Jensen McRae

25:44Yeah. That's when Obama 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. It existed, but it wasn't on your phone. It was way more innocent. Yeah. It was on the computer. And we could walk around and not have it carry it with you all day. Yeah. It's weird. It was on the phone, I guess. Right? A little bit. But like Instagram was like, it wasn't, you couldn't make money on Instagram when I was a teenager. That's one of the big changes. Yeah. It was just like a place where you shared photos of your friends and you got 10 likes and you were like really excited.

26:13And your food. Like that was a big criticism. Like the big criticism of Instagram initially was why are people taking photos of their meals? That was my dad's criticism. He's like, no one wants to see your breakfast. We wish that was the criticism now. It's so innocent now. 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 like you're in viet fucking not well i look at the kids now and like like so my little brother was oh two and like he got a he kind of didn't really escape social media as a child but he sort of did like if you were a kid who was born in like 2008 like you're a goner like you had no like you this the iphone was invented before you were born like you have like there was no window of time where you could like play outside yeah yeah yeah yeah every generation says that about the subsequent generation i guess so i don't know but i think i I think we are different.

27:03I think we have crossed the Rubicon, so to speak. I don't think it's now just hating to be like, things are cooked, you know? I think things are cooked, you know? But I have a lot of hope. I have a lot of hope. And I think, one, that there is obviously a lot of good that'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 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.

27:40How do you navigate that? Given just, you know, a lot of your career you say is like kind of due to social media, but I imagine you like everyone else is also looking for ways to not be attached or tethered to, you know. 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.

28:19Like 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, 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. Cause it's like, I'm consuming content. I have to be, I have to remember what I'm watching in order for the content to make sense.

28:52Whereas 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 if I'm watching a 10-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 maybe that's not. Wait, tell me about that. Because I felt like Reddit was done. Reddit feels like old. Reddit is so bad. Okay, what happened? Why is it back? Should I be there? I love it because, so I have all of these interests, including The Sims. My other big niche interests are makeup, perfume, and stationery.

29:21Okay. Those are things I love. Makeup, perfume, stationery. Wait, makeup, perfume, stationery, and what else? And The Sims. And The Sims. Yes. And so I'm on all those subreddits, 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 are like, I'm looking for a scent 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 a way of - Do you feel you can trust these people? I'm not giving them anything like meaningful.

29:47But do you feel, but I mean like - Oh, in terms of their recommendations? Like the recommendations and their opinions. 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 network there's a whole network of sampling that's how you're doing okay okay yeah but i i really like i'm hopeful that like the gents mccray subreddit will become more active like i want to 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 we're putting the call out we'll just make them reddit people Yes.

30:18Please join us. But yeah, I did an AMA with Reddit, like right when the album was coming out. And I loved that. Wow. Because I feel like the people, I know there was a stereotype for a while. It's your TRL. 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 used it. And it was like a negative stereotype. But my experience with Reddit 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.

30:47Because obviously on Twitter, you're limited by characters unless you pay, which I haven't used Twitter in almost a year at this point. But on Instagram, you can make a long caption, but the point is the photos. And TikTok, the point is the videos. And Reddit is a place where there is no photo and video. 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. Because I'm like, all I want to do is talk, talk, talk. Okay. And that's the best place to do it. To review. Stationary. Stamps. No. stationery makeup perfume and the sims okay all right that's where i live where does songwriting come in on let's not i don't do i don't need reddit for songwriting songwriting is i do that on my how did you okay because i feel like you're how can i say this like you're you're a very good songwriter thank 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 were 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 um just turns of phrases and ambiguousness and that that creates a level of intrigue and in 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 this yes yes i get how you become a makeup maven through reddit but yeah with with I always wanted to tell stories.

32:12I 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 could 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. And I just always wanted to tell stories. And I always sang to myself. My mom just said when I was very little, 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 can i look like her so i can do that it was like such a simple like neurons firing moment yeah i just was like that that's someone something that i can do 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 did she know that i don't know it's great my parents work in the music industry but she was like you have to write your own songs and i was like, all right.

33:06So 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 don'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? And I was like, I want to learn Beautiful by Christina 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.

33:34And I would, you know, bring her my small ideas about songs and she would help me flesh them out. And eventually I got 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 I have myself now and the you know my opinion of my songs now is the same as it was when I was like 10 but the songs were not they simply were not good but I know your dad though but this is why your dad little hold on a second this is why your dad is and your mom's I don't want to I don't want to discount your mom no my parents like they were just so they told I mean they told me they were 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 I did 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.

34:29And 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, I'm like, how did you know that this was going to go anywhere? Like we just did. We just were, we just knew. They just believed in you. And I'm like, that's great. Like you shouldn't have, like it wasn't that good. Like it took like, do you have siblings? I do. Yeah. I have an older brother who's my business manager. 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. Were they as, were they equally as, laudatory of...

35:00Yes, yes, very much so. I mean, my little brother, he he's like, he's one of those people that's just good at everything he tries. Like, both my brothers play basketball. So my little brother, every single one of his pursuits or most of his pursuits were originated in wanting 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 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 um and uh my parents definitely encouraged that because they were like he has he's just 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.

35:56Like 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 and not just what they think is like the safe bet. That's great. Yeah. That's amazing. I feel like we should lend your dad out to like, I feel like your dad needs to start a service, like an advice, like a Dr. Phil kind of thing maybe, like, I don't know. All he wants to do is tell people how to live their life. Like his number one passion is like, if I have a friend over or something, he's like asking them what they're doing.

36:24And it's like, okay, so here's what you're going to do. And here's your five-year plan. Like he's ready to walk in. That's great. And I hope, I do hope when he retires that he gets the opportunity to just like dispense wisdom to young people. I get him on TV. I have a feeling. I know it's going to be good. We'll be back with more from Jensen McRae after the break.

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39:39Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting, all linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at O-D-O-O dot com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. So your mom was showing you mixed race women specifically for you to identify with. and Alicia Keys, it does seem like you, and just also judging by some of the songs, like on your first album, like the sort of trilogy of songs. The headlocks, yeah. Not headlocks, headlock. Yeah. Like there was clearly a time where you were struggling in your identity and who you were. Yeah, I mean, growing up, I grew up in LA and I went to private school my whole life and I was surrounded by mostly white people.

40:32And I, 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. And I felt like I was ugly. Like I just didn't like what I looked like at all. And it's crazy to think about now because like I just, I just no longer care. like about like the white beauty standard is just totally irrelevant to me 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 like ensure that we all thought like that black is beautiful like they were they were hammering that home really hard but the world seeped in the world is just so loud you know especially for teenage girls i think it was a little easier for my brothers but especially being a teenage girl you think so you think there was a marked difference for your brothers and you.

41:23Yeah, because they were both athletes, they were a form of Black manhood that was very comfortable for people. Also, they're both lighter than I am. I'm the darkest of my siblings. And so I think having a light-skinned Black man who's tall and fit and good-looking and good at basketball and good at school, they were just checking all the boxes. And people just loved them. And I was darker-skinned and not an athlete. And the music I made was 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.

42:01And 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 and just became like even more antagonistic and oppositional to those standards. But yeah, those writing those, the Headlock trilogy was kind of me processing 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, how just like, it was putting in so much effort to try to stop the world from getting in. Yeah. Did they, did that, like, did they have a sense of how much you were struggling with that?

42:37They figured it out at a certain point. Cause 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, what do you, what is this? Like, what do you mean? And I couldn't even really fully articulate like what I was feeling or was wrong. Cause it was like so shameful and so big. Um, but they had, yeah, they knew, they knew that I was struggling socially. And the, but the thing that they just kept saying to me was like, when you get to college, it's going to be different.

43:06Like, 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. And it was, it was immediately different. It was immediately so much better i don't know why that is the case but it's so it's like it's night and day 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 you all your fucking liabilities throughout high school all of a sudden become like like like the thing to like lean into yes i don't know what flips i mean i 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 were ethnic minorities immediately it felt like it was well a little bit safer some people had different experiences than others i went to usc so outside of the bubble of music school it was not always safe but um yeah it was like and then like even just like on a very simple level like how you dress like in i i was like normcore in the way that i dressed at music school like i was dressing like boring and all the it was like a competition of who could wear the most eccentric clothing it was like these are things i would never have dreamed of when i was a teenager but all of a sudden you get to college and it's like oh you're supposed to be as yourself as possible.

44:12That is your ticket to success. 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. Yeah. It was beautiful. Um, was there an inciting incident to the, the, the skin lightening cream? No, I don't think so. It was just like, I was just on Tumblr, which is like, it's funny now. Cause 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 um 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 um 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 but i just was like i was like i didn't know this was a thing that people did.

45:04Yeah. And it turns out that there were people more desperate than I was who were like really trying to erase who they were. Yeah. And it made me really sad more than anything. Yeah. So sad. There's a song on your first album, White Boy, that I feel like dovetails nicely where we're at in this conversation. Yes. Would you mind playing something? Yes. Or playing it or some of it? Yeah. Or whatever you're comfortable with.

