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

P. Jax, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

CanvasRebel Questions:

This is a really deep question. It’s something I think about a lot, but instead of wondering what it would be like to have a regular job/career, I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I had a different passion. I’ve worked “regular” jobs and jobs that just didn’t line up with my passions, and I ended up feeling the same way.
Instead, I think to myself “What if I didn’t have this love of music?”
“What if I didn’t have this love of art, and passion to create?”
“What if I didn’t want to run my own business, and employ people I know and from my community? What if I could hold down a ‘regular’ job and be happy?”
I know people who graduated high school around the same time as me and went to college not knowing what they wanted to do, or just did what their parents wanted. A lot of them are living a lot better than me (especially if they graduated) even though I try not to compare my life with anyone else’s, it’s hard not to wonder if you made the wrong decisions.
But that’s the thing: I’m living with MY decisions. Every major decision in my life from where I went to school to what spent my money on always lead back to my passion for music, creativity, and business. Even if I tried to do things the most logical way, my goals always lined up with being a Creative Entrepreneur. I could stop investing in myself, my music, my clothes, and my company, at any point, but I don’t want to. I could have gone to college, focused on just school like everyone else, graduated, and may be living more comfortably than I am now. But I would always wonder “What if?”
“What if I did follow my passion?”
“What if I did try?”
I asked my Mom about this and she described me as a “risk-taker”. I never considered myself that, but that does seem to be a running theme in my life. I took a risk leaving college. I took a risk going back. I took a risk moving to New York. I took a risk pursuing music. I took a risk to do what I love because to me doing what you love makes you who you are. I took a risk to be myself
With all that being said, am I happy? That’s still a hard question for me. However, I think I wouldn’t be as happy if I wasn’t following my passion. I wouldn’t be happy not doing what I love, or what I thought made a difference. I wouldn’t be happy not taking risks.
Overall, I’m as happy as I can be now because my passion, drive, love of creating and risk-taking make me who I am. If I didn’t have these passions, I wouldn’t be me. If I was happy with a “regular” job I wouldn’t be P. Jax. I couldn’t stop if I tried. And I don’t even want to.

P. Jax, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is P. Jax. I’m an artist out of Gwinnett County, Georgia about 30 mins outside Atlanta. I’ve been making and releasing music for about 10 years now and have been making clothes for about 3. In 2020 I started my own company called PdotJax, LLC where I release and started my website where I sell merch.
Music has been a part of my life since childhood, I took piano lessons as a child and started producing and songwriting in High School. After school, I interned at Def Jam and started releasing my music, dropping videos of me freestyling, and eventually whole songs/projects on Sound Cloud.
I call myself a Creative Entrepreneur because I sell my creativity. I can connect people and manage projects, as well as strategize and come up with concepts.
I am most proud of the projects we put out so far. During the summer of 2020, I released a new song every day for a month for a campaign called #SummerSeries2020. Each song had its cover art with models and me wearing our new merch, which dropped on the site at the same time as the song. I’m proud of this project/campaign because it showed that we could bring a concept to fruition and that I could lead a team to its goals. The project took a lot of planning, teamwork, and follow-through, and as the first major project as a company, I thought we did a really good job, and showed what we could do.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think society needs to start seeing seeing artist, or creatives overall, as a real career path, and not a long-shot dream. Being a creative inherently means you probably want to follow your own path anyway, but I think most people would appreciate if one was more clear or supported, especially when it comes to making a living. If you want to be a lawyer or doctor, there’s a path of school, Law/Med school after, and then getting a job or starting your own firm. For a creative, the path people usually give you is create, release, and hope you sell/make money.
I think there should be more classes in High School and degrees in school that prepare you to make a living, and more government grants so artist can finance their projects.
I don’t have all the answers, but I think we should treat the arts like more of an achievable career, instead of just a dream that may not come true

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Being able to support myself through my art and creative ventures. Being able to provide jobs for others, so they can pay for school or start their own business, or just support themselves. I want to create more Art High Schools or special programs in high school that cater to the Arts and Media. I also want to use my business to help my community by supporting Bills and initiatives in government I believe in, and that I think to make my area better for me and future generations.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://pdotmerch.company.site/
• Instagram: @pdotjax
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/pdotjax
• Twitter: @pdotjaxmusic
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@PdotJax

Image Credits
Joshua Coleman