Today we’d like to introduce you to Jerry Jerome.
Hi Jerry, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I had a rip current accident when I was 16. For a moment, I felt my body on the surge of death, my existence deplete and my last breath escape my body. That changed my life forever. I was shortly after saved by a team of five to six lifeguards and threw up sea water and my last meal until the ambulance came and I was hospitalized overnight. This experience taught me firsthand the reality of life’s temporariness. It instilled a new sense of courage in me, and I took that same courage to learn how to create music and distribute it for the world to hear. Ever since then, I’ve worked relentlessly to shape my sound and make the music art I can.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has been a wobbly mixture of both. Being an independent artist with no management team means that I have to create, mix, and engineer all of my music, while managing my brand presence and dozens of other elements that go into finding success as an artist. Learning how to make professional quality music is daunting and it took dedication for a Black teenager to comprehensively take upon the labor that go into making a project, which would be normally divided between dozens of professionals. However, I have been lucky to collaborate and create music with a plethora of artists from many different backgrounds. Having those genuine moments that allow me to create with great people make the road much smoother.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am an independent artist and producer. I believe that my music is most known for its homemade and raw feeling that stems from my creative process and vulnerability in my songwriting. My music revolves around social change, love, Black liberation, sustainability, and my confusing teenage emotions, which provides a basis for many of my listeners to relate to. I am most proud of the times where I am able to connect with my music’s listeners. As an artist, I have personally divested from my work. I defiantly believe that my work is not me, and I am not my work, so I enjoy my music as a fan of it, rather than its creator. I cherish this relationship because it allows me to connect with fans because through the music, we share simple things in life like love, passion, anger, frustration, etc. Life gets too complicated. Sometimes we forget a deeper sense of who we are. I believe that any dollar or metric that my music will earn me will crumble in comparison to being able to deeply connect with fans. If someone can feel my music past a head bop and playlist add, that truly means the world to me.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
I believe music making is an extremely intimate activity. I don’t make music with people I don’t personally or creatively trust or believe in. Anyone who wants to collaborate with me should see what I’m like so I can do the same, and we can create genuine, intentional art. Anyone who desires to support me should seek understanding from me and seek to understand themselves with my music. As a Black man who’s always been denied a space to communicate my deepest feelings, I make my music out of a desperation to cope and feel. All I ask is to hear me out and show your friends and family so maybe they can, too.
Contact Info:
- Email: jerryjeromey@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/jeromenesmy
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/jeromenesmy
- Youtube: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kNyDr2hhnhrpdYGiw0hl3IlV-6q9-Xd14
Image Credits
Brandon Kol Nadia Wooten Katie Frantz