45:35Now my hair smells like smoke Something's burning I don't know what it is I won't laugh at your dumbass jokes White boy

45:55I don't owe you anything I am learning not to sing for you Your cage is not my angel who's a white boy

46:16You still got a grip on me

46:25Sword the hills And a guard bring me to my knees If I stand down, if I bleed If I am what you ask me to be What will you make of me?

47:04Passion play, almost biblical White girl arrives I turn invisible I don't like Who I am to you White boy

47:24Trans state You're hypnotic Twirl my hair Watch my voice jump The octave I don't like Who I am to you White boy

47:44But you still got a grip on me

47:53Sword the hills And a God bring me to my knees If I stand down If I believe If I am what you ask me to be What, boy, what will you make of me?

48:38But you still got a grip on me

48:50So what do you and the good bring me to my knees If I stand down, if I bleed If I am what you ask me to be What, boy, will you make of me?

49:23What will you make of me? What will you make of me?

49:49Gorgeous. Thank you. But it's like, where did you learn? It feels like you're breaking rules. Yeah. How do you make a song that gorgeous? And then it's like, and then get the the gumption for the tag 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 don't know no thought to do it but how the fuck do you do that's what i felt like when i wrote it because i wrote i was 20 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 I guess and then I started playing it at shows and um 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 story just a show just like a private like or was it it was like at this 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 20 to 25 people and i was like no she's like can you bring three 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 none of my friends from school came and my little brother had homework so it was just my mom and um the other artists had brought whatever their handful of people were and after I finished I just like ran out because I was like that I didn't bring anybody I failed I flopped and she tried to stop me she's like that was incredible and I was like yeah whatever because I didn't recognize her I didn't know who she was 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 can't do this anymore like I can't keep playing shows to no one like it just feels insane and um but she had filmed me and put it on her instagram story and within seconds of posting it um rocky the man who ended up producing my first album massachusetts was like who is that what is she singing what is going on and she was like do you want to meet her like we can 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 um and then we had another session right after that when i wrote starting to get to you and it was just like we just immediately clicked creatively but it was because of white boy he was like Like, I just had never heard anything like it before.

52:21And like, he's black and his wife is mixed. And he was like, I just knew that like, I could just see her story and 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. But yeah, it felt like I wasn't allowed. Like writing that song, it felt illegal. Yeah, well, no, cause it's like, I don't, I mean, maybe in the annals of songwriting history, but it just, it feels very unique, you know? 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, because 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.

53:02And the boy basically completely ignored me and just talked to my friend. And I left the party after that. So I was like, I can't. White girl? 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 ending 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 22 like that's that's intense I didn't know at the time I was like I'm just doing I'm just following my bliss I'm just like making my art but now five years later like you know I'm doing a rollout 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 i'm glad you knew no better because it's like 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 you know my my style but like i just look back now and i'm like wow like i came out swinging that's that is incredible i feel like there's a lot like an underlying i mean not a lot but that is like even in savannah like there is some there's some like um antagonism going on you know like and it's like it is a really cool feature of your songwriting you know 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 it's something i'm capable of but I feel like the safest place for me to express those confrontational feelings is in 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 yeah I mean Alicia Keys is I love Alicia Keys big fan Alicia Keys but like your songwriting doesn't really feel like it's diverged a lot since I was a kid yeah so it is different you did write more like that I would say so I 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 uh I would say like as I've gotten older like I mean Phoebe Bridgers was like a big big influence on me especially in college when I first found her music.

55:32And 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 am. What's Muna? They're like a, they're a trio. They're like, it's like, it's basically just pop music, but it's like. Yes. Yes. And I feel like I definitely am emulating them a lot. And Sara Bareilles was really big for me for a while. John Mayer was big for me for a while. Bon Iver has, is and always has been really big. Casey Musgraves. There's so many people who have kind of wormed 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.

56:09Like any of those people. Yeah. Like I feel like you can hear them and the influences are there. But I feel like I've really started to find the Jensen McRae like toolbox and the Jensen McRae universe. And I feel like I'm writing in there all the time. Is it anything you can enumerate or is it kind of just more of a feel? Well, 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.

56:40I think obviously there's a lot of literary references, a lot of biblical references. Where does that stuff come from? Honestly, the biblical references, I don't know because my mom is Jewish. 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.

57:12Like, I just love I love my I love my songs to feel like either they could they've been lifted 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 person. Who are some of your? Ocean Vuong. 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. 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 Fault in Our Stars.

