Jensen McRae

00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Jensen McRae writes songs that cut straight to the bone, intimate examinations of identity, relationships, and the complexities of coming of age in today's world. Since releasing her debut EP Who Hurt You in twenty twenty one, she's garnered attention for her literary approach to songwriting and her ability to balance vulnerability with sharp observation. Her music often grapples with difficult subjects, navigating mixed race identity, processing, heartbreak, and confronting the uncomfortable truths we tell ourselves, but there's also a warmth and humor in her work, which can be heard in this episode when she performs three songs Savannah, White Boy, and let Me Be Wrong from her new album I Don't Know How but They've Found Me. On today's episode, I talked to Jensen McCray about her journey as an artist, why she gravitates towards niche communities online on Reddit, and her list of goals that include both winning the Grammy for Album of the Year and the mayoral run in our native Los Angeles. This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my conversation with Jensen McCrae, where she begins things with a live rendition of her song, Savannah, there.

00:01:36
Speaker 2: Is an inner section in your college town.

00:01:41
Speaker 3: WI your name, honing with your name morning.

00:01:50
Speaker 2: You are said he couldn't wait to take them, should have been Honor.

00:02:00
Speaker 4: Calls you out, honor.

00:02:04
Speaker 2: Disass side from God and archred l your fly.

00:02:12
Speaker 4: See him in wad.

00:02:15
Speaker 2: You try start to fly your curbridgesy saving LANDA well, no under you, ask man of HAMI someone new.

00:02:30
Speaker 4: Um to sup.

00:02:42
Speaker 5: Here is a boy in out loud in on theth.

00:02:47
Speaker 4: A bloody face.

00:02:49
Speaker 6: Come you were tied embombing.

00:02:56
Speaker 5: You swore raise our kidstand just like you with your fast crafting. That's a goddamn commense.

00:03:11
Speaker 4: Sassy side from.

00:03:12
Speaker 6: God and archerd l on by You see him in water n you try start by the bridges.

00:03:26
Speaker 4: He's standing leader.

00:03:28
Speaker 5: Well, no one under you, hossman of coming left someone new ungoing to Supana. Come I hear it's hot and the greatest ride his head le is away.

00:03:56
Speaker 4: He used to up.

00:03:58
Speaker 5: It's twenty one, he used to call those swim bitches.

00:04:03
Speaker 4: Did in you if you're the sweet like honeydew.

00:04:10
Speaker 5: Shvy how to talk to bus pass his side from.

00:04:19
Speaker 4: Her Trey Lyley on why.

00:04:25
Speaker 1: You See.

00:04:28
Speaker 2: It?

00:04:29
Speaker 5: Tried to start a fire for bridges, he stabbing Leanna, you lost me?

00:04:37
Speaker 4: So you want manner? Coming love with someone new, Come in to Survivana, Go.

00:04:53
Speaker 3: To Surveveano, Go went to Sana, Go.

00:05:08
Speaker 1: To oh Man, so good, thank you oh Man. What how did that song start?

00:05:31
Speaker 4: Well?

00:05:32
Speaker 7: I wrote it a week after my first album came out, and so I wasn't in the head space of necessarily knowing or thinking about what I was making. But I had this very weird thing happened to me where I had two boyfriends in a row asked me to go with them to Savannah.

00:05:48
Speaker 8: Georgia, which is I have very Wrongnah?

00:05:51
Speaker 7: No, they just both had reason to go and wanted me to go with them, and I had never thought about it before, and I just I didn't go with the first one. But before I went with the second one, I just started thinking about the city and its history, and I found out how haunted it, and I just started thinking about ghosts in the past, and I wrote about how it feels to not be able to outrun your best.

00:06:16
Speaker 1: Wow, your first album was Are you happy now? You wrote that? I mean you wrote that right after the First Time come out? Were you happy after the First Time came about?

00:06:28
Speaker 5: Uh?

00:06:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was. I was.

00:06:29
Speaker 7: I mean, I was relieved more than anything because I'd been sitting on that album for three years and I made it between the ages right about twenty one twenty two. That was when I was making it, and then I was twenty four when it came out, and I just felt like I had already changed so much and I was really happy to be telling that story, relieved that it was finally out of my hands and into other people's hands, and just really excited about being able to tour it and see the world as a result of it.

00:06:57
Speaker 1: Is that is that because a lot of people will release a record, even if it's one they've been sin on for a while, but release it and it's just like there's not a lot of writing going on like immediately after. But is that, like is that part of a feature of your personality? Like are you? Are you always onto the next thing? Is that? Or was it that just happened?

00:07:16
Speaker 7: I'd say generally, it's interesting because in the aftermath of this most recent album, I definitely have not felt like I have as much time to write. I've written a little bit, but after the first album came out, I felt like I was still really going, Like it felt like the writing process was just not done. But also a big difference is that, like my audience is a lot bigger now. The rollout of this album has been met with more fanfare, so like I have a lot more press obligations.

00:07:40
Speaker 8: I want more touring obligations. So I'm just like not home in the way that I was three years ago.

00:07:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Savannah, you so you're asked two times by two different people. Did you write that before you went, like as you were learning about it? Or did did you rewrite anything after you went? Did you end up going?

00:07:59
Speaker 8: I did end up going, and I didn't rewrite anything.

00:08:01
Speaker 7: It still felt I mean, I definitely heard the voice memo in my head while I was there, but it felt very apt even after I actually ended up going, felt accurate.

00:08:08
Speaker 1: And what happened with did did? Why were you there?

00:08:15
Speaker 8: It was it was for a work trip.

00:08:16
Speaker 7: Coincidentally, he was just gonna be in Savannah, and he asked if I wanted to visit him while he was there, and I was like, I think I have to go because I've been asked now twice, and I think I have to see this place.

00:08:27
Speaker 1: That's amazing.

00:08:27
Speaker 7: People were very A lot of people ask me about like why Savannah, and it is a very odd story, and I think it is a really special city. Like I mean, ghost tours are like a big part of the attraction of the city, and like there's I mean there's so many like bachelorette Like while I was there, I saw a wedding and a bachelorette party, and I think then we were joking like, oh, we have to see a proposal and divorce and then we'll have the.

00:08:47
Speaker 8: Full the full set.

00:08:50
Speaker 7: And yeah, it's super humid, like obviously, like I remember when I got there, like I felt like I was swimming standing up because it was just like the air was just so thick, and like that'll just make you feel feelings like when you're in intense weather like that, like it just stirs up I think, strong emotions and everybody.

00:09:05
Speaker 1: It makes you feel well, alive, you're dead or something with it's like you're like absolutely something can go wrong. Perhaps, yes, that's pretty wrong. Yeah, did you write anything while they're like based on.

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Speaker 8: I don't think I did.

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Speaker 7: I don't think I did, but I feel like I'd probably go back, And I remember thinking being there and also being in a lot of other cities I've visited on tour, like these smaller towns are very conducive to writing. I think I think it would be good to do like a writing retreat at some point, like get an Airbnb and just like hole up somewhere and try to write as much as possible. Yeah, because there's not as much noise and as much distraction as there is in a place like La.

00:09:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird growing up in LA and then going to other places where you realize like, oh, like you know your friends will be from other places than you go, and you realize like, wow, I really grew up in a place that was not normal.

00:09:53
Speaker 8: Yeah, Like I have that realization so much.

00:09:57
Speaker 1: When did when did you first start getting outside of out of outside of LA for music?

00:10:04
Speaker 7: It didn't start until really until twenty twenty two, because I grew up in LA and and then I went to music school for college in LA and then a year after I graduated, the pandemic started, and so I wasn't touring at all or going anywhere, And so I started touring in twenty twenty two and that was when I started really meaningfully playing music in other places. And yeah, I just really saw the contrast of where I grew up with everywhere else. Like obviously there's just like the pace and the population, but it's just like the way people carry themselves. Like I always heard people say that LA was a place of you know, a lot of posturing and like a lot of people being fake. And I never understood it because, like, I know so many great, down to earth, authentic people in LA. But then I went to other places and I was like, oh, people are not putting on airs to go to the grocery store. Like people are not They're just not as obsessed about appearances and other places as they are here. And I realized, like how that probably took a psychic toll on me as a teenager in a way that I didn't comprehend until I was an adult.

00:11:00
Speaker 1: No, it's true. I even I like I live. I moved to Long Beach, and even just being like a little outside of the city, You're like, yo, like it's a very different way, Like nobody gives a fuck question at the grocery store, you know, as an example, like you just you can go in your pajama's at the grocery store and not feel like, yeah, it's a different way of it's probably a healthier way of living.

00:11:20
Speaker 7: Probably, yeah, But I do have an appreciation for having grown up in LA for all of the for all of its flaws. Like I'm such an LA apologist. I love, love, love Los Angeles.

00:11:30
Speaker 1: What do you love about it?

