Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to J Quay. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi J Quay, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.
I remember sitting in my room at the age of 14 writing a song down that I’d written in my head. I figured after weeks of singing it I’d better document it fast. I took my last available cassette tape and recorded the audio for this new song over a radio mix I’d done. I later let my mom hear it. It was titled, “I Can’t Take No Lies”.
My mom was floored by the song.
So much so that she called a family friend who had a makeshift studio in his home and told him about the song.
He told her to tell me to record it acapella and he would put some music to the song.
Well that family friend quickly was amazed by my 12 year old song writing abilities and quickly told my mom to copyright all my songs.
There was only 3 at the time, and they are still registered with the Copyright office till this day.
There was no computers in our home so she typed the songs up at work from my notebook and she shipped them off.
I can’t help but to wonder if she’d shown no interest would I still be pursuing music like I do now?
There has been so many distractions over the years that kept me from pursuing my passion of music but never have I stopped.
By my mom showing me that ounce of attention I went on to producing those three songs in my family members studio.
He pitched those songs to Epic Records, Jermaine Dupri, and I went on to working with the producer that worked with Destiny Child and more.
I will never stop creating music because of her taking the time to nudge me in that direction.
My mother always says what she mean and mean what she says.
She never let me get by with anything that wasn’t pleasing to God nor her.
So for her to take a moment and show an interest in what I liked to do was exceptional.
I am super blessed!
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 will be honest. I love listening to instrumentals. Listening to instrumentals I am constantly creating new songs. New sounds. New genres. I rarely get a chance to listen to whats out there because to be honest it all starts sounding the same. I know theres a rhyme to that but honestly, when SADE came out on the scene in the 80’s there wasn’t a sound like them. That band rocked us in the states and still rocks us till this day. I call it timeless music. So I stay away from listening to whats current most of the times. My team constantly tells me to find that hit, find that hit, and i feel that every song I create is a hit. So my goal is to continue to create, and publish my music and I know that one day someone will need a particular song that I just so happened to write. I am so proud when listeners of my music watch every single song I produce and publish. To find out I have hundreds if not thousands of listeners across multiple music streaming platforms is also motivating me to keep going. I work really fast. I can write a song from concept to completion in less than 24 hours with a great track. Without a track, I could write a song in minutes. I forgot to mention I truly love people and making them happy.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Building my audience on social media didn’t come easy. I learned that being consistent with not just your content but content from others that resinates with a large audience has helped to grow my audience. I am also consistent. You can’t just post whenever you feel like it. You must post daily. Not just one time but often. On all social media platforms I have learned that posting consistently really starts the algorithm and never delete a video. Maybe change the privacy on it to private but never delete a post. This sends the algorithm into a frenzy and you have to slowly build momentum again.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I’ve faced so much loss during my music journey and I never let that stop me. For some reason it catipulted me to where I am. Its like fuel for me. If I don’t create, I feel lost. I love creating so much I can’t take any days off from it. I had to learn that you are going to give a certain situation energy. If its something I can’t or couldn’t control I try to use that energy for something creative. Like the season when I brought home my two surviving triplets from the hospital. We’d just finished laying to rest their sister Kendall. She fought so hard to stay on this side of life. I had no time to mourn her loss. I had to be strong for her sisters who stayed in the hospital for over 6 months. So after bringing both babies home I was in the kitchen and a song came to me titled, “Make Me Cry!” This song is so beautiful I still sing it often when I think about what I have overcame. This song brings me peace and lets me know that no matter what I go through I should never ever stop or give up doing what I love the most, and thats singing.
Contact Info: