We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ja’ torre a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ja’ torre, thanks for joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

being a creative doesnt take away my humanity, it makes me feel more human. So sometimes I’m happy as a creative, sometimes I feel like I’m not enough, too old, too to myself, too young, excited, exhausted, afraid, in love, heartbroken. You know from being a step too slow or not accomplishing what I wanted to the way I wanted to. But it itself never makes me wish I had a regular job (which I do have). But having a job makes me feel like a robot, disconnected, apart of “the matrix”. I start to feel like an agent or some shit..

The consistent check helps fund things though, so it’s like a Kanye shoulder shrug at this point

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

It’s allot of questions.

My name is ja’ torre. It’s my real name.
I’m an artist, songwriter, rapper, singer, painter when I’m bored and have a canvas or 2 in the crib, photographer when I have a vision that I only trust me with or need some extra money, a creative director by nature of my parents, a web designer when i get in that mode, a graphic designer when I have no one else to do it for me, Im human 90% of the time, the other 10% is God is making sure it’s presence is seen and felt and im not here at all.

I am most proud of myself not being afraid of doing things right. My biggest accolade is being alive fr cause if it was up to me or where I’m from, at some point I wouldn’t be.

Potential fans friends clients know that I love this, I do this for a living, and I’m not afraid of trying.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

We can stop streaming, and buy things we like. One of these days soon I’m not going to release things on streaming platforms anymore, it’s going to be direct to consumer. I just don’t think it’s cool that we went from I like this record here’s 10.99 or 1.29 and you get the 10 or 6/10 (depending on what deal you had or if you had one) to here I’ll give you 0.008 for every stream.. that’s ridiculous

Also stop making fun of that kid passing out QR codes, cds, flash drives, airdropping their music, at the malls just to get someone to listen.. y’all lame asf

If your favorite artist in your local city is selling drugs, buy them from him. If he’s only making art more than likely they get hungry around 4:30 and they broke so buy some shrooms or weed or a tshirt or whatever you know

(I don’t what type of interview you thought this would be lol)

Stop waiting on people to love you artist this not about them, create what you feel, research, put stuff out into the world. Also it’s not that hard we just be making it.

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

Nope, not anymore. Im just creating because I couldn’t help it if I wanted to.. My heart would break if I stopped. I wake up with ideas, melodies, words. It’s my offering to life

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Byjatorre
• Twitter: Byjatorre
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/jatorre001