00:11:31
Speaker 7: Well, I mean the weather is obviously a huge part of it, and there's just something about the air, which some people would say it is pollution, but I like there's something about the air and the light that's just like very comforting to me. And it feels like there's just so much possibility, maybe because the city is so spread out and it's so many neighborhoods, like it feels like it never ends. And it feels like even though I've lived here my whole life, there's still so much I haven't explored. And I love that feeling of like endlessness. And also my whole family lives here, so it just feels very comforting to know that, like my brothers and my parents are just a drive away, Like I find.

00:12:03
Speaker 1: I just love like one thing you dislike about LA.

00:12:05
Speaker 9: I mean, the.

00:12:06
Speaker 8: Traffic obviously is bad. That's a gimme, Yeah, that's anything else I don't like.

00:12:10
Speaker 1: I don't like.

00:12:11
Speaker 7: I guess I don't like the ways and even though I do, I love my air one and I love the growth, I don't like the ways in which that has become representative for the entire city because like people are always shocked, for example, to find out that I'm from here, and I think it's because I'm not like a white woman with blonde hair drinking kale juice. But it's like I'm a black woman drinking kale juice first of all, and like there's just so much there's just so much diversity, Like I love, like I love hearing Spanish, Like that's another thing I love about like.

00:12:38
Speaker 1: Places. Yes, yeah, I miss.

00:12:39
Speaker 7: Hearing Spanish when I leave, and like there it just it makes me sad when people write I guess maybe this isn't a thing I just like about LA. But people saying that they hate LA because they're like, oh, I don't like influencers or like I don't like fake people, or I don't like the entertainment industry, and I'm like, even the things you dislike about it are more complex than you're realizing. They are lovely influencers and lovely people in the entertainment industry, and I've met them and like, yeah, I I it disappoints me when people allow their vision of LA to be super one dimensional and stereotypical, when there's just so much depth to living here.

00:13:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed, Well, well said, thank you, and.

00:13:18
Speaker 8: Listen when I run for mayor what then, Wow, I would vote for you, Thank you, thank you.

00:13:23
Speaker 1: Wait, we could use it.

00:13:25
Speaker 8: I'm scheming. I'm plotting and scheming in you know, in like fifteen years.

00:13:30
Speaker 7: That's on the it's on the vision board job. I mean, I'm like, it's kind of a joke, but also it's real.

00:13:35
Speaker 1: There's a party that would like to run from Really.

00:13:38
Speaker 8: Everyone tells me not to, but I'm still thinking about it.

00:13:41
Speaker 1: When did that? When did that start?

00:13:43
Speaker 7: I just love LA so much and I have so many great ideas. And I don't want to be the president because that's too much work. But I want to be the president when I was a child because I'm a natural leader, and I would love I would love to be the mayor of Los Angeles and see if I can implement some of those ideas. But then, of course people are like well, if you just become rich and famous, you can implement your ideas without having to go through the red tape of politics, which is maybe very well be true. But I just I'm not ruling out a mayor all run when I'm older.

00:14:08
Speaker 8: I don't want to do it now. I have too much music to do.

00:14:10
Speaker 1: But it's more than to put it on the table so people aren't like surprised when it happened huge like Arnold farzeneggeror sounds like just from the beginning to say like I don't want to. I'm going to marry into the Kennedy family so I can. It's certainly not that, no, I mean, it's unseems cool. I don't know.

00:14:25
Speaker 8: No, I don't want to know. It'll be It'll be my political agenda will not be a marriage, but not be a marriage of politics.

00:14:32
Speaker 1: I don't want to get too derailed by this. But what are your ideas to fix? Well?

00:14:35
Speaker 7: I want there to be a fleet of electric buses that get implemented, because I don't think I love the metro.

00:14:39
Speaker 8: I took it in college actually, but.

00:14:42
Speaker 7: It'd be it's really really hard on people's commutes to be adding more metro lines, and I think one day that is the vision. But I think in the meantime, if we just get a fleet of super clean electric buses that are on the street, and we just overrun the street so that people will just become so inconvenienced by driving that they'll just get on the super clean new electric.

00:14:57
Speaker 1: Bus because the buses are slowing down there.

00:15:01
Speaker 8: There's but also because the buses look cool, they'll be nice and brand new.

00:15:04
Speaker 1: To your point, though, LA is so big, it is so big, Like you know, off, I don't know where you live. Let's say you're in Santa Monica. You know it's not but it's not weird living here to be like I'm going to go drive to like, you know, to the Huntington on a Saturday afternoon. Oh yeah, are you going to take the bus from Santa Monica to the Huntington.

00:15:23
Speaker 8: Ever, Well, I don't know that. I don't know.

00:15:25
Speaker 7: I think we still will have cars, but I think it should be a thing where like that's what cars are for, is for when you're making the big cross La Trek, but when you're in like your immediate neighbor, like if you live in Echo Park, like and you just want to go to Silver La or Los Felis, like you should be able to hop on a really nice clean electric bus to go there, as opposed to having a drive and find parking which is a nightmare. And yeah, I think there's I mean, there's an art to road trips. If I've learned anything from touring, it's at a great long road trip can be very healing for the soul. But I just think it'd be nice to have more options because like, I love living and spending time in London as well. They obviously have a great tube, they have great buses, and there are people in London with cars, but like you just don't have to. It's a nice to be freed from the shackles of big car.

00:16:03
Speaker 1: You're You're right, You are right when you say there's an art to toryn like do you is there are to road trips?

00:16:11
Speaker 8: What?

00:16:11
Speaker 1: Like? How do you well?

00:16:12
Speaker 7: The most important part of road trip is the playlist, and I love It's funny because on this last tour I was in a van with a band for the first time, and we were all yapping so much that there wasn't that much attention being paid to the music. Like at one point my guitar player drives sometimes and he put on The West Side Story soundtrack for me, cause that's my favorite musical.

00:16:29
Speaker 1: Wait, yo, that's a good soundtrack.

00:16:31
Speaker 8: It's really good and it's great for driving. It was like a late night drive and it was perfect.

00:16:34
Speaker 7: But when I was touring, what would be like just me and my manager, Like I would curate playlists and sometimes they would come to me, like in the dead of night. Like I woke up in the middle of the night one time to make a playlist that was in my feelings and Rich Girl by Hollo know Its and the Boy Is Mine and I was like, this is the start.

00:16:50
Speaker 8: I don't know what else is going on, but these are the first three songs.

00:16:53
Speaker 1: Wow, that's good. Wait what was the first one in?

00:16:57
Speaker 7: And then a Rich Girl and then the Boy's Mine. I was like, that's how this playlist is starting. I don't know where it's going, but I had to like it's a fever dream of like this must be how it begins.

00:17:05
Speaker 1: That's inspired. That's inspired work. I would love to know it.

00:17:09
Speaker 5: Oh.

00:17:10
Speaker 8: I ended up being hundreds of songs, but I liked doing a mix of like old school stuff, like stuff from my childhood.

00:17:16
Speaker 7: I love Craig David. No one talks about seven Days and fill me In?

00:17:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love me.

00:17:21
Speaker 8: I was in a hotel.

00:17:23
Speaker 7: I was standing outside of a hotel in Berlin at the beginning of the last leg of this tour, and fill Me In started playing over the speakers and I was like, this is so And I was with my manager.

00:17:31
Speaker 8: She couldn't hear it, and I was like, no, no, it's definitely happening. It was like raining. I was jet labbed. I was like, I'm maybe I'm hallucinating, but don't talk about Kig David.

00:17:41
Speaker 7: Kraig David always got to be in a playlist. Obviously loved to put some brandy on there. Obviously loved to put Holland notes. Like when I was a kid, I listened to my parents played me a lot of like James Taylor and Carol King like that always get the mood up, Fleewood Mac, you know, just all the classics.

00:17:56
Speaker 1: But then you also go there parents on board with that. I was both, but they both that was both of their musical diets.

00:18:01
Speaker 7: My mom was the one who was more like the She was like the James Taylor, Carol King stuff and Stevie Wonder both my parents were. Stevie Wonder was like the big overlap, I would say.

00:18:10
Speaker 8: For my parents. Yeah, like my dad. So my dad is a lawyer.

00:18:12
Speaker 7: But he won my mom over by singing to her. And he used to sing Donnie Hathaway and Stevie Wonder to her.

00:18:18
Speaker 1: Wait what yeah?

00:18:20
Speaker 2: What?

00:18:20
Speaker 8: Yeah?

00:18:20
Speaker 7: He has a beautiful voice. Really, but he was like, you know, he was like, I have to make money, so he didn't. He didn't pursue it. But he went to high school with Lenny Cravitz.

00:18:27
Speaker 1: What yeah, like in Venice.

00:18:29
Speaker 8: They went to Beverly Hill High School.

00:18:30
Speaker 1: He's right, Okay, that's right, that's right.

00:18:32
Speaker 8: What? Yeah? So he had like a he loves music so much.

00:18:36
Speaker 1: But what grow where did he grow up?

00:18:37
Speaker 8: He grew up here because his.

00:18:38
Speaker 7: Dad was a football player and he ended up he was My dad was born in Tennessee and his father was traded to the Bears and then to the Rams when he was really little, so he was he lived in Chicago for a second, but then mostly grew up here. Wow?

