer and author of “The Worst Gig: From Psycho Fans to Stage Riots, Famous Musicians Tell All.”
KC’s Grammy nominees
In addition to Justus West, here are other Kansas Citians up for Grammy Awards this year:
▪ Organist Jan Kraybill’s album “The Orchestral Organ,” recorded at the Kauffman Center’s Helzberg Hall on its Casavant organ, is up for three awards: best classical instrumental solo, best immersive audio album and producer of the year (for Marina A. Ledin and Victor Ledin). You can see Kraybill in concert at 2:30 p.m. Feb. 2 at Community of Christ Auditorium in Independence. On the program: her homage to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl that night. See jankraybill.com.
▪ International opera star Joyce DiDonato, who grew up in Prairie Village, is nominated for best classical solo vocal album for her album “Songplay.” (She’ll return to Kansas City May 29 with the early music band Il Pomo D’Oro for a concert in the Harriman-Jewell Series at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.)
▪ “Artifacts: The Music of Michael McGlynn,” the latest album from Charles Bruffy and the Kansas City Chorale, is up for producer of the year (Blanton Alspaugh). They’ll be competing against Kraybill’s album in that category.) Their next concert, “Prairie Bluegrass,” is March 7 and 8. See kcchorale.org for details.
▪ Saxophonist Logan Richardson, a KC native, plays on one track of Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah’s “Ancestral Recall,” nominated for best contemporary instrumental album.
Where to watch
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards will be presented at 7 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 26, on CBS.
This story was originally published January 26, 2020 at 5:00 AM.