5 On it: Jazzy

Jazzy As-Is

as is:
A jazz term which instructs the performer to play the noted pitches as they are printed. Type in your favorite song on YouTube and you will notice that there are hundreds of covers from fans singing “as is”, #Fact: they’re singing word for word. But then you click one, maybe with the most view and you start to sing along, then you start to notice that the words are sooo much different. Different yet the same, #AlternateFact. For Jazzy "as is" isn't good enough, she is an artist that is bringing her own perspective onto the track. She doesn't just sing, she creates. To create, to have a different viewpoint, to make not “as is”, but what could be, that’s an artist, so I present to you the artist...Jazzy:  ​

So when did you start singing? I would say like late 2014. I mean I’ve bean singing all of my life, but I started writing my own songs in 2014.

Is there one specific moment that you can remember that you knew singing was for you? I always knew it was for me, I just didn’t think I’d be able to make songs, the way that I do until my friend sent me a beat and was like “yo write some shit.”. And I wrote something and it was really cool, so from there I was like maybe I should keep practicing this singing thing.

How would you describe your style? My musical style or my style as a person? Let’s do both. Your musical style and your style as a person. My musical style I guess I would consider myself like an R&B/Hip-Hop artist. But I really love diversity and I myself am pretty versatile in all things, even when it comes to my regular style. I really like trying new things and testing out what I’m capable of, so I’m revisiting a series I call “Jazzy on the 1’s”. The name derives from New Jersey, we have channel 12nj and they do weather on the 1’s. So I was watching one day and thought of "Jazzy on the 1’s", and basically I just drop a song on every 1st, 11th, 21st, and 31st if there is one, of the month for like 3 months. And the styles of the songs are all different, just like the weather. And I want to focus on that a lot throughout my career, and I DON’t WANT TO BE LABELED. I WANT TO BE AN ARTIST.
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So how would you describe the difference between “Jazzy on the 1’s” and your project “Bonnie”? Bonnie I felt captured my versatility. But Bonnie was a project, there’s a theme, it’s a story if you're listening closely. I put it together with a beginning and an end. And that differs from “Jazzy on the 1’s” because “Jazzy on the 1’s” is so experimental for me. When I start I have an outline of what song’s go where, and while I go I’m constantly in the studio, so I swap songs, I make new ones, I find new feelings, I write the weather for them. And ironically all of them… because I do them before the day, ironically the weathers' always matching with the song. So I guess you would say “Jazzy on the 1’s” is way more fun to listen to. And “Bonnie” was way more vibey you know. That’s something your wanna sit with and like feel it. And “Jazzy on the 1’s” just takes you all over the place.

You said that for “Bonnie” the listener may need to sit with it and pick some things out of that. Is there one song on the project that you feel like goes over people’s head? Definitely, I feel like the last 2 tracks “Minerva” and “Fly With Me” definitely goes over people’s heads and that’s fine. The story I’m meeting someone and kind of dying with them too. So “Fly With Me” is a very very strong track, which if someone who pays attention to detail then they might think that that should’ve been earlier in the tape, but I just put it at the end of the tape. Because like I said it’s like meeting and then dying, and “Fly With Me” it’s the end, it’s just them flying away pretty much. I definitely feel that track is probably the heaviest one on there.

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What is your writing style? What is your process of when you hear a beat and how you attack it?Recently I have noticed that I write the awesomest while the beat is being made. So when my niggas is in the studio and there actually putting songs together, my brain already starts running. I get to hear everything, and we’re kind of working together at that point. I’ve been doing that a lot lately actually, it happened yesterday. and a light bulb went off and I started thinking, “this needs to happen way more often”. And it’s awesome because by the time the beat is done, I’m almost done. It’s really cool. But overall my writing style I need to be in a comfortable space. I need to be in a good place, because I literally want my brain to leave when I’m listening to a beat.
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Is there anyone one song off of the album or in your catalog that provokes a lot of emotion and is just really hard for you to perform sometimes? There’s this one song I have called “Relay”, I really don’t like to perform. That happens to me a lot when I’m listening to my own music, there’s certain songs that I can’t even listen to sometimes. And it just happened with one song that I just recorded but it’s not out. But once I’m performing it already I don’t really think of that aspect when I’m putting my setlist together. I kind of just think of the audience and what I feel would sit with them the most, because I want them to leave and have something in their head, “Like damn I really liked that”. So I kind of just think of that when I’m about to perform. And let's say I’m doing an event and I know “Relay” would be a really good song to perform there, I wouldn’t mind to perform it even though it kind of hurts me. But by the time I’m performing I already know that that’s Jazzy. And I gotta step out of that for a second.