00:18:51
Speaker 1: And did he did? Him and Lenny did?

00:18:52
Speaker 8: They They were friends?

00:18:53
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:18:53
Speaker 8: What they're friendly?

00:18:54
Speaker 7: I mean I don't think I don't think they've spoken since they graduated. But my dad was telling me that he went over to his house and like he heard him play music and stuff.

00:19:01
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's crazy, that's all right, hold lot. So so he would sing like that's that's yeah.

00:19:07
Speaker 7: He would sing chances are and he would sing Lately by Stevie Wonder.

00:19:11
Speaker 8: Those are like the songs that he would sing.

00:19:13
Speaker 1: Do you growing up?

00:19:14
Speaker 7: He definitely sang like in passing, like he would sing along to stuff in the car, like he would put on I have this very vivid memory of when I was thirteen, he did a re enactment of brown v. Board of Education for like the anniversary of the trial. Like he played Thirdgod Marshal, I.

00:19:29
Speaker 1: Need a dad. I need a d right now? Can he can he adopt me?

00:19:33
Speaker 8: He would love to.

00:19:34
Speaker 1: I will. He would love say, I'll put my papers out there.

00:19:36
Speaker 8: He was the final boss of dads. Oh he's like such, he's such a dad Martin.

00:19:40
Speaker 1: This is incredible.

00:19:41
Speaker 8: He's no, he's I mean, he's incredible, Like he's my hero.

00:19:44
Speaker 1: He re enacted Board v.

00:19:45
Speaker 7: Brownie Board of Education, and I remember I sang the national anthem at it. For some reason, I don't know what was going on. There, but we did that when I was thirteen, and I remember that we like were at the maybe at a courthouse or this was happening, and then we went out to dinner after and my dad drove me home. My mom had my brothers in the other car, and I remember that Return of the Mac came on and my dad was singing along to that, and I remember thinking that was like the happiest I've ever seen him, was him singing Return of the Mac after having just done this, how re enactment was like the confluence of all his favorite stuff and so now Return of the like him singing Return of the Mac, is like a very happy memory memory for me. And I think I had plotted at one point to have that be my walkout song on stage, which I could still do. I think I should.

00:20:23
Speaker 1: Really that's strong. Yeah.

00:20:25
Speaker 7: Also, my name's McCray, so it's like Return of the Mac. It's like it kind of works for my name.

00:20:29
Speaker 1: It does, yeah, And it's that song is endlessly But.

00:20:33
Speaker 7: He also likes to raps like he would he was he actually is the person that put me on to Kendrick Lamar. Really yeah, great when I was like seventeen, like because he was aware of Timpa Butterfly before I was really and he was like he put on the black or the Berry when we were going on a hike.

00:20:48
Speaker 8: And he was like, are you listening.

00:20:49
Speaker 1: Listen kids in your high school not listening?

00:20:52
Speaker 8: They were, but I just like wasn't.

00:20:54
Speaker 7: I wasn't as tapped in and like I think people had showed me, you know, the odd Kendrick song here and there, but it was my dad. He was like, this album is like one of he just he knew. He was like, this is a classic album. These songs are amazing.

00:21:04
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, what was the first artist you connected with as like this, like you know where you really identified and became obsessed with It.

00:21:12
Speaker 8: Was Alicia Keys.

00:21:14
Speaker 7: Yeah, my mom played me Alicia Keys and it was part of her campaign to like show me mixed race people because like, my mom is white, my dad is black.

00:21:23
Speaker 8: I was born in nineteen ninety seven. There wasn't like a lot of there was representation.

00:21:27
Speaker 1: Was starting like a lot of mix kids.

00:21:29
Speaker 8: Now now there's so many.

00:21:30
Speaker 7: Like my little brother's basketball team was like mostly mixed kids. But like even the five years between us, it was like it was it was like a chasm.

00:21:37
Speaker 1: You never get it. I get jealous of that a lot. I'm happy for them, but I walk around like I really wish like I would thrive in this.

00:21:43
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean I wonder I want It's there's like such a trade off because it wasn't only it was not only being mixed, but also like the political climate of when I was growing up, Like, it wasn't when I was a teenager.

00:21:54
Speaker 8: It wasn't cool to be political.

00:21:56
Speaker 7: And so I'm like, what, I have also thrived in a time when we where it was like cool to have political to talk about race, and to talk about those things.

00:22:03
Speaker 1: When you were a kid. It wasn't we were a teenager at well, I.

00:22:06
Speaker 8: Mean when I was a kid, I don't think I had political opinions.

00:22:08
Speaker 7: But I was also eleven Barack Obama was elected, and so like that whole like eleven to nineteen for me was the Obama era.

00:22:14
Speaker 1: What did that do to you? Because I was that was the first election I was able to vote it into that. Well, I mean yes, but I'll say it only set me and my generation up for disillusionments. Yeah, because you know suffered through Bush. Yeah, and then you think we've fixed it, We're vote like what like I'm voting, and but it does feel like generation is a bit younger than me. Yours like didn't took the Barack Obama presidency for granted in a sumise.

00:22:46
Speaker 8: Absolutely.

00:22:47
Speaker 7: When I was a kid, I remember thinking all the time that I wanted to live through something. I was like, oh, well, we have a black president, and like we fixed racism, and like I just was I mean, my parents did a good job of protecting me from a lot of the truth of the world when I was young, and so I didn't know how many problems there were still to be dealt with. And I really felt like I was under this the impression that I wasn't going to be the first black women to do anything, because I was like, Oh, it's already been done, it's already been solved, and now and then Yeah, the first election I was able to vote in was the twenty sixteen election, and it was just like watching my world come crashing down in real time, and like all these illusions that I'd had about America, like the cracks had started to show in the foundation before that, but like that was kind of like the final moment of like, oh, Okay, I see what's going on here and there is still so much work to be done. I mean I I I adn't kind of glad though that I had an Obama childhood, because it was a very very idyllic time to be a black kid in America. Yeah, was the president, and I don't know what it would like to be a kid now. Also, social media wasn't as bad when I was a kid, Like it wasn't as pervasive.

00:23:50
Speaker 8: It existed, but it wasn't. It wasn't on your phone.

00:23:53
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was always it was on the computer, and you could like get you could not we could walk around and not have it carry it with you all day.

00:23:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird. It was on the phone back, I guess, right, but a little bit.

00:24:01
Speaker 8: But like Instagram was like it wasn't You couldn't make money on Instagram when I was a teenager.

00:24:06
Speaker 1: That's one of the big changes.

00:24:07
Speaker 8: Yeah.

00:24:07
Speaker 7: It was just like a place where you shared photo of your friends and you got ten likes and you were like really excited.

00:24:12
Speaker 1: Food Like that was the big criticism. Like the big criticism of Instagram initially was why are people taking photos of their meals?

00:24:18
Speaker 8: That was my dad's criticism. He's like, well, no one wants to see your breakfast.

00:24:21
Speaker 1: We wish that was now. It's so innocent now.

00:24:25
Speaker 7: But yeah, I feel even though obviously social media warped some of my childhood, like I kind of got the last chopper out, like I didn't have to, well because like my well look at the kids now and like my so, my little brother was O two and like he got a he kind of didn't really escape social media's child, but he sort of did. Like if you were a kid who was born in two thousand and eight, like you're a goner, Like you had no like the iPhone was invented before you were born, like you have, Like there was no window of time where you could like play outside.

00:24:55
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:57
Speaker 8: Every generation says that about the subsequent generation. I guess.

00:25:00
Speaker 1: So I don't know, but I think I think we are in different I think I think we have crossed the rubicon, so to speak. Like I don't think it's now just like hating to be like these big things are co hooked, you know, and I think things are cooked, you know.

00:25:10
Speaker 8: But I have a lot of hope.

00:25:11
Speaker 7: I have a lot of hope, and I think one that there is obviously a lot of good It's come from social media, namely a lot of my career I built on it. And also I just think that there's a movement happening to get back to real life. I think people really miss real life, and I think that there's a lot of a lot of young people who feel robbed of like in person, tactile, sensual experiences and are seeking it out. And I think it's going to become a real status symbol to not have a huge digital footprint.

00:25:38
Speaker 1: How do you navigate that given just you know, a lot of your career you say it's like kind of due to social media, but I imagine you, like everyone else are, is also looking for ways to not be attached tethered to you know.

00:25:53
Speaker 7: Honestly, I haven't been that great about it recently because I think especially when I'm touring, like when I'm in the airport and I'm like really tired and like run down, Like I don't want to be like meditating or like you know, focusing on you know, the things in front of me. I want to be on my phone because I want to make the time pass. And so definitely, in the last couple of months, like I've been spending more time on my phone than I would like, But I'm finding other ways to like be on screens that are not social media, Like I'm getting back into playing the Sims, which, like that is a great way to like be on screen and kill time, but it's still a creative activity. It's like I'm building houses. I'm like making little people and telling little stories. And it's like that's not the most intellectual way I could pass the time, but it is still stimulating my brain. And like I when I am using TikTok, my brain is not it's not working, like it is off, and I think like watching YouTube videos is another great way to like be on a screen in a way that still feels engaging because it's.

