Today we’d like to introduce you to Jordan Jeffries aka JaeEss.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I was born in Baltimore, MD, but I spent the majority of my life in Lawrenceville, GA. Externally I had a pretty good childhood and got the love and support I needed as a child, but internally I struggled with anxiety and identity issues due to pressure and expectations I felt were put on me to be successful in the future. From schoolwork to sports, I thrived, but only for the purpose of satisfying my family’s expectations of me. For a while, I felt like I was floating without a purpose, but that change when I started getting involved with music.
When I was 12, I started off as a street dancer as a hobby because it gave me a sense of freedom and escape. One day though I challenged myself to write a rap song similar to the music I would dance to, but after writing the rap, I realized I had a talent for it and continued to work on my rapping. Eventually, I got a cheap microphone to start recording the songs I wrote, and after I recorded my first song I felt a sense of achievement I had never felt before in my life, and for the first, I felt I had found a purpose in my life.
For the next few years, I worked on perfecting my flow, learned how to make my own beats, and learned how to mix my own songs. Whenever I had the chance, I worked on my craft, waking up early in the morning to work on something and not falling asleep until 4 am to finish a project. By the time I was 17, my hard work was starting to pay off from getting thousands of plays on my songs to getting paid on a regular basis as a youtube producer.
I was starting to get a lot of praise for my work, but I still felt like I needed something more. Because of this, I went into a hiatus in late 2017 to find out how to grow as a person. During this hiatus, I focused on building up and connecting the nawfside underground scene to the best of my ability while also periodically releasing old songs to keep relevance.
Through that hiatus though, I learned that the growth I was looking for was growth in Christ, so for the next two years, I worked on strengthening my faith as a Christian and worked on making content that represented the lifestyle I was striving for. On March 2019, I made the full commitment to start over my music career to become a Christian rapper, and now I focus on making music that best resembles God and a life through Christ.
Please tell us about your art.
Rapping was my very first passion, so it is the thing I am best at. At first, rapping served as an outlet to express myself and the thoughts that went through my head. However, at one point, I started to go through a lot emotionally and felt alone a lot of the time going through it. After going through that my mission changed into making music that people can relate to and know that they are not alone in their struggles.
Everything else I do started off a necessity to complete a task but gradually became a passion. When I first started making beats, I learned for the purpose a not having to use other people’s beats, but through learning, I found joy in being able to express myself and began producing for other artists such as Ray Rockman, Avey Carter, Tyler Omari, RMF, etc. I started mixing my own songs for the same reason, but through practice I grew fascinated in how proper mixing can completely change a song, so I began to offer to mix other artists’ music to help turn their song to the best it can be while also using it as side hustle to fund my personal music.
When I got to college, I got more into writing and began writing the plot for a manga I am currently working on, but at the same time, I taught myself how to draw since I had no one else to help me draw the characters. Through learning, I began to love the endless possibilities of creating art, which led to me picking up an interest in graphic designing, and through this, I have recently done designs for the clothing line, Historian Threads, as well as done cover art for multiple artists.
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing artists today?
I believe the main issues artists face today is the struggle of individualism and the struggle of self-promotion. Music production is at an all-time high because it is becoming easier and easier to create music at home. This is causing rapid growth of released content in all genres. Music is about expressing ones’ self in their own unique manner, but due to the rapid increase in competition, many artists don’t give themselves time to perfect their craft, leading to them unconsciously creating music that closely resembles what is popular rather than what represents them.
This rapid growth also calls for knowing how to promote yourself, which a lot of artists fall short on. Even I, at times, struggle to find ways to promote myself because I feel like nothing is working. But I learned the patience is the best attribute you can have with promoting music because a lot of people invest time and money looking for quick results, which led to being wasted. So the bigger challenge rather is finding outlets that will help your career in the long run rather than help with one song.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
My personal music can be found on multiple platforms such as:
https://soundcloud.com/jaeessmusic
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/jaeess/1300023344
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2Oxfc4mHs5wfKNWM6hGFMn
For music I am involved in (produced and/or mixed by me) you can check it out at:
https://soundcloud.com/jaeessbeats
All pages are under reconstruction due to the change vision, but everything will be filled with new content soon, so to stay updated follow me on instagram and twitter @jaeesstheguy
Contact Info:
- Website: https://soundcloud.com/jaeessbeats
- Email: jaeessmusic@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaeesstheguy/
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/jaeesstheguy
Image Credit:
Photos done by Kya Woods and PoloMutt
Album Covers done by JaeEss
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition, please let us know here.
