Summer Music: Jelani Aryeh Went From High School Football Star To Gifted Pop Artist

Speaker 1: 00:00 Audiences are back. Venues are opening up and San Diego was bursting with music from local artists this summer. So we're here to capture some of that creativity, energy and joy with the return of the KPBS summer music series. And we're lucky to begin the series with a young artist. Who's unique brand of pop music is catching lots of attention. Jelani REA songs have a rich Sonic palette and sound other worldly. As the lyrics look inward and explore the complexity of our times. But Yolanda grew up in San Diego of African-American Filipino and Chinese descent. And somehow along with its introspection and emotional honesty, his music always lets the sunshine in. We begin with a single from his new album. I've got some living to do, and this is Jelani REA with his song. Speaker 2: 00:56 Diane, your stereo loud, blazing those space around you is love lightened. Mary gold sounds Brady. We live a long life seeking futures. Um, so, uh, [inaudible] prince of pride Titan over my cheese. Hi, will you come down? Get in a full view is like clutching a cloud, but none around when you come around this barrier of lights in beams for a crown bringing life to the biomes, the well-beings of brown sending pockets of solace and equal amounts from cold seasons, there was an ease in a home round, not place feeling, rush, being punched. The heat of the sun in my head feels late. Oh well it's late in your stereo. Blazing the space around you is love I and Mary bold sounds lonely. I seeking all futures and the world still hollow. Speaker 1: 02:32 That was the song Marigold by Jelani REA off his new album. I've got some living to do and Jelani. Let me welcome you. Thank you for joining us. Speaker 3: 02:42 Thank you so much for having me. How's your day been? Speaker 1: 02:45 My day has been going pretty good today and it's better since I've been hearing your music. I know a lot of people say that to you because I've been reading on YouTube. A lot of people give you crazy. How do you handle that? I Speaker 3: 03:01 Don't know. It is. It's like the feeling that I can't put like words to, and it's just crazy how many people connect with the songs because initially I just make them for myself, not really thinking if people are going to resonate and just the fact that they comment and really share how the song makes them feels. I couldn't ask for more. Speaker 1: 03:24 Tell us, uh, about the song that we heard Marigold. What got you interested in creating it? Speaker 3: 03:31 I was doing some research online about the flower Mary gold, and I came up on its nickname and I guess it's little lion and my name Jeilani or yang means mighty lion. So Jelani means my ID and Swahili and then REA means lion in Hebrew. So I try to weave like Mary gold little lines with my name and then also bringing in like imagery of the sun and just like waving all three of those things together and making a song called Marigold. And I feel like it's my soul song. It's who I'd like to be kind of behind the walls of like my skin who I think I am like on a soul level, but yeah, Mary gold is just, I feel like me Speaker 1: 04:15 Know what inspired you like overall to begin to make music? Speaker 3: 04:20 I think I just wanted an escape initially away from football. I was in high school football and I just really wasn't enjoying it anymore. I was getting hurt a lot and music just felt like something new and childish Gambino's because the internet album made its way to me somehow. And I was intrigued by the way, an artists can create a whole world around our album and he made like a screenplay and like a short film with it. And I just want to give that to people as well. So I think childish Gambino and just having like another world to live in as what kind of brought me to music, Speaker 1: 04:57 You did do the whole number on that whole experience of having to give up playing football and being injured and not wanting to go on and wanting to change your direction. Tell us about the song jet fuel Speaker 3: 05:11 Jet fuel was more of a reflection on my high school experience and leaving the sport of football that I was paying for my whole kind of just high school career. I guess my dad was my coach from age six to my freshman year. He was super slated on the fact that I was going to play football in college. And the song was just kind of after I told him I no longer wanted to play and the feelings that I had to feel, it was kind of just a conversation between me and my dad and tell him like, music is what I really want to do and what feels Speaker 2: 05:47 Right? So it seems passing the pylons of folk injury. Cause in the stands, no one screen the field with some low esteem and it's the same with too many shots to the brain, tend to spin and carry this burden. Look on my face. Hey, I don't want to play. Cause it makes me heartless and hopeless I could have said said, but it's not even close. When's the last time my school used to call me the little boy I had to leave the school and the school should just so that I had to go. It's good to know Speaker 1: 06:56 That was the song jet fuel by Jelani REA. So when you gave up football, how did your dad react? Speaker 3: 07:04 At first? He was like, son, I won't be able to look at you the same because he put in all of these years with me and was pretty set on me