00:26:45
Speaker 8: Like I'm consuming content.

00:26:46
Speaker 7: I have to be I have to remember what I'm watching in order for the content to make sense, whereas on TikTok it's like I can forget everything that I see as soon as I scroll past it and it doesn't impact my day, Whereas like if I'm watching a ten minute YouTube video, it's like, oh, I have to follow the thread of whatever this person's talking about. I also really like Reddit, which like maybe that's wait, tell.

00:27:04
Speaker 1: Me about that, because I feel like Reddit was done right, it's it is so bad what happened? Fact should be there.

00:27:11
Speaker 7: I love it because I so I have all of these interests, including the SIMS. My other big niche interests are like make up perfume and like stationary.

00:27:19
Speaker 1: Ok those are like things I love perfume, state wait, make up, perfume, stationary and what else? And the sims and the sims.

00:27:26
Speaker 7: Yes, and so I'm on all those subredits like looking at and so it's me engaging with other people who are passionate about my interests. Like I love being in the perfume subreddit where people like I'm looking for a cent that has these notes and we're all trading ideas or someone being like what's your favorite of this or what are the bottles you've used up? And like it's again it's.

00:27:41
Speaker 1: Way of I feel you can trust these people.

00:27:43
Speaker 8: I'm not giving them anything like meaningful, but but.

00:27:46
Speaker 1: I mean, like like the recommendations and the opinions.

00:27:49
Speaker 8: Well, that's what sampling's for, you know, people say you should try this, and I get I spend five dollars on a sample instead of two hundred dollars on the bottle. Okay, it's there's a whole networ's a whole network of sampling.

00:27:57
Speaker 1: That's how you're doing.

00:27:58
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, but I I really like, I'm hopeful that like the Jens McCrae subreddit will become more active, Like I want my start it or no, I didn't start it, but I want my fans to like get more invested in there. But I don't know if my fan I don't know if like my top fans are Reddit people.

00:28:14
Speaker 1: We're putting the call out. We'll just make a Reddit people.

00:28:16
Speaker 8: Yes, please join us.

00:28:18
Speaker 7: But yeah, yeah, I did an ama with Threddit, like right when the album was coming out, and I loved that.

00:28:24
Speaker 8: Wow, because I feel like the people. I know there was a stereotype for a while. Yeah, well, I know there was a stereotype for a while about Reddit that it was like a certain kind of only a certain kind of person use it.

00:28:34
Speaker 7: It was like a negative stereotype. But my experience with thread it is it's all very thoughtful people. Because people like to leave long text posts, like it's not a it's a place that it's the only place on the Internet that still rewards long text posts because like obviously on Twitter, you're limited by characters unless you like pay, which I haven't used Twitter in almost a year at this point, but on Instagram, like you can make a long caption. But the point is the photos and TikTok. The point is the videos and and Reddit is a place where's the there is no photo and I mean you can add photos to text posts. But the point of it is that you're having these long conversations. And I think that's why I'm now drawn to it. I'm like, all I want to do is talk dot talk, okay, And that's the best place to do it.

00:29:10
Speaker 1: It's the review, stationary stamps, no stationary.

00:29:16
Speaker 8: Makeup, perfume, and the sims. Okay, all right, that's where I live.

00:29:19
Speaker 1: What a songwriting come in on?

00:29:21
Speaker 8: Let's no, I don't do I don't need Reddit for songwriting. Songwriting? Is I do that on my hed?

00:29:25
Speaker 1: How did you? Okay? Because I feel like you're how can I say this, Like you're you're a very good songwriter than you in my estimation for what that is worth. And I feel like the way you write songs is almost a lost art, like you like you write songs in the way like great songs used to be written, in a sense, like you know, like they're very they're not they're not hyper specific, you know, like it's like there's a lot of room for interpretation and there's a lot of like just turns of phrases and ambiguousness and that that creates a level of intrigue and and and they're really good. So like, how did you become good at that? How did you put that together? I get how you got into the Yes, yes, I get how you've become a makeup maven through Reddit, but yeah.

00:30:08
Speaker 7: With with I always wanted to tell stories, Like I just loved being read to as a child, and my mom had a thing where we would go to bookstores and toy stores and if I went to a toy store, I could get one toy, but if I went to a bookstore, I get as many books as I wanted. And obviously this was a long scam to get me to be a reader, and it worked very well.

00:30:27
Speaker 8: And I just always wanted to tell stories.

00:30:28
Speaker 7: And I always sang to myself, like my mom just said when I was like very little, like as soon as I was talking, I was also just singing to myself. And it really was, you know, through the Alicia Keys thing of like my mom trying to give me role models people who look like me. I just saw her and I was like, she looks I'm gonna do that because I look like her, so I can do that. It was like such a simple, like neurons firing moment.

00:30:48
Speaker 8: Yeah. I just was like that, that's someone something that I can do.

00:30:52
Speaker 7: And when I told my mom I wanted to be a singer, she's like, well, you have to learn how to write songs because that's where all the money is. Like there was no discussion of, like, there's no point that I don't know great either, my parents work in the music industry.

00:31:01
Speaker 8: But she was like, you have to write your own songs. And I was like all right.

00:31:04
Speaker 7: So I started taking piano lessons and I went through a couple of piano teachers, none of whom I particularly liked, and it was because I didn't want to read music and I didn't want to do classical music. And we found this piano teacher who very dramatically was like, well, you know, taking the classical music off the stand, Like what do you want to do?

00:31:20
Speaker 8: And I was like, I want to learn Beautiful by Cristina.

00:31:22
Speaker 7: Aguilera, and she was like okay, So she taught me how to pick music out by ear and taught me how to read guitar charts, and then very quickly thereafter was like teaching me how to write songs as well. And I would, you know, bring her my small ideas about songs and she would help me flesh them out and eventually back to the point where I could finish them by myself. And I think a big part of why I got good at it was because my parents instilled so much confidence in me from such a young age that I genuinely believed I was writing Grammy worthy material when I was like nine years old and there was no like. I love the confidence that I have in myself now and the you know, my opinion of my songs now is the same as it was when I was like ten, but the songs were not there, simply were not good.

00:32:05
Speaker 1: But I know your dad though, but hold on a second, this is why you're dad in your mom's I don't want to I don't want to discount your mom.

00:32:11
Speaker 7: No, my parents like they were just so they told I mean, they told me they're like, you're the greatest. Like when I was like I'm a I'm like, look at this song that I wrote it's amazing. They're like, you're right, and like I watch videos back because ID musical theater too, And I watched videos back of me doing musical theater and of me playing my original songs when I was first starting to write them, and I'm like, these are fine, like for a kid. They're like fine for a kid. And I'm like, how I asked my parents recently, like how did you know that this was going to go anywhere? Like we just did, We just were, We just knew they And I'm like that's crazy, Like you shouldn't.

00:32:41
Speaker 4: Have, Like I wasn't that good, like it took Like do you have siblings?

00:32:45
Speaker 2: I do?

00:32:45
Speaker 8: Yeah, I have an older brother who's my business manager.

00:32:48
Speaker 7: He doesn't do music, and then my little brother is my keyboard player and also has his own artist project and is astoundingly talented as well.

00:32:54
Speaker 1: Were they as Were they equally as Lata toy?

00:32:58
Speaker 5: Uh?

00:32:58
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, very much.

00:32:59
Speaker 2: So.

00:33:00
Speaker 7: I mean my little brother, he he's like he's one of those people that's just good at everything.

00:33:05
Speaker 8: He tries.

00:33:05
Speaker 7: Like both my both my brothers played basketball. So my little brother, every single one of his pursuits or most of his pursuits were originated and wanted to copy his older siblings. But then he's also like this amazing chef because he just on his own just like loved food. So he was a person that everything he touched he was just great at. And keep the piano was like one of in particular. He was just so exceptional at that, and like he just wants to sit and play the piano for hours and hours and hours, and that like makes him happy. And my parents definitely encourage that because they were like he had boundless energy, so like we're gonna put you in basketball to burn off all that physical energy, and you're gonna be in these piano lessons to burn off all that mental energy and then maybe you'll finally go to sleep. But yeah, they're they're incredibly supportive. And I think if my older brother had wanted to do something creative, they would have been really supportive of that too. Like that was why my dad became a lawyer, because he was like, I want to give my kids full options, Like I don't want them to do anything because of money, Like I want them to make all their life path choices based on what they're really truly passionate about and what they're good at.

00:34:02
Speaker 8: And not just what they think is like the safe.

00:34:03
Speaker 1: Bet that's great. Yeah, that's amazing. I feel like we should line your dad out to like I feel like your dad needs to start a service.

00:34:14
Speaker 8: Like I don't know, all he wants to do is tell people how to live their life.

00:34:17
Speaker 7: Like his number one passion is like if I have a friend over or something, he's like asking them what they're doing, and it's like, Okay, so here's what you're gonna do, and here's your five year plan.

00:34:24
Speaker 8: Like he's ready to falk in.

