Former Bakersfield College student Gregory Scoggins Jr., most commonly known by his stage name AYESAVY, will be performing in Los Angeles for the first time on Oct. 19 at The Airliner. AYESAVY, 23, a local rapper said he was no stranger to performing live in town in places like Jerry’s Pizza & Pub and The Mark but admitted that this would be his first performance in Los Angeles and his first show out of Bakersfield. Doing a show for the first time in Los Angeles of all places could make an artist very nervous, but AYESAVY said his excitement outweighed his nerves.
“I am very excited about it, just the love, I’m really looking forward to putting some smiles on people’s faces and coming out of there with a good amount of more fame cuz I ain’t from LA. It’s kind of scary at the same time cuz you don’t know what they gonna think but hopefully I’ll come out on top,” AYESAVY laughed as he shared on his upcoming performance.
Another aspect of his career that AYESAVY was seemingly eager to share was his thoughts on originality as an artist and his writing process.
“My music is basically just speaking about how I live my life and how life is going and I feel like I put so much energy into it because I just think about everything that I write. A lot of people write but they don’t write about things that they think about they just write about something they probably heard, but I really sit down and I think. It takes me a good day before I finish me a song because I just gotta make sure that it’s how I want.”
AYESAVY said he had to really learn in discovering this method of song writing for himself and that because of it he can see his growth as an artist. “When I first started, I was young so I was just trying to do like everybody else was doing, talking about girls and all that other stuff, but now that I’m taking it serious and I think about everything and I write, basically that’s the truth. So nobody can be like I seen AYESAVY yesterday and he was not riding that limo he said he was, I gotta think of everything that might mess up my image.”
This is something that AYESAVY believes is the biggest difference between more well-known rappers and those just starting out in the community. AYESAVY shared that in the rap community a lot of originality and a rapper’s identity is sometimes hard to keep, as labels sometimes ask their artist to change their image. This is something AYESAVY said he is not willing to compromise
and wishes most of his career to stay true to who he is.

“I would say it hinders a couple
of artist that do stereotypes. I feel like as long as you’re yourself you should be able to do whatever you want to do. There are a lot of artists that are starting to do their own thing.”
One artist who AYESAVY cited his admiration for was rapper XXXTentacion. AYESAVY said that many people find XXTentacion weird but that he has been one of the only artists not afraid of being himself.
What AYESAVY said he appreciated most was that XXTentacion doesn’t seem to be pretending to be another person and isn’t interested in living any other life than the one he leads.
Montana of 300, however, AYESAVY said is who he enjoys listening to as he is an independent artist just like AYESAVY.
“Montana of 300, he is not signed by any label but he does all this stuff basically by himself. In a lot of his interviews he talks about why he doesn’t want to sign with certain people. Certain things start happening when you do get to that level. People start changing you and you can’t do what you want to do when you want to do it. … How do you wanna live your life? If you wanna live your life under their rules, then be my guest but if you wanna be yourself and think for yourself and write your own music then that’s the way to go, just be independent.
“AYESAVY said he has done a lot himself to make his career, including putting his songs on the radio in Vermont, Baltimore and in Bakersfield.
AYESAVY also said he pays for studio time to record and is hoping to go on tour soon after his Los Angeles performance with other artists.
His main goal he said is making this happen for himself, something he feels a lot of local artist do not always do.
“I really want to go on tour … after this show that’s what I’m shooting for. [I want to] open, I don’t wanna be the only person just performing a lot of people don’t want to just spend their money and just see one person they wanna see a whole show.”
As for how AYESAVY would like others to remember him and his upcoming performance in Los Angeles he said “I don’t want [people to] specifically remember me for something, I want them to remember me as he did something for himself, [despite] of everybody else, not only am I doing stuff for myself, I’m not trying to hate on the next person, I try to do stuff for everybody, I just want the same love the same loyalty back, that’s it. I want people to remember me for my love, how I respect them and how I carried myself to be what I am.”
AYESAVY will be performing in Los Angeles at THE AIRLINER on Oct. 19 with other artists like Marcus Christ, 211Plotracks, Andre3 Tha Giant and Pierce Reed at 7 p.m.