Cj Fly

CJ Fly launched his recording career in the early 2010s and soon stepped beyond the New York influences that first shaped him, among them A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, and Jay-Z. As a founding member of Pro Era in his late teens, the Brooklynite steadily assembled a substantial body of solo releases that began with the 2013 mixtape Thee Way Eye See It and continued through the albums Flytrap (2016), the Statik Selektah-produced Rudebwoy (2020), and Not What You're Expecting (2021), the last of which deliberately upended listener expectations. Since that album, he has issued a short EP and additional singles.

Born Chaine Downer, Jr. in Bedford-Stuyvesant, CJ Fly turned an early passion for poetry into an emphasis on rap by seventh grade. While still in high school he helped establish Pro Era alongside classmates Joey Bada$$, Powers Pleasant, and Capital Steez. His initial recordings appeared alongside the crew’s growth, including contributions to Pro Era’s P.E.E.P.: The aPROcalypse and Bada$$’ mixtape 1999, both released in 2012. The following year he toured with Flatbush Zombies, Wiz Khalifa, and A$AP Rocky before unveiling his debut mixtape, Thee Way Eye See It, which carried guest spots from Ab-Soul and Phife Dawg as well as beats from Statik Selektah and Cookin’ Soul. Two further Pro Era projects, the mixtape Secc$ TaP.E. and the Shift EP, surfaced in 2014, after which CJ Fly concentrated on his own material. His first proper solo album, Flytrap, arrived at the close of 2016 and contained the single “Now You Know” along with appearances by Devontée and Eryn Allen Kane. Returning to group duties, he featured on Pro Era’s “King to a God” and later joined Flatbush Zombies and the Underachievers to form the collective Beast Coast, whose album Escape from New York appeared in 2019 and was supported by a U.S. tour. Late that year he issued the solo singles “Bird” and “Rudebwoy,” the latter featuring Joey Bada$$.

Entering the new decade, CJ Fly delivered his second solo album, Rudebwoy, again produced entirely by Statik Selektah and featuring verses from numerous Pro Era associates plus Conway the Machine and Oshun; the project reached listeners in early 2020. During the COVID-19 lockdowns he taught himself production techniques and, in January 2021, released The Way I H(ear) It, Vol. 1, his first collection of instrumentals. Eight months later came his third studio album, Not What You're Expecting, on which INF handled the majority of the beats—including the standout track “Medicine”—while only three guest artists appeared, none of them Pro Era members. A four-track EP, The Pharoah's Return, and singles such as “Hand2Hand” and “Speechless” followed in 2022 and 2023.