Creative Highlight 03: Music: Trey Jaded
I love music. As long as I could remember, music has just always been my favorite outlet whenever I felt like everything was going wrong, or when I just wanted to escape into my own little world, or even if I was just completely absolutely happy. Music has always done something to improve my mood. As we all know, music and black people have a lovely, beautiful history together. Most genres were started by us. Hip hop, r&b, jazz, soul, rock even. As always, we BEEN the blueprint. It's engraved in our DNA basically. We are so diverse as a culture, it dates as far back to negro spirituals to today where all the genres of music I just listed have sub genres which is actually fucking insane if you think about it. Yeah, black people are truly just that talented and diverse, we love to see it! What I find interesting however is that artists tend to get all the credit. Funnily enough, I'd argue that the music engineers/producers work just as hard if not harder to make the finished product what it really is. Yeah lyrics and the flow of the lyrics and different vocal inflections are important to the song OBVIOUSLY. But the sound itself, who is responsible? Who's in charge of curating the perfect album for these artists anyways? Producers such as Metro Boomin, London on da track, Pierre Bourne etc are all black music engineers/producers who have established a name for themselves in the music industry. Time and time again they constantly capture the essence of sound and make tracks that we all know and love to this day. Let's be real you know once you hear "Yo Pierre you wanna come out here?" your ears are about to be BLESSED. WE NEED BLACK SOUND ENGINEERS AND PRODUCERS. Period. With that being said, I spoke to my personal favorite black music engineer, Trey Jaded about his journey in the music industry thus far.
Me: What inspired you to get into becoming a recording engineer/producer?
Trey: I was a producer first before an engineer. I was inspired to become a producer simply because I love making sounds and the way how sounds influence those around me. Music has way of changing one’s emotions, thoughts, and even their self. Whether it made them feel a sense of narcissistic pride with a song like BUTTERFLY EFFECT by Travis Scott, or a mellow wave of gloom with a sad melodic instrumental like All We Do by Oh Wonder, that feeling is what makes me inspired. Being an engineer just adds to that. Specifically it means that I can structure the vocals and make it sound sonically good as well.
Me: As a black creative, do you find your journey to be harder in the music industry as opposed to creatives who are not black?
Trey: Every thing is more “pressure applied” when you’re a person of color living in this world. But being a black creative, we have a different sense of creativity that many individuals are intrigued by, so in that aspect it’s not a challenging or opposing journey in that aspect. I’d say the real opposition is your musical talent and the extreme saturation of music there is to compete with. But to speak more on the topic of being a black creative in the music industry, Hip Hop was curated by black people. We make things look cool and that’s not only marketable, but also profitable for someone in the industry. If a white person can rap good and has charm (for ex. Jack Harrow) then he will have no problem in the industry. Same with a black person. It’s no difference as long as you’re marketable.
Me: Do you tend to receive a lot of black clients who are women? If so has your experience working with women in the music industry been different from men?
Trey: I don’t get a lot of black clients that are women, but when I do they’re typically singers. Singers are a lot different then working with typical rappers because they’ll have already have a plan on what they want to do on the record. It really isn’t too different besides what the female artists would want sound wise and that varies from artist to artist, not just women.
Me: As we know, hip hop is has been very much so male dominated for the past couple of years, only now he have artists such as Megan the Stallion, Mulatto, Nicki Minaj, Cardi B etc who have came in the game & changed it completely. With you being in the music industry do you feel as if black women are going to continue to dominate the charts or is it a leveled playing field?
Trey: Black Women are definitely going to dominate the industry! But it depends on how they do it. You look at a female rapper like Megan The Stallion or Chika and you can definitely see the differences between the two. Chika is a dope rapper and has good songs, but Megan has both those and a high sex appeal. That’s very marketable. And i’ve already discussed how profitable that is in the industry. Megan is talented , but without her sex appeal I don’t think she’d be as mainstream as she currently is. To be really mainstream you have to know what you can really show to a mainstream audience.
Me: Do you know of any Black women who are recording engineers/ producers like yourself if so, put us on.
Trey: I know a couple black female producers/ engineers I met at college. I never got their contact information but they definitely exist in the industry and work diligently as much as any other engineer.
Me: Lastly, give some advice for any black women who want to make it in the music industry.
Trey: My advice to black women would be the same for any inspiring musicians, know your talents and skills and what you can use to market yourself. Black Women in general have amazing musical taste so knowing how to accurately curate that vision into reality should be the difficult part. If you’re attractive and comfortable with showing some sex appeal, use that. Just be aware that this is the music industry and that you gotta put in that work to create good music for it. Otherwise, have fun and stay focused.
Make sure to follow Trey on Instagram @treyjaded
Also, be sure to check out Trey's YouTube channel! https://youtube.com/c/TreyJaded
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