A Quote by Jessie Reyez

To be honest with you, the fact that people vibe with my music is just a really positive byproduct of something that is just a reflex to me. The fact that people even care to listen means a lot to me.
I think it all comes back to the individual. My instrument's just a pile of metal and wood! If you listen to the way I speak I have a lot of rhythm, use a lot of accents. When I'm playing my instrument that concept comes through very clearly. In fact some people who've seen me play have noticed that I'm singing - but it's more that I'm actually speaking. So it's not really about the instrument. But for me, in my thinking, the music is all about the melody. When I compose, 99 percent of the time I start with the melody.
I'm kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that's in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and try to tap into what the music's saying and just kind of follow that, you know. I mean, nine times out of 10, I'm just kind of following where the music takes me.
My goal was never to just create a company. A lot of people misinterpret that, as if I don't care about revenue or profit or any of those things. But what not being just a company means to me is not being just that - building something that actually makes a really big change in the world.
The problem is that the internet IS some kid in a basement with an opinion. The fact that David Bowie and Elton John told me that they were fans of Helmet - or Neil Young - that means something to me because I grew up on their music and they’re great musicians... That means more to me than some guy who hates the fact that my hair is short.
I'm always intrigued by people that listen to my music, I just naturally want to get to know people who listen to my music because people who end up having such an attachment with my stuff, I wonder why they have such a connection to something that's so personal to me in the first place.
What singing means to me, I never did consider myself a singer, I just let people watch me feel music and how it comes through me. I've worked on it and practiced a lot. I mean, music, I dance to it, and singing is just one way of getting it out of me.
To make a living from doing something I love is fantastic. As long as people want to listen to me, I'll keep doing it. In fact, to tell you the truth, even if no one did want to listen to me, I'd still be doing it!
God has gifted me in communication. He has given me a gift to be very open about myself, which seems to really help a lot of people. It's not even anything I do on purpose. It's just something I don't have a problem with. I don't care what you know about me if it will help you.
I just lucked into a lot of good people man. In my life and through friends, and in the music, that really embraced me and took care of me. I'm a lucky guy.
I'm just me and if me being honest about who I am and putting myself out there in that way makes connections with people and helps people out, that's just repaying the favor of music because that's what music does for me.
I'm very humbled by the fact that grassroots efforts are rising up all over the country, but particularly in my home state of Ohio. I barely have words. To know that so many people across the state, from the rural areas to the urban areas, see something in my leadership and really believe I am someone for the people means a lot to me. That's how I want people to see me and my public service.
The point of my music? The point I just want to get across is I'm me and I exist. Just letting people know who I am. Ever since I was young, I was the little attention grabber; I always loved attention. I want to grab people's attention. I want them listen to me and know that this is really good music. Whether they like it or not, they're gonna listen.
The fact that there's people out there that care about what I'm eating for breakfast or care about a tweet that I posted in 2012 that they pulled up because they were searching on my Twitter and things like that - it's hard to understand, because it's just me, and I just think, 'What's so interesting about me?'
My mom has kind of been more of the emotional support system. One time I was really feeling all out of it, just dealing with a lot of cooks in the kitchen and adjusting to what it means to be in the music industry, and I called her. One of the first things she said to me was 'You have to be thankful that these people even like you, no one liked me, at all, I was not really accepted for a very long time.'
Music means communication to me. I say 'listen you people out there, listen to my music, let's be one.' Music is a friend to me when I am lonely, when I am blue. You can't define music 'cause music is cosmos and it knows no barrier or definition. You have to feel music to dig it.
Just dwelling on the past, I think it's really important for me to surround myself with positive people and just work really hard and really make the most out of the opportunity that God has given me, being able to make music, which I always wanted to do.
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