00:34:27
Speaker 7: That's and I hope, I do hope when he retires that he gets the opportunity to just like dispense wisdom to young.

00:34:32
Speaker 1: People, get them on TV. I feel I know it's gonna be good. We'll be back with more from Jensen McCrae after the break. So your mom was showing you mixed race women specifically for you to identify with and and Alicia Keys. It does seem like you like and just also judging by some of some of the songs like on your first album, like the sort of trilogy of songs uh headlock uh, Like there was clearly a I Am where you you were struggling in your identity and who you were and wouldn't you know, Yeah, I mean growing up.

00:35:17
Speaker 7: I grew up in LA and I went to private school my whole life, and I was surrounded by mostly white people, and yeah, I did not feel like I belonged at all. And it felt like just this frustrating liability to be darker skinned, Like it just felt like it was boxing me out of social opportunities and it just like made people underestimate me.

00:35:41
Speaker 8: And I felt like I was ugly, Like I just didn't like what I looked like at all.

00:35:44
Speaker 7: And it's crazy to think about now because like I just I just no longer care like about like the white beauty standard.

00:35:52
Speaker 8: It's just totally relevant to me.

00:35:53
Speaker 7: But when I was a teenager, like obviously, it felt like the most important thing in the world, and my parents were very It was in spite of my parents' best efforts to ensure that we all thought like that black is beautiful, like they were they were hammering that home really hard.

00:36:06
Speaker 1: But the world seeped in.

00:36:07
Speaker 7: The world is just so loud, you know, especial for teenage girls. I think it was a little easier for my brothers, but especially being a teenage.

00:36:12
Speaker 1: Girls marked difference for yeah, well because they.

00:36:15
Speaker 7: Were also because they were both athletes, like they were the they were a form of black manhood that was very comfortable for people. Like also, they're both lighter than I am, Like I'm the darkest of my siblings, and so I think like having like a light skin black man who's tall and fit and good looking and good at basketball and good at school.

00:36:33
Speaker 8: Like they were just checking all the boxes and people just love them.

00:36:37
Speaker 7: And I was like darker skinned and like not an athlete, and like the music I made was like not what people would expect my music to sound like. And I was just so loud and opinionated, and it was like it was you know, it's not something I wasn't palatable to the people that I was around, and I sort of like dug my. I didn't really feel like I had a way to conform, so I just dug my heels in. It just became like even more antagonistic and oppositional to those standards. But yeah, those writing those the Headlock Trilogy was kind of me pross using in real time in college, Like how hard my parents worked to try to protect me from that kind of self hatred and just like getting so emotional at like how much they loved me and how much they just like it was the putting in so much effort to try to stop the world from getting in.

00:37:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, did did that? Like did they have a sense of how much you were struggling with that?

00:37:29
Speaker 7: They figured it out at a certain point, because like they came in my room one night and I was looking at like skin whitening cream on Tumblr, and I was like I'd been caught red handed. And we had like this really long conversation and they were just like like what do you like?

00:37:41
Speaker 8: What do you what is this?

00:37:42
Speaker 4: Like, what do you mean?

00:37:44
Speaker 7: And I couldn't even really fully articulate like what I was feeling or was wrong, because it was like so shameful and so big. But they had, Yeah, they knew, they knew that I was struggling socially, and but the thing that they just kept saying to me was like, when you get to college, it's going to be different, Like I just just please get through high school, like we know it's so bad, but I promise you when you get to college it'll be different.

00:38:03
Speaker 1: And it was.

00:38:03
Speaker 8: It was immediately different. It was immediately so much better.

00:38:05
Speaker 1: I don't know why that is the case, but it's so it's night and day.

00:38:10
Speaker 7: Well, especially in my case, like going to music school, the things that it was nothing was more heavily rewarded in music school than being different, like whatever made.

00:38:16
Speaker 1: Oh your liabilities throughout high school. All a sudden it become like like like the thing to like lean into. Yeah, I don't know what flips I mean.

00:38:25
Speaker 7: I just remember like all the kids who were like closeted gay kids in high school that came to music school, they were out and proud and found community immediately. All the kids whore ethnic minorities immediately it felt like it was well a little bit safer.

00:38:37
Speaker 8: Some people had different experiences than others.

00:38:38
Speaker 7: I went to USC, so outside of the bubble of music school, it was not always safe. But yeah, it was like and then like even just like on a very simple level, like how you dressed, like I was like normcore in the way that I dressed in music school, like I was dressing like boring, and all the kid was like a competition of who could wear the most eccentric clothing.

00:38:55
Speaker 8: It was like these are things I would never dreamed of when I was a teenager.

00:38:59
Speaker 7: But all of a sudden, you get to college and it's like, oh, you're supposed to be as yourself as possible.

00:39:03
Speaker 8: That is your ticket to success.

00:39:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's a great. It's such a great. It's like the most underrated part of college is that part of it, the deconditioning that happens.

00:39:12
Speaker 8: Yeah, beautiful.

00:39:13
Speaker 1: Was there an inciting incident to the skin lightning cream?

00:39:19
Speaker 8: No, I don't think so.

00:39:19
Speaker 7: It was just like I was just on Tumblr, which is like, it's funny now because like now TikTok is the thing that all the teenagers are on, and they're just rehashing a lot of the same kind of bs that was happening on Tumblr. And I'm sure I just went down like a rabbit hole in the same way that you can go down like eating disorder rabbit holes or like you know, people get radicalized to be like racist or whatever on other platforms, Like you just get you start looking at certain images and then the algorithm just feeds you more of it. And I don't think I was ever serious about it, Like I don't think I ever was gonna meaningfully change what I look like.

00:39:52
Speaker 8: But I just was like I was like, I didn't know this was the thing that people did.

00:39:55
Speaker 7: Yeah, and it turns out that there were people more desperate than I was who were like really trying to erase who they were.

00:40:01
Speaker 8: And it made me really sad more than anything.

00:40:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, so sad. There's a song on you first, some white boy that I feel like dovetails nice when where we're at in this conversation, would you would you mind playing some little plane or some of it comfortable? M m.

00:40:25
Speaker 2: M oh. My hair smells like smoke. Something's burning. I don't know what it is. I won't laugh, you dumb ass chokes waite boy. I don't know you anything. I am learning not to sing for you. The cage is not my Zulus, white boy, you still got a great barn Me sore the h.

00:41:19
Speaker 4: And God bring me to my knee the first and DEVI leading if ire WoT you ask me to be?

00:41:36
Speaker 5: Boy?

00:41:37
Speaker 4: Boy? Will make of me?

00:41:56
Speaker 2: Passion play almost biblical? Why girl rives, I turn invisible?

00:42:06
Speaker 8: I don't like.

00:42:09
Speaker 2: Who I am?

00:42:10
Speaker 4: The white boy.

00:42:16
Speaker 2: Trance Stay, You're a hypnotic twillow my watch, my voice shop the autive?

00:42:26
Speaker 4: How to lie?

00:42:28
Speaker 9: Who are you?

00:42:31
Speaker 5: What by?

00:42:37
Speaker 4: You still got a great boy? Me sore Di and God bring me to.

00:42:50
Speaker 5: My name.

00:42:55
Speaker 4: First and down. If I her believe, if I would you ask me to be boy boy will make of me.

00:43:31
Speaker 5: You still.

00:43:34
Speaker 4: Out of a good uh sweet? And the girl bring me to my name you last?

00:43:55
Speaker 5: If I believe, if Ian would you last me to be my boy, will make of me?

00:44:16
Speaker 4: William Ma me, William.

00:44:22
Speaker 2: Ma, go me.

00:44:40
Speaker 1: Gorgeous. But it's like, where did you learn? It feels like you're breaking rules, Like how do you make a song of that gorgeous? And then it's like and then get the the gumption for the tax to be like white boy. It's like it's it's it's not. No, it's not. I don't think people are supposed to do that. I thought to do it, but how the funk do you do that?

00:45:06
Speaker 7: That's what I felt like when I wrote it, because I wrote almost twenty and it was the first song I ever wrote that. I felt like I was the only person who could have written it, And in the immediate aftermath of writing it, I was like, surely I can never play this live, Like this is crazy. This is not a song that's meant to see the light of day. And I but I think I spent like two months sitting on it, not showing it to anybody, and then I came home for winter break and I played it for my mom and she was like, whoa, you have to share that with people? And I was like yeah, yes, And then I started playing it at shows and it ended up being the song that led me to my team because my first manager she sent me like a cold email asking me to play a show. I said that I would do it, and I played this song among others and she filmed it and put it on her Instagram.

00:45:54
Speaker 1: Story like it just a show, just like a private or was it?

00:45:57
Speaker 8: It was like at this.

00:45:58
Speaker 7: Little space in West Hollywood that she was renting at the time, and like it was me and a couple other artists, and her original ask was like can you bring twenty to twenty five people? And I was like no, She's like can you bring And I was like, yeah, I bet I can bring three. And I thought I would bring my mom and my little brother and then a friend from school. Now my friends from school came and my little brother had homework, so it was just my mom and the other artists had brought whatever their handful of people were. And after I finished, I just like ran out because I was like, I didn't bring anybody. I failed, I flopped and she tried to stop me.

