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

Jay, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

That would be my most recent project called Side A. It came from a place of me becoming a father for the first time. Fatherhood will change you without you even realizing it. My son has made me take a look at who I was and who I’ve become since he was first announced to my wife and I. I thought back on all the things I did while I was young and dumb. It evolved through the music and I arrived at a place where I find myself being more patient, calculated and wiser in my steps. Doing things differently to make sure he has a bright future and doesn’t make the same mistakes I made during my journey.

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

I have been writing music since I learned how to write. It started off as poetry and as I grew and fell in love with the emotion of HipHop it evolved into me rapping and rhyming. I obviously started rhyming about kid stuff since I was a kid at the time but as I walked the earth and started to find my way as well as myself I began to speak about what troubled my heart and the foolish mistakes and choices I would make as a young man. The times behind bars, the drugs and violence that I found myself around. It was easy to fall victim to the circumstances I found myself in and it’s a blessing that it didn’t happen.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When you’re out trying to make a name for yourself as a musician you run into many snakes and many scammers. I’m no different. Fake people posing as DJs or A&Rs. I fell victim once before but it was a blessing that it didn’t ruin my career. I love this quote by Kanye West “now I can let these dream killers kill my self esteem or use my arrogance as the steam to power my dreams”. When you put yourself out there you open yourself up for criticism and basically hating from others especially if you’re talented. I think back to the first time I went to SXSW in Austin Tx. The curator of the show lied to me about the lineup and had me under the impression I would be opening for a big artist but when my team and I arrived we had to perform for an empty house and we still rocked it. Turned out there was a legitimate promoter in the club at the time and he ended up having me headline his event the following year and the crowd there had over four thousand people and they rocked with me. In this game perseverance and confidence is the key to moving forward. You’re going to get a lots of no’s but it only takes one yes.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Getting out your thoughts and emotions and hearing them crisp and clean. It’s an outlet for me so when I put my personal feelings out there and people enjoy them it’s an even better feeling. You can’t please everybody and learned to stop trying that a long time ago. Now it’s all about doing what I love and putting it out there for the people who genuinely care about me. Once piece of advice I’d give to every artist independently or not do not do it for other people. Make sure you’re doing it for you because the people can tell.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Jlyric24