FEATURE: Spotlight: Jensen McRae — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Jensen McRae

___________

THERE are so many artists…

who are going to make big impressions through this year. Across all genres, it is interesting seeing the artists being promoted and highlighted. One musician who I am excited about is Jensen McRae. The Californian poet and songwriter came to prominence because of her debut singles, White Boy (2019) and Wolves (2020). Last year, she released the incredible E.P., Who Hurt You?. I think this year is the one when she puts out her much-anticipated debut album. As a Black artist in Folk music, McRae has spoken out against the lack of recognition and representation of Black women – not only in that genre but right across music. I am going to end by sourcing from a review/feature about her new E.P. First, it is worth getting some background and biography regarding an amazingly talented and promising young artist. W spoke with McRae last year around the launch of Who Hurt You?. In addition to explaining when she decided she wanted to become a musician, McRae also talks about her influences:

“Despite the newfound attention, McRae wasn’t exactly new to the music industry: the singer-songwriter and poet, born and raised in Los Angeles in a biracial Black and Jewish family, had “no conscious memory of wanting to be anything else” beyond a musician. Growing up, McRae’s parents enrolled her in piano lessons and encouraged her to participate in musical theater to help her overcome her shyness; she subsequently fell in love with songwriting and playing pop music. By 16, McRae attended Grammy camp, a 10-day intensive at the University of Southern California, which cemented her own desire to attend college there. (And she did, studying popular music performance as an undergrad.)

During college, McRae released two EPs Lighter and Milkshake, but it wasn’t until right after graduating in 2019 that she shared her proper debut single “White Boy.” Inspired by a party she attended, McRae processes racist microaggressions and being ignored as a woman of color by a potential romantic encounter. While she claims it’s not the song she’s known for, she says, Black and Brown people of all genders have reached out and told her that they “have a white boy.” “I spent a long time thinking it was too niche of an experience and that no one would ever relate,” recalls McRae. “I was obviously very wrong about that.” What followed was her 2020 single “Wolves,” a haunting series of vignettes about sexual assault and harassment. (Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon was a “wonderful champion” of the song in its early days.) “[‘White Boy’ and ‘Wolves’] were songs that I had inklings of many times over the years, at least thematically, but I never sat down to write them because I wasn’t emotionally ready until I was in my early twenties,” the singer says.

Building on the momentum McRae garnered in 2021, the singer-songwriter released her new EP Who Hurt You? in late June featuring her socially conscious lyrics, tender vocals, and her unwavering sense of vulnerability. “There’s a lot of room in communities of color to talk more about mental health and therapy, so to be a Black woman singing about depression and anxiety is important for a lot of people,” McRae notes. Throughout the six-song EP, which covers everything from race and gender to mental illness and unrequited love, you can hear trappings of Michelle Branch, Joni Mitchell, and Tracy Chapman—along with McRae’s affinity for the rich, low registers of Adele and Alicia Keys.

Although the uniqueness of McRae’s voice can’t quite be defined by comparisons to other artists, she sees the value in them. At the very least, listeners who haven’t heard her music “know what they’re getting into.” “I don't have any delusions about being the most groundbreaking person,” she says. “I know I'm part of a long and honored tradition of female folk writers and pop writers [with] maybe a little country and a little R&B thrown in there.” Her influences speak to her wide-ranging dream collaborations—everyone from Bridgers and Vernon to Sara Bareilles and Kendrick Lamar.

But as a mixed-race folk artist, McRae used to find herself misidentified when it came to genre. “People are still surprised by the genre that I worked in, and I think, even to a greater extent, I’m often still one of very few Black artists represented in those spaces on playlists or in conversations about who’s making folk music.” While she says it’s “a lifelong journey” to be seen in that space, surrounded by artists like Arlo Parks, Joy Oladokun, and the more pop-leaning Olivia Rodrigo, she feels “lucky” to be on the rise “at a time when the landscape is hospitable.” “I feel like Brown girls with guitars are having their moment,” McRae explains. “The 2000s were white men with guitars and then the 2010s were white women with guitars, and now, it’s Brown women with guitars”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jerritt Clark/Getty Images for Culture Creator

I am interested knowing about the earliest memories and experiences with music for McRae. It is clear, as we learn from this interview with NYLON, that McRae loves discussing her lyrics, and she appreciates when people make new comparisons when hearing the music – as it shows that the person has been listening carefully and deeply:

“If you had to pinpoint where your passion in music first came from, where would that be?

It’s hard to say, because it’s been my whole conscious life that I’ve wanted to be a musician, since I was a child. But I guess it really was being exposed to Alicia Keys. My mom played me a lot of Alicia Keys when I was a kid. A lot of it was very cosmetic: she was a mixed girl with braids, I was a mixed girl with braids. I was like, “I want to do that!” [laughs] I was so inspired by her and I knew I wanted to do exactly what she was doing and I never looked back.

When you started writing music, at what point did you hit on the way your work sounds now?

I started playing piano when I was 7, but I didn’t learn guitar until I was 18. That was a big turning point for me, and honestly, it was largely out of convenience. Keyboards are very heavy and a lot of venues don’t have pianos there, so I was already at a disadvantage. When I started playing guitar, I was like, “This will make playing gigs way easier. I’d better get good at this.” Also, as I was writing, I realized that so much of what I loved, like The Mountain Goats, Phoebe Bridgers, Joni Mitchell, [were] more guitar-based things and that was probably better-suited for the kind of storytelling I was doing. The more competent I became at guitar, the more I realized that my sound really lies in that space.

