We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jameson Glover. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jameson below.
Jameson, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
In my particular case, I didn’t receive formal education in what I do as a creative. I am self taught; outside of singing. The way I’ve learned a majority of my creative life has been by watching others. Watching others and then doing. To paint a picture, back in college, I was in a Pop music group with my roommate and suitemate. Through this group, we made an album and two accompanying music videos. During the mixing stage of the album, I would sit with my bandmate who was also engineering our songs. Same for the videographer, I’d observe and ask questions while they worked. Once the group dissolved, I further entered my journey as a beatmaker, made beats for myself, and utilized what I had observed from my peers with other audio engineers and videographers.
Knowing what I know now, I definitely would have attended a cheaper university. Had to slip that in there. Other than that, I would have totally majored in Marketing and minored in Sound Engineering. I say that mainly because after all is said and done, once the creative process is complete, you still need to market your finished product. However, for me, learning how to audio engineer myself was a crucial piece of my progress. Audio engineering especially came in handy as I entered the film space with my musical short film, “I’m Enough”. Learning audio engineering, I can easily say I’ve saved tens of thousands of dollars at this point and became self-sufficient in the process.
Regarding acting and film, my acting journey was reignited taking acting classes at McKinnon Acting Studios in 2022. Day one of McKinnon Acting Studios, they gave me a crash course on important information pertaining to the business side of acting. From there, they began teaching more technical skills involving acting and script memorization. When I began booking roles, I witnessed other directors leading their cast and crew through the production. Thinking back to my college days as a solo music artist, I felt very confident in my ability to direct based on the 10+ plus music videos I directed for my own songs. And just like that, I did. I went on to make my first short film entitled “I’m Enough.” No formal training. Just a vision, the courage to try and the God given strength to endure whatever came with my efforts.
Obstacle(s) that stood in my way was mainly myself, honestly. I find it easier to jump into something after watching others do it as opposed to just jumping into it myself. On multiple occasions, once I started, I realized it wasn’t as complicated as I was making it in my head and that I should have had more belief in myself learning something new. As of today though, my current obstacle is balancing and prioritizing. With all the the different hats I wear and the demand each of them have, prioritizing the time I have in 24 hours to continue growing/learning without burning myself out is imperative to master.
Jameson, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Jameson Glover. I am a singer-songwriter, beatmaker, music producer, audio engineer, content editor, screenplay writer, film producer and film director. My overall creative journey started as early as the age of five where my cousin began teaching me how to play songs on the piano by ear. From there, I began doing plays; one hosted by Duke Ellington School of the Arts, another during my educational experience in Hardy Middle School. Progressing to DeMatha Catholic High School, I was admitted into their most prestigious choir by sophomore year where my training and love for music intensified heavily. I then majored in Music Business at the University of New Haven where all creativity began bursting from the seams. Finally, after teaching myself audio engineering in 2020, and embarking upon a two year run of frequent releases, I re-entered the acting space though McKinnon Acting Studios in 2022. Within the spring of joining McKinnon Acting Studios, I found myself acting in several productions including a Mark McKinnon Easter play, a commercial, a BET+ film and a feature film.
A couple of proud moments I’ve experienced in my career include being an opening act for R&B singer- songwriter, Eric Bellinger in 2016 and R&B singer- songwriter, Sevyn Streeter in 2017. In 2022, I performed as a beatmaker in a beatmaking competition at the Kennedy Center located in Washington DC, hosted by hip hop producing legend, 9th Wonder. Lastly, I can’t forget the successful production of my first ever musical short film, “I’m Enough.” The final product came out better than I could have imagined and it’s currently my proudest accomplishment!
Going by the reception and testimonials I received at the film screening of my musical short film “I’m Enough,” my film provided an experience that evoked emotional responses and relatability. I believe that sets me apart from others as well as my usage of music in my films. I intend to stay on that trajectory for future projects under my production company, “TRiY Company Productions.” The name of my production company was meant to always serve as a reminder to myself and hopefully others to always try. You’ll never know nor grow if you never try. The only time you ever fail is if you never try.
In conclusion, my current focus is releasing and marketing my short film, “I’m Enough.”
I have deep aspirations to execute a feature film and have officially finished the first draft of the script; progress! In the meantime, as I continue to tweak the script, I will also be assisting another director I’ve worked with in the past on his upcoming film project. This time I’ll be behind the camera as the production crew and gaining more technical skills involving camera operation, lighting and boom operating.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Honestly, my pivot happened in 2023. I was growing tired from my obsessive behavior toward releasing music. I burnt myself out. Within 2 years, I had released 6 EPS, 14 five-track beat tapes, a 19-track cover album of popular songs and launched a website for my music. That’s not including songs I mixed and mastered for other artists nor songs I featured on that ended up having music videos shot to them. And I still have 3 albums worth of music that I recorded during that time but just have not released yet. All that to say, I was unhealthily locked in on my craft during that time period.
