Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jalen Johnson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Jalen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been one of the most interesting investments you’ve made – and did you win or lose? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

The best investment I’ve ever made for myself was buying my studio equipment. The day I went into Guitar Center & grabbed everything I needed at once made me feel like I was already in the game when coach just put me in, you know. I literally spent over $1,300 on my equipment & I can honestly say that was the smartest thing I have ever done in this life. I tell all my indie artists friends to invest their money & time into getting a studio setup; it saves you thousands of dollars and worthless hours with an engineer who doesn’t have your best interest.

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

For those who don’t know, I go by JayyGoinUp as an artist. Most people call me Jayy or Jalen, my real name, but I prefer Jayy on a regular basis. I’m 21 years old and I am a professional singer, dancer, songwriter, musician & actor from West Philadelphia. I started off impersonating Michael Jackson around 9 years near the time he passed and ever since then, my life took a turn for the best. I’ve landed multiple gigs and events with my MJ act which took me further than expected. I got my first deal at 11 years old at NuVybe Records with Herb Middleton & branched off as an indie artist at only 13 years old. Once I became more aware of the music industry, I started to take heed towards my other talents like writing & acting since I pretty much had dancing and singing down pact. When I turned 15, I decided to go with the name “JayyGoinUp” when me and my brother discussed what my artist name should be before he gave it to me. Me & my brother, Black Luciano, went to the kitchen for our food as Makonnen’s “Tuesday” is playing and he grabs me and sings ”Jayy Goin Up… on a tuesday” then later he says “you should make THAT your name bro” and since then it still rings with my brand and kind of music I make. I wrote my first song as an indie called “Voicemail” in 2016 which has over 150K on all plats & got my first huge feature with Curlybamm called “Song To You” in 2017 & was released in 2019. I’ve been singing & dancing all my life but I been at it professionally for over 10 years now & I can’t wait to see what God has in store for me this year.

How did you build your audience on social media?

The way I built my fan base and audience on social media was thru content. It’s always been thru content before content was the most important thing in an artists marketing strategy. When I was around 14, I couldn’t stop pencil/pen tapping so my mom gave me an idea to sing and pen tap for content. She showed me examples and I ran with it and it helped me gain over 10K followers on my first page which got hacked early 2016 so I had to restart after I dropped Voicemail on an EP I put on SoundCloud & thanks to LiddleNique who made a video to my song at the time, she helped me gain more and more traction. But now, the content lane is very different from back then. Before, I wouldn’t even show my face just my shirt and hands on the dresser. Now, the world must know your identity or it just might not work out for you in a world of thieves. To my aspiring content creators, consistency is key! You must be productive on your craft almost every day. The devil takes no days off, neither should you.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

In my honest opinion, I believe in this climate and time society can do much better at support local artists by just simply supporting them even if you don’t like it, someone else you know might. Share it, repost it, tweet it, it’s all free and doesn’t affect a thing. The consumers of the music are more concerned about how people think of them if they hear a song they might think is trash more than the artist who makes the song and also might think it stinks, just needs constructive criticism and that’s another thing too. People don’t know how to take or give constructive criticism when it comes to their craft and that’s how people fall deep in the facade of being a great artist or just a creative period. I feel like the cancel culture caused a lot of that emotional trauma for certain artists mainly because they will cancel you for the smallest thing you said in a song, interview or anything and hopefully I don’t get cancelled for this but it must be said. We gotta do better as a collective, life is too short to be half-ass on showing love to people who may need it and we don’t know it. It means a lot to people like me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://solo.to/jayygoinup
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/jayygoinup?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/jayygoinup?s=21&t=liBMpRZJlabehj3pHwMxug
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@JayyGoinUp

Image Credits
Pics Taken By : @RedJuiceProductions/@IamCoreyFloca @_VonLucas