going to college and making this like my thing jet Phil came about around, I'd say early 2019. And I call it where we go part two. Um, because where we go was I wrote that up to the night. I told my dad in the long wanted to play football Speaker 2: 08:08 [inaudible] I don't know. Speaker 3: 08:10 So when I wrote my song, where we go, the reception of that was so I guess just unexpected. And he was shocked by the fact that so many other people connected with it. The now like him, my mom were kind of, my biggest fans are like advocates. And they're like, are you responding to bands? Are you doing this? Are you doing that? And like, they're on me more than I'm on myself sometimes. So I really appreciate them just coming around and um, just appreciating what I have to do and what I have to offer the world. Speaker 1: 08:45 So you and your dad are good now? Speaker 3: 08:47 Oh yeah. Super good. Super good. I hope so. Speaker 4: 08:54 Two minute, right? Yeah. Speaker 1: 08:59 Um, what was it like growing up in the San Diego suburbs? Speaker 3: 09:03 Growing up in the suburbs was super strange. I mean, at the time it didn't feel wrong or anything, but I'd say I was away from my culture or like my ethnicity and my family, because a lot of them are in the Philippines or in Ohio or like up north in California. So it was weird not really having that family present, but I was always able to just like hanging out, talk to everyone and make friends super easily. And I think I got really lucky living in the suburbs. It was, it was really hard to find like a scene once I got into music of just like minded people. And I think that's why I took to the internet because I wanted a community with people of a like-mind and it was, it was kinda hard to find that where I lived talk Speaker 1: 09:55 To us more. If you would, about the whole idea of connecting with people on the internet to make your music, to form your ideas, to form a music collective. How, how influential has that been to your growth as an artist? Um, Speaker 3: 10:11 I think the internet has I, the internet so much for, I guess just my success in learning, just learning in general. Um, but I formed my group, my music collective raised by the internet on Reddit, on, on future Frank ocean and, um, a Brock Hampton subreddit. And I was just like, uh, does anyone want to make a group full of beautiful, just music and art and where you don't have to have a certain genre and the guys that responded to that or my group, but it's crazy because like maybe 30 years ago you wouldn't be able to just click on something and have people respond to you and create this community. So I think the internet, it's a jump starter for having that opportunity and having that community of people. And that's what I think I appreciate the most is how fast and like how willing people are to just get to know each other and talk about their, like what they love to do. Speaker 1: 11:09 Your music is very colorful, your music videos, of course, reflect that and reflect a certain attitude and a certain fashion sense. And I'm wondering, where do you get that? Where do you get that fashion sense? That presence Speaker 3: 11:25 From like a young age, my dad always made it apparent that just clothes are super important and the way you look is like a reflection of how you feel. And so every time I dress, I just want something that feels right, but I'd say I pull a lot from the arrows that I listened to. So a lot of like sixties and seventies and nineties, and kind of just blending those errors and styles together. So I wear a lot of like flared pants, a boots, doc Martens, and then tight fitting shirts. Um, cause it just like feels right. And that's kind of my head space at the moment, but yeah, I give all credit to my dad for just making clothes, something of importance and like matching and just finding the right shoes and sneakers and stuff. But yeah, fashion is super important and just the way silhouette looks on your body, I think is super important for my image or someone else's image. Speaker 1: 12:24 So let's move now to your new album. How did you come up with the title? I've got some living to do? I Speaker 3: 12:31 Came up with the title, I've got some living to do. I was driving back from LA back to SD and I was listening to velvet underground thinking what I was gonna talk about in the next album, let us separate time. And I was like, dang, I've got some live in the duke. And then just the light bulb kind of went off in my head and I was like, that's the title for this album? And it just feels something about, it feels very young, very casual and just like being 21 years old and figuring out life and especially coming out of a pandemic, just we've got some living to do. I've got some living to do. I got some traveling to do. I got to see the people that I love. I want to get out of the country for the first time. And I feel like it just, it makes people think and reflect on their life and what they want for themselves in the future. Let's Speaker 1: 13:24 Go out with the title track from Jelani, RAs, new album. I've got some living to do and Jelani before we leave. I want to thank you so much for being a part of the KPBS summer music series, sitting down, talking to us, giving us some insight into your work and your music and thank you so much. Good luck Speaker 5: 13:43 In the future. [inaudible] Speaker 2: 17:23 [inaudible].