00:46:29
Speaker 8: She's like that was incredible, and I was like, yeah, whatever, cause I didn't recognize her. I didn't know who she was.

00:46:32
Speaker 7: I was like, I just blew her off and I left and I went home thinking that I was gonna quit. I was like, I ain't do this anymore, Like I can't keep playing shows to no one, like it just feels insane. And but she had filmed me and put it on her Instagram story and within seconds of posting it, Rocky, the man who ended up producing my first album, Massagarin, was like, who is that?

00:46:51
Speaker 8: What is she singing? What is going on? And she was like do you want to meet her? Like we can.

00:46:55
Speaker 7: So she ended up facilitating a meeting for us and have we had our first session, and in my first our first session together, I wrote my song Adam's Ribs, and then we made another session right after that when I wrote starting to Get to You, and it was just like we just immediately clicked creatively.

00:47:08
Speaker 8: But it was because of white Boy.

00:47:09
Speaker 7: He was like I just had never heard anything like it before, and like he's black and his wife is mixed, and he was like I just knew that, Like I could just see her story in her life, and like it was just so many there were just so many layers to it for him and then of course for me.

00:47:26
Speaker 8: But yeah, it felt like I wasn't allowed, like writing that song. It felt illegal.

00:47:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, well no, because it's like I don't I mean maybe in the annals of songwriting history there, but it just it feels very unique, you know.

00:47:38
Speaker 7: Yeah, And I was recently watching the music video for it back, and the music video is also wild, Like I came up with this whole treatment of like cause the kind of the impetus for the song was I went to this party in college and I was introduced to this white boy alongside my white friend, and the boy basically completely ignored me and just talked to my friend. And I left the party after that cause I was like I can't. Yes, I was like, I can't be here anymore. So I was like, I want to recreate that scene in the video. So we did that, and then we also had a scene where we had some contemporary dancers and the end, one of the ending shots of the video is me standing in front of all of the white boys that we had cast as extras at the party, and it's just me singing the end of the song with them all standing behind me, stone faced, and I'm like, that was my first single when I was twenty.

00:48:23
Speaker 8: Two, Like that that's intense. Like I didn't know at the time. I was like, I'm just doing just following my bliss. I'm just like making my heart.

00:48:30
Speaker 7: But now five years later, like you know, I'm doing a roll out for another album and putting out this other music. I'm like, that was an intense way to start, and I'm so glad it is. It's how I did it, but it was it was crazy that that was my first thing.

00:48:42
Speaker 1: I'm glad you knew no better because it's like.

00:48:44
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's nothing, Like I just didn't think for even a second, Like I mean, I knew that it was like a I knew it showed my personality and it showed my style.

00:48:53
Speaker 8: But like I just look back now and I'm like, wow, Like I came out swinging, that's awesome.

00:48:59
Speaker 1: That is incredible. I feel like there's a lot like an underlining, I mean and not a lot, but that is like even in Savannah, like there is some there's some like antagonism going on, you know, like, and it's like it is a really cool feature of your songwriting, you know.

00:49:17
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean I'm not like a I wouldn't say I'm not a confrontational person. I'm very capable of doing confrontation. It's obviously not something I relish, I don't know that anyone does, but something I'm capable of. But I feel like the safest place for me to express those confrontational feelings isn't a song, because in addition to the fact that I'm not speaking directly to anyone, like I can collect my thoughts, I can create an argument that's more concise and like I can deliver. I can think exactly about what I want to say, and I can say it, and then that can be the last word and I can feel like I've said my piece and I don't need to like get a response back about it.

00:49:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Alicia Keys is a love Lisha Keys, big fan Oflicia Keys. But like your songwriting doesn't really feel.

00:49:58
Speaker 8: Like I diverged a lot since I was a kid.

00:50:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it is different. You did write more like that, I would say, So, I.

00:50:05
Speaker 7: Mean, like I was, you know, a little kid, so like I wasn't writing anything like that profound, but I was definitely trying to sound like her, and I was everything was on piano, and I would say like as I've gotten older, like I mean, Phoebe Bridges was like a big, big influence on me, especially in college when I first found for music, And like, my favorite band is this band Muna, who also went to USC and two of the members were in my program, and I definitely ama, they're like a they're a trio there. It's like it's basically just pop music, but it's like len yes, yes, And I feel like I definitely am emulating them a lot. And Sarah Burrellis was really big for me for a while. John Mayer was big for me a while for a while. Bonie Ver has is and always has been really big.

00:50:51
Speaker 8: Casey Muskraves.

00:50:52
Speaker 7: There's so many people who have kind of warmed their way in, but one of the biggest things Rocky taught me was like trying to sound like myself as opposed to constantly trying to sound like other people.

00:51:01
Speaker 1: Like any of those people, yeah, like they're like I.

00:51:03
Speaker 7: Feel like you can hear them and the influences are there, but I feel like I've really started to find the McCrae like toolbox and the Jensen McCrae universe, and I feel like I'm writing in there all the time.

00:51:15
Speaker 1: Is it anything you can enumerate or is it kind of just more of a feel.

00:51:19
Speaker 4: Well.

00:51:19
Speaker 7: I think obviously, lyrics are paramount. I think one of the biggest pieces of advice I give to people with songwriting is that your lyrics have to sound good when spoken without any melody or production, and if you don't, if it doesn't sound good as a poem, you have to go back and try again. I think obviously use a lot of literary references, a lot of biblical references.

00:51:35
Speaker 1: Where does that stuff come from?

00:51:37
Speaker 8: Honestly, the biblical references, I don't know. Because my mom is Jewish.

00:51:40
Speaker 7: My dad converted to Judaism before I was born, and like I went to Jewish school for a while, and then after we left that school we kind of stopped practicing. So there's like not really been a big religious presence in my life. But I just find the stories in the Bible to be really compelling and evocative in educational Like, I think they're really valuable as stories, And then I mean as far as like literary references like I just I'm a huge reader, like I just love I love my I love my songs to feel like either they could they've been lift from books, or that they could be set alongside scenes from books, and I really want. I fangirl hardest when an author follows me on Instagram way more than any other, like famous.

00:52:17
Speaker 1: Person, who are some of your ocean.

00:52:20
Speaker 8: Vuang He followed me a while ago and sent me a copy of his new book that was really huge. Carmen Maria Machado followed me right after I read her book In the dream House, which was like one of the most important books I've ever read. That really I was gagged about that.

00:52:34
Speaker 7: Probably the thing that was the most emotional was when I was a teenager, I read a lot of John Green, the young adult author who wrote that book The Fallennar Stars, and he followed me on Instagram recently, I think because I mentioned him on another podcast and that was like I freaked out about that, and I sent him a really long I sent him a message that was so long Instagram wouln't let me send it, so I had to edit it down.

00:52:56
Speaker 8: That's like the making music that authors love is probably my genre, Like making music that authors want to put on their playlists while they're working on their books. That's my dream.

00:53:06
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:53:07
Speaker 7: Like part of what I've been setting out to do is I want to bring together the world of like the great songwriters whose songs are independent of who's singing them, just work, and then the great vocalists who they could sing the phone book like it would still sound great. I'm like, in an ideal world, I would be able to. I want to be excellent at both of them, Like I really want I want my songs to stand alone and for my voice to stand alone, in for both those things together to be this extra powerful thing.

00:53:32
Speaker 1: Do you ever do covers? Give her?

00:53:33
Speaker 8: Sometimes? Yeah, I play cover. I do covers at most of my shows I've been doing.

00:53:37
Speaker 7: Taylor Swift is obviously another huge influence on me, and I've been doing a cover of a song from her most recent album at like all my shows.

00:53:44
Speaker 1: What do you hear in Taylor's music?

00:53:46
Speaker 8: I mean, where do I even start?

00:53:48
Speaker 7: I love her so much, Like she is so good with narrative, Like she obviously started as a country artist and writer, and like so much of country music is just story, and like that carries through even.

00:54:03
Speaker 8: As she's genre shape shifted.

00:54:06
Speaker 7: She's not afraid of like vocabular which like to sometimes I'll say, like sometimes I can read clunky, like it doesn't always work, But I just love like that she is willing to go there and like she's not trying to dumb her She's never had dumb herself down for anybody. I love how genre expansive she is. And there's just so many like single lines that just like haunt me forever. Like one of my favorites is off of Midnights on what I could have shown have and she says, give me back my girlhood.

00:54:33
Speaker 8: It was mine first. Like that's like one of the best.

00:54:36
Speaker 7: Like I am mad when I heard that. I was like, I can't believe I didn't write that, Like that's like one of the best. That's so good, And like there's a million other ones, but like there's just I'm so impressed with like Speak Now, which was her album that she wrote entirely by herself.

00:54:48
Speaker 8: When she was like nineteen years old.

