He started rapping under the name "JayOhVee", but eventually changed it to Joey Badass. He says that the name change is due to the media's focus on rappers with more cynical names, saying it was "what sounded cool at the time, what fit mood". He began writing poetry and songs at the age of 11.
REJEX JOEY BADASS PRO
Career 2010–2014: Beginnings and breakthrough Along with CJ Fly, he is a founding member of the collective known as Progressive Era, or Pro Era for short, which was formed by his high school friends Capital Steez and Powers Pleasant. In October 2010, Joey Badass uploaded a video of himself freestyling to YouTube.
The video was re-posted on to American hip hop site World Star Hip Hop and caught the attention of Jonny Shipes, the president of Cinematic Music Group, who soon after became his manager. In early 2012, Joey Badass and Capital Steez released a video for "Survival Tactics" via their YouTube channel "PROfckingERA", which samples the 2000 Fold song of the same name by Styles of Beyond. In February 2012, Pro Era released their debut mixtape entitled The Secc$ Tap.e. On March 21, 2012, MTV News featured Joey Badass' verse from the video during a RapFix Live segment and subsequently appeared as a featured guest on Sucker Free the following month. The song was succeeded with the video premiere of "Hardknock" featuring CJ Fly on MTV2. On June 12, 2012, Joey Badass released his debut solo mixtape 1999. This album was only released to music streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music in 2018.
A video for the song "Waves" was released in June 2012. The mixtape immediately increased his popularity in the underground scene.