You stress that you’re a folk artist, despite sometimes being mischaracterized as an R&B or soul singer. Why do you think it’s important to make it clear that music that sounds like yours and tackles the subjects that you do is folk?

A big part of it is that I think it’s important for people to know what they’re getting into. I like to talk about my music with labels, because then people can know what to expect when they’re listening to it. I like making my music more inviting in that way.

And then, from a demographic political standpoint, it’s really important for me as a Black woman to claim those genres that historically have closed out people like me. When I say, “I make folk pop music, I’m explicitly not making soul or R&B,” it's a way of inviting more people of color into the genre and the space, and to assert that the music I make belongs where I think it belongs.

I get excited when people come up with new comparisons that I haven’t heard before. To me, that’s a mark of really educated and close listening, to draw a comparison that even the artist didn’t see before. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all.

How do you feel about the way your music has been covered? Do you think it’s getting to the heart of what you’re trying to express?

I get most excited when people do deep dives into my lyrics. That’s my favorite thing to talk about. I love when I do Instagram Lives and fans ask me really specific questions about my lyrics. Or in song premieres or articles when they quote direct lines and talk about what they mean. That’s my favorite thing, as a kid who loved English class. There’s this incredible blog, Indie Happy Hour, that has been covering me since 2017. The guy who runs it is an English teacher and he’s talked about how he’s had his class analyze the lyrics to “White Boy.” That was one of my favorite things I’d ever heard. To me, that’s the highest compliment, if a bunch of middle schoolers have to analyze my words”.

Before coming to a little piece about Who Hurt You?. When DIY spoke with Jensen McRae back in July, she discussed the representation of Black women across music. I was also intrigued by McRae’s maturity and strength. She is a huge ambassador and voice who is making space for other Black women in music and society:

“When we were talking about releasing an EP ahead of [the album], I didn’t want to at first, as I didn’t want to break apart this very large, cohesive body of work,” Jensen explains. “But I’d always wanted to have a project called ‘Who Hurt You?’ - that title came to me a long time ago for something - and I thought I could use it for this.” From ‘Wolves’, her raw and arresting track about sexual assault, through to ‘White Boy’, a vulnerable exploration of racial injustice, via ‘Immune’, a Phoebe Bridgers parody track about love in the pandemic that quickly went viral, the EP is a multi-faceted response to the title.

“One of the things I’m always trying to do in my work is to provide as broad a portrait of my experience as possible,” she nods, on what kind of songwriter she hopes to be, “because I feel like the representation for Black women - especially in folk music, but really across all genres of music - is really limited,” she explains. “I want to acknowledge every single aspect of my personhood: sometimes that’s political, sometimes that’s about love, sometimes it’s about mental illness, or gender, or gender violence.

“Coming of age is a really important theme to me as well, and I wanted to make sure that the music that I put out at least touches on all of those things. It’s a tall order, but I realise that, for better or for worse, I am an ambassador for my entire demographic,” she says, with a profound but light touch. “I want to make sure I’m providing as much variety as possible in terms of subject matter, because a lot of people genuinely do not think about the inner lives of Black women in that way, and I really want them to”.

Who Hurt You? is an exceptional E.P. that points to a very long career from an artist who we should all know about. This article looked at McRae’s E.P. when the second song from it, Wolves, was released. Each track from Jensen McRae is this hugely captivating experience:

“Emotive indie rock artist Jensen McRae bares her soul in a new EP Who Hurt You?. Each soft, passionate tune touches on introspective themes of breaking barriers and romantic salvation. Fusing captivating indie-folk with delicate dream pop, there is fragility within the release while also oozing fierceness and power.

The second song off the EP “Wolves” draws us in with vivid, detailed storytelling. With just the simple strum of an acoustic guitar, it allows her stunning, gentle vocals to shine. With “Little Red Riding Hood” vibes she narrates the tale of meeting those people that seem innocent enough until their true colors are revealed. Each deceiving encounter, is a lesson learned and now she vows never to make that mistake again. McRae’s cunning single “Immune” all started with a joking tweet. The funny tweet read, “In 2023, Phoebe Bridgers is gonna drop her third album & the opening track will be about hooking up in the car while waiting in line to get vaccinated at Dodger Stadium and it’s gonna make me cry.” The post went viral. Not long after she shared a video clip of her preforming the song, and it even caught the eye of Bridgers herself. This parody perfectly describes the current state we are in. Concluding with “Adam’s Ribs” the poignant offering tugs at your heart with striking strings and an impressive vocal range.

The Los Angeles native collaborated with partner and executive producer Rahki (Eminem, Kendrick Lamar) on the songs for the EP. McRae first made her splash onto the music scene with her single “White Boy”. That was followed by her expressive releases ”Wolves” and ”The Plague.” Who Hurt You? is a beautiful body of work and we look forward to seeing more from the talent in the future”.

Definitely one of this year’s artists to watch closely, we are going to hear a lot more from the magnificent Jensen McRae. She is someone I am fairly new to though, having listened to quite a few of her songs, I am a confirmed fan! McRae is definitely going to go a very long way. Go and follow her on social media and support her music. There is no doubting the fact that she is going to be…