00:54:51
Speaker 7: It's just incredible, like the and the and the it's the volume as well, because that's the thing that I pride myself on, is my volume like I'm like, I want to just keep creating, whether it's songs, whether it's the other types of writing that I like to do. Like I want to be a person who's just always having a high volume of output, and she is that, and it's just astonishing that she manages to keep doing it.

00:55:08
Speaker 1: Wow, have you the pace that you've set for yourself so far you feel like you've been able to keep it.

00:55:16
Speaker 7: I definitely am bummed that I haven't written as much this year, like because of you know, partly because of the album coming out and the touring, but also because like obviously this year started with the fires in LA and that was like really disruptive to everyone's life in a million different ways, and especially I feel like as a creative it was like I mean I wrote a song about the fires as they were happening, but like it definitely like it tanked my mental health for a while, and like I didn't feel as productive and creative. And then obviously, like politically, the world is also like really in America specifically, is really in a lot of turmoil, and like I've written about that to an extent, but that also makes it hard to like tap into the creative life work sometimes. And it's weird because I've never been a person who's ever struggled with creative blocks, and I don't even think of myself as experiencing writer's block. I just think I'm not in a season of high output right now, and I think that's like not that crazy, Like I have made so much over so many years, and it's like I just am I really trust that it's going to come back. And I have written a couple songs I love in the last couple of months, but it's just not at the same clip.

00:56:16
Speaker 1: Are you goal oriented? Yes, yes, I want to assume.

00:56:20
Speaker 7: But I mean I'm both goal and process oriented, Like I love the journey. But there's definitely a lot of stuff that I want to do.

00:56:25
Speaker 1: What are some of those?

00:56:26
Speaker 7: I love to win a Grammy, of course, I'd love to win a Grammy. I really want to publish a novel, really badly. I really want to get a screenplay that I've written produced.

00:56:37
Speaker 1: Have you written one?

00:56:37
Speaker 8: I've written a lot.

00:56:39
Speaker 7: I've written a lot of screenplays and a lot of novels and none of them have gone anywhere, but one day one of them will. And I also, I love I love to act I found I want to. I want to I want to do some acting.

00:56:49
Speaker 1: How did that escape you? I feel like you're I just didn't want to do it for.

00:56:53
Speaker 8: A really long time.

00:56:54
Speaker 7: Like I when I was a kid, I did musical theater and then when I stopped, I was like, I have the only reason I did musical theater was to sing, like I didn't care about the acting part. And then I never thought about it at all in high school or college really, And then when I started working with WMME, they were like, of course, like they're, you know, a huge agency, they represent everybody doing everything, and they were like, okay, so acting and I was like no, and they were like what do you what do you mean?

00:57:18
Speaker 8: And I was like I don't want to do that. And I'm like, well, we'll just send you some stuff.

00:57:21
Speaker 7: Have they sent you anything, Like, well, they said, in the last five years, they've sent me a couple of auditions. And when I when I first started receiving them, I did a bad job, like I would send them a not on purpose, but.

00:57:33
Speaker 8: You know, I was like I didn't know.

00:57:34
Speaker 7: I didn't know what it meant to like a script, Like I was just doing what I was told and like I remember like trying really hard at the auditions and then they wouldn't say anything to me about it.

00:57:42
Speaker 8: Afterward, and I was like, I don't think I did a good job. And then I started to get more into it.

00:57:48
Speaker 7: I started doing self tapes for other people and started to really enjoy that process. And then I got an audition after having done kind of a lot of self tapes for other people.

00:57:56
Speaker 1: And say, self tapes for other people that you would help, yeah.

00:57:58
Speaker 7: I would like read for them while they auditioned, And I did one after doing that a lot, and it was the first time my acting agent was like, hey, that was good, and I was like, not me being good at acting.

00:58:09
Speaker 8: And so then now when I get tapes, I.

00:58:11
Speaker 7: Like really enjoy doing them. It's really fun, Like I lose track of time. I just lose hours, like trying different things. And it's made me now want hopefully like when I to get if I get one of my own scripts, made like I'd love to act in a movie that I write, which I never would have thought I would want to do before, but now I really want.

00:58:26
Speaker 1: To hold up you met Spike Lee, I did like that. I feel like, did you did you ask him any about anything. Did you pick like next question, did you ask him about? Did you pitch a movie?

00:58:41
Speaker 8: Did you ask Spikes?

00:58:41
Speaker 2: Great?

00:58:42
Speaker 7: Spike's been very supportive and why he just found my music online. He just like found He literally just started liking my posts on Instagram from a kid, baby, That's what I thought, but I don't know, Like it wasn't even one of my viral videos. He just like found he just found one of my songs and was just like, this is great, and I was like, thank you so much, appreciate it.

00:59:01
Speaker 1: I got.

00:59:02
Speaker 8: I get random.

00:59:04
Speaker 7: It's always the most random people, like I got, like Kristen Bell messaged me after I posted my song about the fires, and like Julia Roberts posted one of my songs on her Instagram. Creed like it's all these people. I'm like, I don't know how you're finding this stuff, but like so much love.

00:59:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, Spike's the coolest one.

00:59:20
Speaker 8: He's very cool. He's very very cool.

00:59:22
Speaker 1: And you know, he's like great in his own movies too, you know what I mean. He hasn't really been in one in a while, but he should get back in there. I agree with you.

00:59:30
Speaker 8: I agree with you, but that's like kind of I would.

00:59:32
Speaker 7: I love the idea of writing something and getting the opportunity to act it myself, which like because when I first started writing movies, people would be like, Oh, you want to play this part and I was like no. And then now when I'm writing things, I am often writing with myself in mind.

00:59:45
Speaker 1: Do any of those things feel like I guess music is probably takes?

00:59:52
Speaker 8: Yeah, he's number one.

00:59:53
Speaker 1: Number one. Does any of the other stuff feel like a distraction or does it feel like it feeds? Does each one feeds the other?

01:00:00
Speaker 7: And it all They definitely don't feed each other. I used to wonder if I was doing a disservice to myself by having all these other interests. But I had a professor my sophomore year of college who about that, because I was feeling very adrift and I was questioning my place in the program and I felt like everyone else with like eight slept breathed music, and I was like, how all this other.

01:00:18
Speaker 8: Stuff I really like?

01:00:19
Speaker 7: I was like, do you think I should give up on those things and just focus on music? And he was like, never make yourself small, Like you need to do everything that you're passionate about and everything that you're good at. Everything, like, do all of it and it will all be in service to each other. And I was like, Okay, well I got permission from my teacher, so I can keep doing it.

01:00:34
Speaker 8: And now.

01:00:35
Speaker 7: I mean, the thing that I often say is that like when I'm writing, Like sometimes i'll be writing, I'll write a line and I'll be like, is this a song?

01:00:42
Speaker 8: Is this a poem? Is this a line of dialogue in the screenplay? Is this like a passage in a novel?

01:00:46
Speaker 7: And Like, if I'm working on one thing and it feels like I'm getting stuck, I just pivot to another medium. And so for me, it's kind of the way that I've gotten out of writer's block is by having all of these different things that I enjoy writing. Is if anything ever starts to feel stagnant or like it's not working, I just switch to something else and immediately feels fresh.

01:01:03
Speaker 1: Who are some of your inspirations in terms of dialogue writers specifically, Well, my favorite.

01:01:07
Speaker 8: Book of all time is The Idiot by ELLEF.

01:01:09
Speaker 7: Batuman, which is about this girl who's a freshman at Harvard in nineteen ninety five. There's very little plot, It's just her going through her freshman year, making friends, trying to find her voice as a writer, and developing this ill fated crush on this older boy who's not interested in her, And I just remember feeling like reading that dialogue felt so much more real than anything I'd ever read before, And it was because it was teenagers who were really, really smart, but they weren't pretentious.

01:01:35
Speaker 8: And I had never really read.

01:01:36
Speaker 7: Anything that was that good at echoing the kinds of conversations that I had experienced and had as a teenager.

01:01:43
Speaker 1: I will ask, though, can teenagers be smart and not be pretentious?

01:01:47
Speaker 7: I felt like the reason why I felt a lack of pretension was because it felt like they weren't performing for adults. They were just performing for each other, okay, which I feel like.

01:02:00
Speaker 1: Was so smart for their cohort not necessarily performatively small.

01:02:06
Speaker 7: They were not performally smart. And you know what the other key difference is is that they asked a lot of questions. It wasn't kids who pretended to know everything. It was kids who were really deeply curious about the world, and they asked really smart questions, but they didn't pretend to know more than they than they did. And especially the narrator, like at the end of the book. I mean it's called The Idiot, which borrows its title from Adostoevsky work, And at the end of the book she basically says like, I'm dumb. I don't know anything, Like I've spent a whole year in college and had this whole summer break and I don't know what happened. Like that's how the book ends. And that just felt I read that book when I was twenty for the first time, and it just felt so real to be like, yeah, like I don't know anything. Like I'm asking all these questions. I'm going out in the world, I'm meeting all these people. I'm trying to make sense of everything, and I've been left with yet more questions than I had when I started.

