Artist Spotlight: Jinja

Jinja just wants you to understand her. Strikingly raw as a writer and performer, Jinja merges hazy jazz with silky soul and groove-laden R&B to concoct a sound that is familiar but individual, drawing you into her sonic universe with her rich, gorgeous vocals. 

Emerging onto the scene with her new EP, Dream House FM, Jinja looks set to make a splash in the placid pool of the R&B scene. The body of work is conceptually compelling, existing within an imaginary radio station that allows listeners to slip beneath the surface of the lyrical themes and to consider the deeper motifs and motive there. It’s a dreamy, dainty and dedicated body of work that isn’t afraid to stare pain and honesty dead in the eye, tackling grief with beautiful sentiment and love with vibrant resonance. 

I sat down with Jinja to discuss her musical origins, her stint in Japan, standing out from a busy scene, and baring her soul on the new EP.

Who and what influences you?

The coolest people I know are my mates. I’m lucky enough to have my best mate as my flatmate and she’s got the biggest record collection that I get to dig through whenever. She’s also a drummer so it’s a win win. It’s a blessing to have creative people around as there is always someone about to bounce ideas off.  

How did you first start creating?

I think all kids are super creative, but I just always wanted to put my own stamp on things. I guess have my own voice. I think that’s why I always steered towards writing. When I was really little, I would make up songs and go sing them to my Dad and tell him it was the newest song in the charts, just to see if he fell for it. I don’t think my childish naivety would realise that my poor dad might just nod along to shut me up haha. But yeah. I properly started writing actual songs at about 16 and that’s when I thought yeah, this is what I want to do.

How did you find your sound?

Ah, I think I struggled with this for a while. Singing wise, I had a turning point in primary school, when I had just flopped a talent show audition and didn’t get in, the teacher came in the next day and gave me a mixtape of Ella Fitzgerald. That changed everything for me really. It shaped my voice. 

A big part of me finding my recorded sound, was due to the musical understanding between me and Patrick, the producer of this record. He really understood the sonic atmosphere I wanted to create and managed to translate a lot of my feelings at the time into sound. We worked really quickly together, it was cool.

 How would you describe the essence of that sound?

Now, I would say my sound is a blend of pop/ RnB with a lot of hip-hop influences. I grew up listening to song writing legends like Carole King and Carly Simon, but with an 808 somewhere in there too.

As a newcomer emerging on the scene, how do you feel about finding your place within a scene and the industry?

Ah its exciting. It’s a bit intimidating, but I have so many ideas and creative goals that I try not to think about that part of it and keep just doing my thing. I am amongst creating a live show for my EP and I can’t wait. There’s a lot of musicians involved, it’s going to be big.

How did your stint in Japan affect the way you create?

Ah well first of all I shot one of the music videos for this EP in Tokyo. It was hilarious, one of the shots is me walking across Shibuya cross walk, which is the biggest zebra crossing in the world. HA. So random. But apart from that crazy day, Japan was incredible for so many reasons. I think it gave me a bit of a boost of confidence in my own artistry. I have been working with so many artists and creatives in the past year, that I think I lost confidence in working alone. Going to Japan alone gave me some breathing space and a chance to look at whole new side of the creative industry I wasn’t aware of before. And of course, the jazz scene out there is crazy. So crazy! I went to so many gigs in Osaka and befriended a lot of jazz musicians.

Love the EP! What was the creative process of the project?

Thank you so much! Well, it was a when life gives you lemons situation. After the impact of Covid, my plans changed hugely, and I ended up moved to London full time to do music at Goldsmiths Uni. I was living in student halls – and then bam, lockdown arrived. It was awful. I don’t think people realised how hard it was for students at that time. Living with strangers, stuck in blocks of flats, in a city you couldn’t really explore. Luckily, one of my flatmates was a music producer (Patrick) and we passed the time just tinkering away with some tunes I had written, and then just like that we were making a full concept EP. We created this imaginary world for us to run away to. It was crazy. It was freedom really

Talk me through the thoughts and feelings behind your new tape?

I hate to sound cringe, but I bared my soul on this EP. Not just in that sombre way that people say when they talk about a sad song, (there is only one really sad song on it haha) but it was the first time I didn’t hide from lyrical content. I feel like in some of the tracks I am border line rap/singing on them. There is a song on there called Now You’re Gone which is an upbeat banger about how good life can be when you leave a negative person behind. Pretty brutal, but it is one of my favourites because I’m so honest on it really. 

I love the idea of the imaginary radio station - where did that stem from?

So the radio idea started off as a joke at first. The first track, A Song to Kiss To has this beautiful rich string, sampling intro and I grabbed the mic and was pretending to be some old school radio host. We were going to take it out but listening to it back it really worked. The whole EP has this incredibly dreamy aspect to it, proper escapism, and I thought it would be cool to set it up like a radio show. As if it would play through the speakers of this rammed student hall that was full of people who wanted to be somewhere else. So it stuck. What was amazing though, is when I found an old recording of my late mum as a kid, pretending to be a radio host. It had to go on the EP somewhere, so we sliced up the audio and I answered her questions that she asked back in the 1970s. In a weird way it was like having a conversation with her. It was crazy. 

It’s a really emotional, personal and resonant project. How did you reach a point of expressing yourself so openly and did you find comfort in it?

Hmm. The lyrics came naturally. It just all came pouring out of me really. And yeah, there was huge comfort in it. The whole EP was an escape, and its whole process was just so freeing because it felt like I was putting all these pent up emotions up on this beautiful shelf. In particular, the track with that audio of my mum’s was really healing to make. It’s crazy how music can warp reality like that. 

What do you want listeners to take away from the listen?

This is a funny one, because when you make a body of work it is normally quite self-indulgent, because you go through all your deepest darkest thoughts. But honestly, I would love people to listen to this record and just be taken away. Whether they want to be listening to an old soul love song or a near rap kind of sad song, I just want them to drift off somewhere else. Just slide away. That would be cool. 

If you were introducing yourself to a new listener, what track of yours would you play them?  

Ah I would play them Boy Next Door. A lot of the EP is fun and upbeat- both lyrically and in the production, but Boy Next Door is a bit more stripped back, and definitely carries the most emotion. The song itself is literally about the boy who lived next door to me when I was in halls. I was really, really low and would get pretty lonely – especially in London lockdown – and at about 1am-3am he would play the saddest jazz guitar tunes and I swear I would just cry myself to sleep listening to him practice. Luckily he is one of my best friends now. 

Where do you want to take your artistry?

Ah I have another EP in the pipeline, but alongside that, artistry wise, I would love to branch out a bit further into jazz. I do a lot of jazz singing at jams but I would love to get it down onto a record. Alongside my own projects I also want to get songwriting for other people. I have been dabbling in and around other genres, mostly rap, R&B and a bit of house here and there. I would love to build that song writing muscle to bounce between genres fluidly. All in good time I guess.

 What’s next for you?

Next. Hm. Well right now I am in the middle of creating a live show for this EP, and it is going to be very interesting given the amount of samples we used. So that’s going to be in the upcoming weeks. I am also working on a couple tracks with more of a hip hop edge. Cape Orange is another music project I have been working on, a band (think pop/Soul/all girls) and we have been gigging heavily over the past few months and have our first single release coming this winter. So there is a lot to do.