We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jay Vernest. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jay below.

Alright, Jay thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Doing music is a risk all of the time. If you really want to be someone and go somewhere with it, you have to take risk and hope it turns out for the best. Deep inside I’m a really shy person, so every time I release something new I get nervous. I don’t know if people are going to like it, if what I’m saying makes sense, marketing the music correctly. All of these are risk that I am taking while making music, but I love the craft so much that I believe it is all worth it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am Jay Vernest. Born in St. Louis, Mo, but currently reside in Atlanta, GA. I am a 31 year old male. I went to school for my Bachelors in Digital Media, my Masters in Communications – Digital & Multimedia studies. I have always wanted to be in the entertainment industry, that is why I studied these subjects, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it exactly. I thought I would be an actor or a singer as I was growing up. As I was getting older, I realized that I had a lot of feeling and things to talk about that effected me while growing up in the city of St. Louis. I wanted to let people know that a lot of people go through the same things, but hide it well. I also, wanted to create something where people could let loose and have fun without thinking about the cares of the world for that moment. My first EP release “Girls Party Too” catered to that in a way. It was a party album to have fun in the club with.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My main goal that I have is to give back! I grew up in the city of St. Louis without many resources or support. I grew up in a situation where you have to grow up fast in order to survive. It’s not much love out there and it definitely isn’t many people working to get out. I think I knew from the beginning that I wanted to be something great, but I didn’t know where to start or have the money to start with things such as music classes, acting classes, etc. I want to bring those type of programs to the city kids to show them there are other options and it’s is possible to become what you want. I want to bring attention to the youth who don’t have the support and love that they need.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I’m still learning that everything doesn’t go exactly the way you want it every time. I’m use to planning things out as how I think they should go from start to finish and when the things don’t go how I expect, I tend to get emotional about it. I will practice practice practice to get things exactly how I want it, and still sometimes it doesn’t go right. I am teaching myself that mistakes happen, but getting back up and trying over again is the biggest win out of the situation. Everything is not going to go as planned every time, but being down about it only makes the situation worse.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Instagram.com/jusjayq
• Twitter: twitter.com/jusjayq
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/user/jquinn91