You do some amazing covers. Do you have a favorite? I actually love singing ‘Fallin’ by Alicia Keys, that one’s really fun to sing, I’m lying it’s actually not ‘Fallin’. Its... (Singing) “Some people want it all.” That’s it “If I Ain’t Got You” duh! I use to sing that shit so much in high school, like everywhere. I like to sing Corinne Bailey Rae “Like A Star” too. And all of those Adele tracks, I love covering them.  

Check out her cover to Future's "Mask Off":

I see that you also do a little rapping. Do you have a plan to put that on your future projects? Yea, I shy away from it a little, I’m not gonna lie. I don’t wanna be categorized. I don’t want to be singer/rapper ya know. Sometimes there's a beat and all I hear is STRAIGHT BARS!! on it. And I’m like I wanna rap today. So I feel I will always incorporate it somewhere whether it’s in the middle of a song, just a few bars, or on a project. Cause I really like poetry too, so that all connects, but I don’t think I will ever drop a fuccin full EP or mixtape (Laughing). But I definitely enjoy it, it’s fun.

Speaking of Faboulous. You linked up with Fabolous on Summertime Shootout 1 & 2. How did that whole collaboration come about? I was in the studio, and I would always talk to my guys, like all my friends and shit.. and producers, I would always talk to them about who I wanted to work with, and Fab was always one of them. At that time I would always say, “I would sound so fire on a Fab track, or I’d sound fire on a Banks track. I’d sound fire on a Rick Ross track, And I would sound fire on a Ferg track too" I’d say a lot. So I was in the studio and I was on Instagram and was like.. “I’m bout to just gonna DM this nigga”. (Laughing). So I just DM’d him like, “Yo, my shit’s so cold, you really might fuck with it. Check it out. It’s in my bio, my link”. And I logged out of Instagram. I just forgot about it completely, didn’t tell nobody or nuthin. I wasn’t thinkin nuthin of it. But yea 2 weeks later I’m at the Father concert, I really fuck with Awful records too, and I go back into my Instagram, and this nigga actually replied to me. He was like, “Yo, it is. It’s cool, I fuck wit it. We should work” (talking about Jazzy’s music), And I’m like, “Yea. Wow. We should work.”. And we linked I would say latter that month, and he was already working on “Real One”, and he asked “Do I fuck wit it?”. And I was like “Yea”. And I wrote some shit and it was lit.

What do you want people to know about Jazzy? About Jazzy or about me? We can do both (laughing) Well… I would want people to know that Jazzy doesn’t do everything that she sings about, but Jazzy does understand it all. So there’s always a feeling attached to everything that I say, but it’s not who I am always. And I want listeners to know that ah….that there’s concepts in music and there’s a message, and there’s images when you're listening , there’s things that need to be tackled in a way. So I want my listeners to know that sometimes what I am making is not always Jazzy, but the girl next door, the girl down the block, or something she has seen.

And about me..I would want listeners to know I’m trying to figure all this shit out myself too. I live the same life. We live the same life too, and I have bad days too. And I have good days. And I’m not perfect. But I love progression. I want to progress a lot..Jasmine and Jazzy. There should be a lot of progressing coming soon so stay tuned.

Thanks again to Jazzy for the amazing interview, could've talked about music for hours.

Check out her music and social media here:

SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/jazznj
Instagram: imakickyourjazz