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

Jenna, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

When I graduated high school, I packed up my car and moved to Nashville on a whim. I knew I was all in on pursuing my dream of being an artist. After a year there, when I turned 19 I decided I wanted to move to LA. I only knew one person from Instagram but I just knew I had to move there so I packed up my car and drove to LA. After a year in LA, I signed to a publishing company based in ATL, so off to ATL I went. After being dropped from the Pub company, I moved back to my hometown; Detroit. Since then I have fallen in love with my city and am doing my thing from Detroit.

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 began making songs when I was 15. I knew a bit of piano so I wrote songs in my free time. I was a sheltered homeschooler from the cornfields of Michigan and it was just a fun pastime. I got connected with a producer from my church and recorded my first song on piano. My friends all really liked it and it inspired me to take the music thing seriously. The passion snowballed and I met other homeschoolers who made music, including one who specialized in pop/hip hop. He also recorded me and I began to find my sound. Being from the middle of nowhere, I was forced to get really good at networking on social media. So I decided to do what I could via social media. After traveling so much at a young age, I was able to meet so many people along the way who helped me find my sound. Mariano Dinardo, Zach Paradis, Pooh Beatz, Vendr, Juice Bangers and Turismo were some of the key people who really helped me finding my sound in the rage, hip hop, hyperpop genre. I’ve always loved hip hop but knew I couldn’t rap so I found that I could sing and write pop songs over super unique hip hop/hyperpop beats. The biggest problem I faced along my journey was money. I had songs with over 2M streams and still was not seeing much profit from the music. This inspired me to get creative with other streams of income. Everyone always told me merch was one of the biggest revenue sources for artists so I decided to make my own clothing line. After designing some merch designs and having fun with making little mockups, it just felt a little inauthentic and like a cash grab. So I decided to make a clothing brand for my merch called HAPPY EVER HYPNOTIZED and started making one of one pieces by hand. I wanted this brand to be personal and more authentic so I decided to thrift vintage clothing and rework it and sell that as my merch. Since starting the brand, it has caused me to get super into fashion and I’ve been having so much fun.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The main thing that drives my mission is the youth. I am a songwriting teacher for a nonprofit called Kaleo and we go into inner city schools that can’t afford a music program and we bring music to them. We teach producing, songwriting, rap and make fully produced records with the kids. We take them to the studio and bring in producers and engineers and make them feel like superstars. This mission really keeps me focused on why I do what I do and what music is all about. I actually find this more fun than the big sessions with the big producers and all that. Watching kids fall in love with music and giving them an outlet is huge. It really keeps me in check. When it comes to my own music, I keep in mind that I have lots of little eyes watching and looking up to me so I try and be a good example for them. Most of my music is pretty clean and I’m very selective on which brands and artists I work with.

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

I had to unlearn what “making it” means. For me, “making it” is being happy. “Making it” is showing kids how to make music and giving them an outlet. “Making it” is making music with my friends and being to travel to a bunch of different cities. “Making it” is treating people well regardless of the cutthroat nature of the music industry. When you know that you were put on this earth to be creative and you have a gift, you have no choice what to do it. That takes guts, and not giving up and being true to yourself is truly the definition of making it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.happyeverhypnotized.com
• Instagram: @jennatheghost
• Twitter: @jennatheghost
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/jennawright
• Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0MtYXfFXzoj83z70TMRRZP?si=m4VdKobSQ-u0_zXlq_2bEg

Image Credits
@producedbysanto Noah Juuhl (Picture of bag, white button down, and pic with the BB gun) @mixedbyted Teddy Baker (Nightgown picture)