57:49and 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 wouldn't let me send it. So I had to edit it down. That's like the, making music that authors love is probably my genre. Like making music that authors want to put on their playlist while they're working on their books. That's my dream. Wow. Like part of what I've been setting out to do is like 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 and 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 and for both those things together to be this extra powerful thing do you ever do covers do you ever sometimes yeah I play cover I do covers at most of my shows um i've been doing uh 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 what do you what do you hear in taylor's music i mean where do i even start 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 as she's genre shape shifted um she's not afraid of like vocabulary 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 to dumb herself down for anybody I love how genre expansive she is um 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 it could have should have when she says give me back my girlhood it was mine first like that's like one of the best like i got 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 it'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 when she was like 19 years old it's just incredible like the And it's the volume as well.

1:00:03Because that's the thing that I pride myself on is my volume. 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. 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. Wow. Have you, the pace that you've set for yourself so far, you feel like you've been able to keep it? 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 um and then obviously like politically the world is also like really in or 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 force sometimes um 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 months but they're just not at the same clip.

1:01:24Are you goal-oriented? Yes. Yes. I don't want to assume, but I could. 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. What are some of those? I'd 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. Have you written one? I've written a lot. 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. Um, and I also, I love, I love to act. I found I want to, I want to, I want to do some acting.

1:01:57How did that escape you? I feel like you're. I just didn't want to do it for a really long time. 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 WME, they were like, of court 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 and i was like i don't want to do that and they're like well we'll just send you some stuff have they sent you anything like 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 not on purpose but were they things you liked though or you know i was like i i didn't know i didn't know what 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 afterward and I was like I don't think I did a good job and then I started to get more into it 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 you say self-tapes for other people you would help yeah I would like read for them while they auditioned and um 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 and so then now when I get tapes I 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 take it 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 to hold up you met Spike Lee I did like the other I feel like Did you ask him about anything?

1:03:45Next question. Did you ask him about, did you pitch a movie? Spike's great. Spike's been very supportive. Why? How? He just found my music online. He literally just started liking my posts on Instagram. From a kid of his? Maybe. That's what I thought. But I don't know. It wasn't even one of my viral videos. He just found one of my songs and was just like, this is great. And I was like, thank you so much. Appreciate it. my god i i get random it's always the most random people like i got um like kristin bell messaged me after i posted my song about the fires and like julia roberts posted one of my songs on her instagram grade like it's all these people i'm like i don't know how you're finding this stuff but like so much love yeah yeah spike's the coolest one that's he's very cool he's very very cool and he you know he's like great in his own movies too you know what i mean like he hasn't really been in one in a while but he should get back in there i agree with you i agree with you But that's like kind of, I love the idea of writing something and getting the opportunity to act it myself.

1:04:45Which like 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. Do any of those things feel, like I guess music is probably takes. Yeah, music's number one. 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 and it all they definitely all 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 i asked him about that because i was feeling very adrift and i was questioning my place in the program and i felt like everyone else would like ate slept breathed music and i was like i have all this other stuff i really like i was like do you think I should give up on those things and just focus on music.

1:05:30And 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 and 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. And now, 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? Is this a poem? Is this a line of dialogue in a screenplay? Is this like a passage in a novel? And like, I, if I'm working on one thing and it feels like I'm getting stuck, I just pivot to another medium.

1:05:59And 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. Who are some of your inspirations in terms of dialogue writers specifically? Well, my favorite book of all time is The Idiot by Elif Batuman, which is about this girl who's a freshman at Harvard in 1995. There's very little plot. It's just her going through her freshman year, making friends, trying to find her voice as a writer.

1:06:27and 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. And I had never really read anything that was that good at echoing the kinds of conversations that I had experienced and had as a teenager. I will ask though, can teenagers be smart and not be pretentious? I felt like the reason why I felt a lack of pretension was because it felt like they weren't performing for adults.

1:07:05They were just performing for each other. Okay. Which I feel like was... So smart for their cohort, not necessarily performatively smart. They were not performatively 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 did. And especially the narrator, like at the end of the book, I mean, it's called The Idiot, which borrows its title from a Dostoyevsky work. And at the end of the book, she basically says like, I'm dumb.

1:07:38I don't know. 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 20 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 am left with yet more questions than I had when I started. Yeah. One last break and we'll be back with Jensen McRae.

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1:11:00Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting, all linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at O-D-O-O dot com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. What does winning a Grammy do? You're clearly, like, I mean, take out song, take out the music career. You're an impressive person. Thank you. You're 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 your driving force? Well, why is not drive, but why is that one of the things, many things you want to accomplish? There's one component, which is that not that many black women have one album of the year.

