We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Feel Jones a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Feel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I first knew that I wanted to pursue a professional path as an artist at 5 years old. In kindergarten, each child in my classroom was given a blank yearbook to complete summarizing the year, and in that yearbook the last page had a question for us to answer. The question was, what do you want to be when you grow up? I wrote, “A Musician.” At five years old I knew then what my path would be. My mother was a musician and singer who I watched daily and I loved watching Michael Jackson music videos and performances as a child. I appreciated how they both were able to captivate a crowd with their gifts and talents and I wanted to share in that space. Doing just what they did.

Feel, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is FeelJones and I am a contemporary christian artist from the Westside of Chicago. With my artistry, I look to reshape the sound of christian/gospel music by mixing in contemporary music elements while maintaining my message of faith. I feel this musical approach sets me apart from my contemparies because my musical style attracts an audience of listeners that would not normally listen to christian music. My overall sound is familiar enough to pull the listener in; and once I have their ear I will most certainly have their heart. My delivery and the conviction in my lyrics plus the sound of the beat creates a sense of understanding of who I am as well as invoke new thought to anyone dealing with life and its pressures.

Getting into my industry really came natural for me because I come from a musical family. My mother, sister and as well as my aunts all sang in local community choirs across the city of Chicago with my entire family getting their musical origins from the church. I would go on to sing with Walt Whitman and The Soul Children of Chicago, a nationally known recording choir comprised of youth from across the city. During this time with the group I was given the opportunity to sing for the National Back Caucus, multiple religious and non religious performances around the U.S. and also be featured in the “The World’s Greatest” Music Video, a song listed on the soundtrack for the motion picture movie, ALI.

Throughout my musical journey I have won local radio station talent shows and garnered attention from a Chicago rap group, “Dude N Nem”, whose single “Watch My Feet” started to take off in early 2009. I contributed my vocals to the hooks of a number of their songs, and that relationship gave me access to a recording studio whenever I needed. This connection also helped me fine-tune my music production and songwriting skills to further contribute to my own music when the time came.

Now, I am most proud of the fact that I am able to successfully get my music heard in places that, at one point, were not available to me without a major record label backing. Also new technology system advances have helped minimize this problem too by eliminating the issue with visibility for me as independent artist. I believe this has helped me to connect more to my followers and fans by showing them a blueprint to making things happen on your own and finding success.

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

A story I can remember that illustrates my resilience would be the point in my career where I would sing the hooks for a rap group in Chicago. From that relationship with “Dude N Nem” I was able to meet their manager, Shorty Capone, who at one point managed Crucial Conflict in the 90s and helped them get their major record deal also. During this time, I had access to a recording studio and a recording engineer with several hours of studio time available to us mainly during the evening. Here, I was able to record my own productions when the group wasn’t recording themselves. I would write and record songs here and there that really never went anywhere publicly but the experience alone attracted me more and more to the studio life and the music creation process.

Sometime in the future I believe, the label that signed “Dude N Nem” folded and the group kind of dissolved. I no longer had access to a studio. No more late night sessions. No more recording. No more creating. Nothing was available to me like before. This lost is most certainly where the resilience came into play. Of course I could have just found something else to do but I knew that deep down doing this would be unsettling and it would not satisfy my God given calling and natural born talent.

So the next move I made was to buy a computer from the recording engineer at the studio I use to frequent for $1,500. This computer was fully loaded with recording software, production DAW’s and plugins to get me started with recording on my own. Next up, I bought studio monitors, an audio interface, a mic, a mic stand and a computer desk to finish off my in home studio. I was ready to go until I realized I did not know how to record myself let alone mix my own records. So, I read a few manuals, took a few mixing lessons and watched a gang of tutorials to get me going.

This experience which at first seemed heartbreaking actually ended up being a blessing in disguise. If I do not lose access to the studio I would never become the recording and mix engineer that I am now. Right now I write, produce, record and mix all of my songs.

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

A lesson that I have had to unlearn is the struggling artist mentality. Through history as well as having conversations with mentors or those I’ve admired I was told that I would have to struggle to get where I want to be in life on my musical journey. I was told that I would have to go without eating, sleeping and even a social life. Blood, sweat and tears would need to be etched into my skin for validation and for me to make it at the end. Although this is not the only avenue to success; this example seemed to be most popular amongst those opinions I valued. From this advice I took on that mantra for years. I would spend all day on music. Not really caring about bills and what not. Only about making my dreams happened. Regardless of whatever else was going on.

What I didn’t take into consideration is that I still need to live and maintain a solid way of living while on my way to success. I actually heard in a Sunday Morning message that I do not have resort to struggling to get where I need to go. This message really hit home because I do not like to struggle naturally. I come from a family where I didn’t have to worry about things going wrong as a child. So why would I want to put myself through struggle to get my own success. It just didn’t make sense to me.

Once I got the old thinking out of my system I found a job. Once I got a job I was able to provide for myself which created a better creative space to make music. Everything worked together for the greater good in putting me on the right path.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/feeljones1/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/feeljones1
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FeelJones1
•  Email:  admin@newgospelrecords.com

Image Credits
Self shot Images