Jessie Reyez
The Pioneer
The frontier and an appetite for the unknown, goes first.
Jessie Reyez reads as The Pioneer because her defining act is refusal to compromise artistic identity under industry pressure. She names staying real as her greatest achievement, fully aware of the industry's reluctance to embrace her multifaceted output. More striking still is the territory she maps publicly, avoidant attachment, sobriety, emotional exhaustion, relational failure, all treated as creative raw material. She charts unmapped personal ground and pulls her audience into that honesty with her.
“I'm happy with what I got. I'm grateful for the achievements I've been able to touch while I'm alive... because I gripped onto what makes me me as opposed to bending and acquiescing earlier in my career.”
“People have grown with me, which is nuts. Little kids with little kiddo T-shirts on — it's crazy and beautiful, for how much I feel like the industry is reluctant to embrace someone as multifaceted musically as me.”
“I know that it sounds ungrateful, but I'd be doing a disservice to myself if I didn't hold space for where my emotions have landed about it.”
Angie Martinez IRL: “Jessie Reyez: Understanding Real Love & Finding The Time And Space To Recover”
LISTEN AT THE SOURCE ↗THE RECORD IS CHECKABLE