Meanwhile, other facets of my life were suffering severely such as my dating life, mentally maturing, establishing a career or job that pays me a decent, livable wage and my overall life confidence. When you lock yourself away in a studio room for hours and weeks on end, I’ll speak for myself, I was more prone to experiencing anxiety and depression. With me not experiencing enough of real life to gain needed perspective and context, I became more susceptible to negative content on social media with harmful messaging that I had to unlearn. The cherry on top was coming to terms with how much the music industry has changed for the worst over the past decade. I was hit with a brutal wake up call that discouraged me into taking a year long break. No social media, no music.
However, within that year, so much growth and fulfillment was acquired! First and foremost, I grew so much closer to God. Without having social media to check, my quality of life was enhanced! My anxiety and depression did a complete 180 to the point where even now, I honestly don’t recall moments of me being sad in 2024. 2024, in hindsight, is the highlight year of my 20s so far. God blessed me with a good paying job in senior services as an Executive Assistant. That job alone taught me so much about myself and what I am capable of as a supervisor in leadership. I began going on a lot more dates and finding success with women. I moved out of my parents house. My confidence as a person was growing rapidly. I was hanging out with friends more frequently, going on trips and hosting game nights in my new apartment. Last but certainly not least, I had met a wonderful woman that ended up becoming my exclusive girlfriend at the time; my first exclusive relationship since college (6 years later.)
All this to say, as a creative, I believe it’s completely okay to take breaks and pivot to serve other areas of your life. I am the biggest advocate for that despite what “grind culture” influencers try to sell us online. It was hard to pivot initially mainly because music had been such a monumental part of my identity for so long that abandoning it felt undoable, daunting and wrong. But I promise you, there is more to life than our craft. So go out and live a little if you’re feeling like I was in 2023. I’m willing to bet you won’t regret that decision.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
Absolutely! The immediate one that comes to mind is a Ted Talk I viewed on YouTube where author, entrepreneur, and motivational speaker Jia Jang was the guest speaker. He gave a presentation about his personal social experiment “What I Learned From 100 Days of Rejection.” The way he broke down his initial fear of rejection and where it stemmed from was very engaging. He was also comical in his presentation. Nonetheless, his presentation inspired me enough to buy his book “Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection.” I read it and so far, it is my favorite book of all time!
I found myself following suit with his experiment and sought out rejection because of the pure enjoyment I was experiencing in his book. For example, when eating at a sit down restaurant, I asked the staff if I could get a tour of their kitchen where the food gets made. Surely, I presumed they would say no but to my surprise, like Jia in a lot of his experiences, they ultimately ended up saying yes. My attempts got to the point where I was somewhat getting annoyed since the overall goal was to desensitize myself from being told no, not yes.
I recently used that same principle when scouting movie theaters for the premiere of my musical short film, “I’m Enough.” While a majority of theaters were hitting me with astronomical figures to rent their space for a 10 minute short film, I found a theater that was willing to work with my budget. On top of that, when I informed them of the length of the short film, they readjusted their already generous price point and lowered it even more! Overall, it’s contributed to the concept of proof in terms of shifting my mindset from scarcity to one of abundance. I still have things to unlearn, don’t get me wrong. Nevertheless, I’m grateful to have moments like that, for it only adds to my journey of acquiring an unwavering mindset of abundance.
So I’ll end on this note; rejection has nothing to do with the one being rejected but all to do with the rejector. It’s the rejector’s personal life experiences, perspective, perceptions, preferences, agenda or triggers that really dictate their approval or rejection of anything. So next time someone tells you no, don’t take it personal. Find the person that will say yes. You’ll be surprised where your next yes could come from and how it shows up.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/divaudxjameson/?hl=en
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Jameson_Glover
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/divaud
- Other: 1.) This is my artistry YouTube Chanel under my music moniker ‘DiVaud’:
https://www.youtube.com/@divaudofficial
2.) This is my beats YouTube Channel as a beatmaker, under ‘DiVaud Beats’:
https://www.youtube.com/@divaudbeats3.) This is the Kennedy Center Article that includes my profile for the competition
https://www.kennedy-center.org/whats-on/explore-by-genre/hip-hop/making-beats/
