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The New Boyz have taken the word "jerk" to a whole new meaning. Ben J and Legacy, just 17 years of age, have created one of the most requested songs of the summer. "You're A Jerk" has sold more than 53,000 copies in its first week on iTunes and is still topping the charts on countless airwaves across the nation. The single has also earned these L.A. natives a performance on the BET Awards red carpet this past June.
Whether it's on the streets or in the clubs, "jerkin'" is quickly becoming a phenomena and the New Boyz are easily becoming the new face of the movement. With their debut album in stores now, the Boyz sit down with Ballerstatus and talk about Skinny Jeanz & A Mic, their fashion style, and what it means to showcase their "jerkin" culture to the rest of the world.
BallerStatus.com: You guys literally blew up in right in front of my eyes. Did you think you would where you are today, so fast?
Legacy: Honestly, no. We thought it was going to take a lot longer than what it did. Right when we made the song, "You're A Jerk," it just blew up out of no where. Everybody said it takes time, but we got signed the first six months, so it's a blessing.
BallerStatus.com: Take us back a couple of years. What were your lives like before all this?
Ben J: I got into the studio when I was 14, so I fell in love with my voice. But I was playing football before. I was so dedicated. I was in football practice like everyday, but at the end of the day, I would go to Legacy's house and go record. Legacy's been trying to rap since forever ... since he was like 8 years old.
BallerStatus.com: How did you guys meet?
Legacy: We met in high school, we had the same class together and then we eventually found out we both rapped. [Ben J] used to come to my house to record and over time, we made New Boyz.
 BallerStatus.com: Now MySpace was in a sense your launching pad, where you posted some of your songs for fans to listen to including "You're a Jerk". What kind of feedback did you get for that song?
Ben J: Everybody was feeling it, they were like "I never heard anything like this before. I can jerk to this; I'm making a Youtube video right now." Everybody was making Youtube videos off this song. We put it out like last year September, October.
BallerStatus.com: The video for "You're A Jerk" looked like you guys had fun jerkin'. How was shooting your first video?
Legacy: It was fun doing the video, but over time it got tiring.
Ben J: We were out since 9 in the morning to 3 the next morning.
BallerStatus.com: Now many would think that you guys started jerkin'. However the dance was around for quite sometime. By having your song and video out, does this help the L.A. community showcase its culture?
Legacy: It helps a lot. Once they became a part of [the movement] and if they were living a bad life or if they were involved in gangs, [they] start to focus on dance or music. A lot of people turned their lives around because of this.
BallerStatus.com: Is it funny to watch the many Youtube videos out there of people doing the jerk even if they may not know how to?
Ben J: it's kind of funny to watch people learn how to jerk and they don't know how to do it because not everybody is going to be good at it, but they're trying and they're part of the movement still no matter if you know how to do it or you don't, you are still part of the movement. And that's a good thing 'cause they're pushing for us, they're helping us.
BallerStatus.com: In the video many people got to see the New Boyz's style in terms of fashion. How would you describe your style right now?
Legacy: The New Boyz: we wear skinny jeans, of course. We are not scared to be different. We're not scared to do anything new.
Ben J: We're comfortable with what we do and that's basically what we want to tell the world. We want to let it be known [you can] be comfortable being yourself. Feel me?
BallerStatus.com: How do you feel knowing that you are now trend setters for a lot of teens out there?
Legacy: It feels kind of dope to be big trend setters and big fashion icons and big influences on people's lives. It's dope. I'm only 17 years old and we did not have big intentions to do all of this, it happened and here we go.
BallerStatus.com: Ok so you started with MySpace to get you're voice out there, but you are also using another social site as well these days, Twitter.
 Ben J: Yea, we Twitter. You will see like a tweet every five minutes. Probably after this, we'll be twittering.
BallerStatus.com: It must be nice to communicate to your fans instantly?
Ben J: It's kind of dope because that's something different about us. We communicate with all our fans. Our fans love it and if you don't communicate with the fans or if you change, you start to lose a lot of fans.
BallerStatus.com: Legacy, one of your tweets read "I bet you didn't know I was shy before 'You're A Jerk', came out.' Was that true?
Legacy: Yeah I used to be shy. I was real quiet, real talk. I kept it 100.
BallerStatus.com: Are you shy now?
Legacy: Nah, now I'm good. I had no choice to break out of it (laughs).
BallerStatus.com: Ben J, I read on your twitter that you and Legacy recently came to Toronto, Canada to perform. How was that experience?
Ben J: It was real new! It was crazy, I never been to another country before and then when I walked into the airport [and] they treated us like immigrants.
Legacy: I've never been an immigrant in my life (laughs).
Ben J and Legacy: They held us hostage like forever.
Ben J: But just the experience [in Toronto] was great.
BallerStatus.com: How were the fans? Any different from what you're used to?
Ben J: It was the same. I felt like I was in America.
Legacy: We felt like we were home because while we were performing, a jerk crew came on stage rocking skinny jeans and flannel shirts and colorful stuff, looking just us and jerking just like L.A people. It was tight.
BallerStatus.com: Before we move on from Twitter, I have to bring up the little situation with Soulja Boy. Is it over and done with?
Ben J: It never started. It was just him going hard on Twitter and that's pretty much it. We're not going to keep focusing on it and worrying about it. Right now it's in the air. We forgot about it.
Ballerstatus.com: It's very easy to get grouped with the other young artists, especially those who have dance records such as Soulja Boy. How do you try to change that perception, or what do you say to those that do link you guys based on that alone?
Ben J: Listen to our album. We got a jerk record; we've got a dance song; so of course the first thing that they are going to do, is think without hearing our record [and say] this is another dance person, another Soulja Boy. But once they listen to our album, we actually talk a lot about different stuff.
BallerStatus.com: You brought up your album, let's talk about it. Skinny Jeanz & A Mic. I know you like skinny jeans, but why pick that as the album title?
 Ben J: Skinny jeans represents us and the whole jerking culture and the mic represents the hip-hop side of us, so we put those together and we got Skinny Jeanz & A Mic. Like the whole jerking culture, mixed with the hip-hop culture.
BallerStatus.com: Is there any features on the album?
Legacy: We've got a bunch of local acts like a bunch of the homies. We got O.N.E., we got Ray J on it, and we got Tyga.
BallerStatus.com: What kind of preparation have you been doing for the album?
Legacy: We've been doing a bunch of shows promoting the album real hard and we're getting on the internet and doing our part by promoting the album. We've got a good team and the fans are promoting. Everyone is helping.
BallerStatus.com: Well again you guys are only 17 years old and are considered very young in the industry. Looking down the line, where do you see the New Boyz in the next five years?
Legacy: We see ourselves as business men in the next five years, that's a long time. We've shot movies by then, trying to start our own record label -- young business men.
BallerStatus.com: Anything else you would like to add?
Legacy: You can hit us up on twitter, Twitter.com/ThaLegacy.
Ben J: And Twitter.com/BenJNewBoyz.
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