1:11:46Beyonce winning this past year was only the fourth time it's ever happened. Okay. And so there's a part of me that just wants to, I want to prove it. We're back to that. Yes. Yes. That's really part of it. It's 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, it's historical in a lot of ways. Beyonce, Lauren Hill. 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.

1:12:17I want the institution to give me a gold star. Like, that's just true. Like, I just love when authority recognizes my work. 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.

1:12:51It's something that like makes, it'll make me feel like it's just, 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 do all this stuff. I don't really know what that is. Like, can 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 form more community? And why not like be more involved in like music advocacy and music education?

1:13:21Like those are all things I want to do anyway. And like just being 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. So aside from wanting to win, the things that it might take to win are appealing to you to achieve, fulfill, just to do, whether that's just the networking or the helping, the musical education part, helping others learn. Yeah, I went to Grammy camp when I was a teenager, which is like the part of the Recording Academy's philanthropic wing. I don't know what the form the camp takes now, but when I went 10 years ago, it was a 10-day residential camp where you go and you have all this instruction with these high-level instructors.

1:14:01And then at the end of it, we did a showcase at El Rey. which is, you know, I ended up playing there this year myself, which was incredible. And it totally changed my life. It 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, I 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.

1:14:32I want to show more people that it's possible. That's so cool. 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 in big cities. 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.

1:14:59Because the only music schools I knew about were like conservatories. And I was like, I really want to get like a, I want to sink my teeth into a great academic education because I love 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. And Grammy camp was the, was what I saw, I saw as a stepping stone. And also it was the first time I was ever around anyone who cared about music ever. And it was awesome.

1:15:27What was that like to connect with other people like that? 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 like in high school people didn't like me and i went to music school and everyone or i went to grammy camp and people liked me 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 you know whatever but like but you really like truthfully you think i had friends in high school but i i mean people told me they didn't like me to my face like i knew i knew they didn't and it was mostly because of all you know being super opinionated 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 and also people i also sang all the time which is annoying like i just sang to myself all the time you go to music camp everybody's singing themselves all the time as it turns out and that is welcome um yeah i loved it i was like the happiest i'd ever been i was so sad to leave i loved it there wow What gives you your confidence?

1:16:25I 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 or 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 because he'll be like, you know that's so stupid. You know that that person's opinion doesn't mean anything. 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 beautiful, intelligent, funny, like you have everything going for you, like no one can tear you down.

1:17:01Like 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 10 % of their support and their love, it just bumps me back up to like, oh, no, I'm fine. I'm going to be fine.

1:17:33And it really, I attribute it mostly to them. That's great. That's really great. We should do another song. All right. I'm going to tune this guitar really quick. But I feel like the next song that I'm going to 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. And so I wrote this song about that. It's called Let Me Be Wrong.

1:18:13Trust my gut and belly flop Call the coward just to talk Though it's never worth the cost To dance on glass with my shoes off Something rotting in my brain Tells me to do it anyway And do not feel the long decay And don't ask God if it's okay Let me be wrong Ride low till the wheels fall Ripe but delusional Loud at a funeral Let me get lost The heart weighs the way I want And I've been good too long Let me be wrong

1:19:10Free my tongue, go rogue and mean Like those girls at 17 They got glass ceilings and rings Fuck, those girls got everything Something twisted in my chest Says I'm good but not the best When I was young that knocked me out But nothing really shakes me now Let me be wrong Ride love till the wheels fall Bright but delusional Loud at a funeral Let me get lost My heart plays the way I want And I've been good too long Let me be wrong Let me be wrong Let me be wrong Let me be wrong Let me be wrong I love till the wheels fall off Bright but delusional Loud at a funeral Let me get lost Hard ways the way I want And I've been good too long Let me be wrong Great song.

1:20:45Thank you. I love that. I love the Western feel of that. It feels like there's like a, I don't know what it is, but there's a little something in it that feels like a, you know, a really great country song too. Thank you. I like having a little country, a little country moment here and there. Yeah, it's good. Thank you so much for talking. This is incredible. Yeah, this has been such a great conversation. I really want to say thank you so much for coming by and for making the music. Yes, thank you so much.

1:21:12In the episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist of our favorite songs from Jensen McRae, as well as her latest album, I Don't Know How, But They Found Me. Be sure to check out youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast 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 help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tallade. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus.

1:21:46Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad-free listening for$4.99 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 music's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond.

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