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

Jay, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

Yes there are quite a lot of misunderstandings that come with electronic music DJ’s & producers that oddly do not seem present in other genre’s. People see a few photos/videos of you DJing and automatically assume every night/weekend you’re out in clubs partying, doing drugs etc. “They” have such a narrow understanding about what it’s really about. . . these photos /videos represent just a sliver in time. In reality, most nights we are hustling behind the scenes making tunes in our studios!

The other misconconception is that people presume we are all extroverts and “life of the party.” Yet, many of us are reclusive artists who have learned to masquerade as extroverts momentarily on the decks! In reality many of us are much less outgoing & gregarious than meets the eye.

Last misconception, is people often see my name on a flyer/event invite and assume I’m a male. Then again, if I’m being honest I chose to use my nickname intentionally so that people would be surprised when I show up to a gig to find I’m a female. . .

Jay, 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?

Sure and many thanks again for taking an interest in me! My music career came into being by an organic evolution of a bunch of dots connecting in my life. . . I had musical roots from my childhood as a church kid singing gospel songs in church on Sunday’s. Then later as an adult, I had a boyfriend in my hometown of California who was deeply passionate about making and DJ’ing electronic music. He was the original catalyst for introducing the music to me. We partied together a lot, went to many raves’s and spent nearly all our time doing something with music. During that time, I fell deeply in love with the music and all it represented. It was so different than anything I experienced in my youth. Yet there was a downside of it which lead to our breakup which was a really dark and difficult time in my life. Through this time, I was presented with some opportunities to learn to mix music together and found that I actually had a natural talent for it and decided to immerse myself into it. . . in this time, music saved my life and elevated me out of the trenches giving me an entirely new life purpose.. .

As such, I decided that it was time to leave California and start a new life 3K miles away in New York City, have a proper go at having a music career. Where I felt in Los Angeles the opportunities were limited. Thereafter, I was given some opportunities to Dj’ing in clubs/raves in NYC & Brooklyn, and also throwing parties myself. At the same time, I started discovering that it was nearly impossible to only be a dance music DJ (especially a female), and that if I wanted to really go for it I’d have to start making the music. Thereafter, I enrolled in a music engineering school and started making music pretty quickly thereafter. Through that experience also discovered I had a talent for creating the music which brought me so much closer to it.

My music career really began to take off and elevated me into an entirely new side of the music industry in perfect timing. Also at that time I was living in Brooklyn and sharing time in a music studio with several other advanced producers. But then decided I’d need my own space and gear and that would be pretty much impossible in NYC. So I opted to move 2 hours away to Philadelphia to have a bit of a chiller lifestyle where I could have my own studio, focus on my productions and start my own record label, People of the Light Records.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

The time I came into “DJ bootcamp” in New York City, there wasn’t many females DJ’ing. I found myself in some situations with club owners who came from a different mentality/culture and didn’t treat females with the same levels of respect and honesty they did with men. This presented all kinds of challenges and obstacles from severely delayed or bounced payments for gigs. It took me a while to realize these promoters/club owners had no sincere interest in me as an artist or DJ but were using me to try & get more men in their club buying drinks. . .

It was intensely discouraging and demeaning experience and slowly eroded at my passion for the music which was the most heart breaking piece of it all. I’m the kind of person who sees the best in people until they prove me wrong. And once this ugly side of the club world revealed itself, I had to make a decision to quit or navigate through it to find people who were truly & genuinely in love with the music like me. And I did just that. . . thereafter so many opportunities arose; I started getting booked for gigs internationally and had some great experiences with people who were honest that didn’t have an alternative agenda and truly valued me for my skills. . .

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I chose this question intentionally because I don’t think I’m a stand out social media sensation by any measures. In truth, I’m totally OK with that. For music artists, there’s way too much focus on “numbers” that bulls&*t fake hype has created. Which in turn has no reflection on our true gifts & talents. In this day and age no one knows what’s the truth anymore. . . here in lies the inspiration for my 3-track EP which released in 2021 called “Save the Truth.”

This is not to say I’m anti-social media or do not have any presence at all. Quite the opposite. I think that I’ve found a healthy balance with it and the followers / community I have built has come organically. I try to keep a level head with it and see it for the value it brings – a method and way of connecting my music with people. Or sometimes me just to express myself however I’m feeling. . . I don’t think there’s an appearance I need to keep up. If I feel like sharing something I do. If I’m feeling more pensive and withdrawn I don’t feel any pressure to broadcast that. I’m a private person so I tend to reveal things that feel natural. I also think it’s nice occasionally to share things people might not know about you and be a little vulnerable. It’s all about balance and knowing when overkill is just too much and you’re wasting creative energy when you could be pouring that into your art.

I’m not the artist that you’ll find posting every minute/second update of my day. . . mystery is a really powerful force in our world today. In fact, I believe people are looking for something different. As an artist, you have to know your boundaries and when the opposite effect of trying to be an artist/social media influencer can backfire on you. I always keep top of mind that my music whether people are listening to it in the car or in a club/venue, my art is my #1 way of connecting with people. I think, if you take away social media – what do you have?

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Image Credits
Brad Kingett Frank Weiss