01:02:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, last break and leave back with Jensen McCrae. What does winning a Grammy do for You're clearly like I mean, take out song, take out the music career. You're an impressive person. Thank you, very clearly, like you have a lot of interests, very adept at a lot of things. What does a Grammy do for you? Why is that like you're driving force? Why is it not drive? But why is that one of the things, many things that you want to accomplish.

01:03:27
Speaker 7: There's one component, which is that not that many black women have one album of the year. Beyonce winning this past year.

01:03:33
Speaker 8: It was only the fourth time it's ever happened, and so there's a part of me that just wants to I want to prove it.

01:03:38
Speaker 1: We're back to that.

01:03:39
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, that's really part of it.

01:03:41
Speaker 7: Is really like I didn't know that when I was a kid, and I'm like, oh wow, like if I do this, like it's historical in.

01:03:45
Speaker 1: A lot of ways, Beyonce, laurn Hill.

01:03:48
Speaker 7: Natalie Cole, and then there's another one. But I know that Rihanna's never won it and Alicia Keys has never won it, which is crazy. That's a component of it. There's also the part of me that's like I've always been academic. I've always been very academically inclined, and I like gold stars. I want the institution to give me a gold star.

01:04:04
Speaker 8: Like that's just true.

01:04:04
Speaker 7: Like I just love when authority recognizes my and like, I know it's not that's not what gives my work meaning. I think my work has meaning because I make it and because it's reaching people who are touched by it. That's the most important thing. But to me, it's it's a milestone that I like achieving is getting that stamp from like an entity that's larger than me and that has a track record of anointing people like I like. And if I if I go my whole life without winning any kind of awards for my music, that's fine, Like I won't feel like I failed. But it's just something that I've always I've always liked the idea of It's something that like makes it will make me feel like it's just an it's another thing to have achieved, and it's another thing to feel like I've worked toward. And there's like a system in place that you can work to increase your odds of winning it. And I'm like, let me just try, let me try to think you not really, I don't really know what it is, but I know that like a lot of it is just like being involved in like the music community, and like being involved in the Recording Academy, and like why not for more community and why not like be more involved in like music advocacy and music education, Like those are all things I want to do anyway, and like just as involved as I can in that network, I think is something that will bear fruit regardless of whether or not I won an award.

01:05:15
Speaker 1: So aside from wanting to win, the things that it might take to win are appealing to you to achieve a filled just to do, whether that's the networking or the helping the musical education part helping on this.

01:05:28
Speaker 7: I went to Grammy camp when I was a teenager, which is like the part of the recording academies, like philanthropic wing is like I don't know what the form of the camp takes now, but when I went ten years ago, it was a ten day residential camp where you go and you have all this instruction with these high level instructors, and then at the end of it, we did a showcase at l Ray, which is you know, I ended up playing there this year myself, which was incredible and it totally changed my life, Like was what cemented my dream of becoming a musician in a way that was like so much more tangible than it had ever been before. And all I want is to keep going. I think what I want to give is the gift of this dream to more people. And I think that by winning a Grammy give the gift of this dream to other black girls. I've had so many great mentors and so many great opportunities, and I just want to keep I want to pay it forward more.

01:06:17
Speaker 8: I want to show more people that as possible.

01:06:19
Speaker 1: That's so cool.

01:06:20
Speaker 7: Honestly, before Grammy Camp, I didn't think I was going to go to music school. I thought my plan was to apply to colleges and big First of all, I thought I was going to leave LA and my plan was to apply to colleges in big cities and do music on the side. Like I thought I would maybe go to NYU or I was like looking at Emory because it was in Atlanta. I was like, I'll go somewhere that has a music scene and has a big city, and like I'll just study English or something and then I'll play shows on the side. Like that was what I thought I was going to do, because the only music schools I knew about were like conservatories, and I was like, I really want to get like I wanted to sync my teeth into a great academic education because I loved school and I didn't want to sacrifice that to study music. And then I found out about USC and I learned that I could get that Conservatory Education and I could still take USC's general education classes, and I was like, this is the perfect place.

01:07:03
Speaker 8: And Grammy Camp was the was what I saw. I saw as a stepping stone.

01:07:07
Speaker 7: And also it was the first time I was ever around anyone who cared about music ever, and it was awesome.

01:07:12
Speaker 1: What was I like to connect with other people like that?

01:07:14
Speaker 8: It felt like it was my taste of what it would be like to go to college. I was like, Oh, the people here like me. Everyone likes me.

01:07:19
Speaker 7: Like in high school people didn't like me, and I went to music school and everyone or I went to Grant Camp and people liked me.

01:07:26
Speaker 1: Was that like a thing, like, you know, I think to some I think everyone feels a little marginalized in high school, even the popular and whatever. But like, but you really, like, truthfully, you think I had friends in high school.

01:07:37
Speaker 8: But I mean people told me they didn't like me to my face, like I knew.

01:07:40
Speaker 7: I knew that they didn't and it was mostly because of all, you know, being super opinionated and talking about politics. That was like a big part of why people didn't. They thought I was like annoying and shrill and going to mute. And also people I also sang all the time, which is annoying. Like I just sang to myself all the time. You go to a music camp, everybody's.

01:07:56
Speaker 8: Singing themselves all the time, as it turns out, and that is welcome. Yeah, I loved it. I was like the happiest I'd ever been. I was so sad to leave. I loved it there.

01:08:07
Speaker 1: Wow, what gives you a confidence?

01:08:10
Speaker 7: I mean, honestly, my family, Like, my family did such a good job of making our house a safe space that like, whenever I feel defeated or less than, we're insecure. It's like if I go to my parents' house, they build me up so much, Like I'll be sad about something and I will tell them about it, and my dad will start laughing.

01:08:29
Speaker 8: Because I'll be like that, you know that's so stupid. You know that that person's opinion doesn't mean anything.

01:08:33
Speaker 7: Is that person signing your checks? Why do you care about their opinion? Like he will just immediately just make it so simple. And my parents will be like, do you understand that you're the most.

01:08:42
Speaker 8: Beautiful, intelligent, funny, like you have everything going for you, like no one can tear you.

01:08:46
Speaker 7: Like to them, it is a no brainer. And it's a shock that I would ever feel bad about myself ever. And it's their unwavering confidence in my superiority that allows me to feel medium like I don't think I'll ever see myself the way they see me, obviously, because that's probably not healthy. But if I'm feeling bad and I'm like, oh, like I'm not where I'm supposed to be in my career, I'm feeling ugly today, like I'm feeling insecure, I'm feeling like I'm whatever. If I can take even ten percent of their support and their love, it just bumps me back up to like, oh no, I'm fine, I'm gonna be fine, and it really I attribute it mostly to them.

01:09:20
Speaker 1: That's great, that's really great. Should do we should do another song?

01:09:25
Speaker 8: All right, I'm gonna tune this guitar really quick.

01:09:29
Speaker 7: But I feel like the next song that I'm gonna play is kind of on this topic because one of the things that I have struggled with in my life is forgiving myself for making mistakes and just being overly hard on myself.

01:09:46
Speaker 8: And so I wrote this song about that.

01:09:48
Speaker 2: It's called let Me Be Wrong, just my guton belly flaw, call the cow just it's.

01:10:07
Speaker 4: Good every word, the cars, food, dance.

01:10:12
Speaker 2: On glass, when my shoes are Something riding in my brain tells me to it anyway and dune, I feel the long decay and down its God, It's okay. Let me be wrong, ride out to the wheels fall, rather delusional cloud out a funeral. Let me be last, hardways away and I've been good too long.

01:10:50
Speaker 4: Let me be wrong, freeing.

01:10:56
Speaker 2: My tongue, broget me like those schools at seven scene bake, got glass ceilings, enterings.

01:11:09
Speaker 5: Fuck those girls got everything. Something twisted in my chest says good.

01:11:19
Speaker 4: But not do the best when I was young, knocks.

01:11:25
Speaker 5: Me out and nothing really shakes me now. Let me be wrong all Julie's farm, rather delusional.

01:11:38
Speaker 4: Lut at the funeral.

01:11:41
Speaker 5: Let me you lost hard ways the way I w and I'll be good too long.

01:11:48
Speaker 9: Clell be wrong, Lelly be roight here here here here, let me be right, Let me be roight ya here here here, let me you rare.

01:12:10
Speaker 2: I love to la ribe but dousionout of funeral, hard ways the way I want, and I've been good to.

01:12:24
Speaker 9: Let me be wrong.

01:12:28
Speaker 1: Great song, thank you. I love that. I love the western feel of that's it feels like there's like a like a I don't know what it is, but there's there's a little something in it that feels like a you know, a really great country song. Thank you.

01:12:42
Speaker 8: I like having a little country, little country moment here and there.

01:12:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good. Thank you so much for this is incredible.

01:12:49
Speaker 8: This has been such a great conversation.

01:12:50
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for for coming by, for making the music.

01:12:53
Speaker 8: Yes, thank you so much.

01:12:54
Speaker 1: Cool. In the episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist of our favorite songs from Jensen McCrae, as well as her latest album I Don't Know how but They found It. Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast to see all of our video interviews, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing health from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Holliday. Broken Record is production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.