J is only ready to be a singer-songwriter, not a someone about whom bios are written. So, in order to introduce herself to you, she has to tolerate more than one sentence written by someone else. Once you hear her, you’ll understand why it is important that there is more than one sentence.
To merely call J.Kaya a singer-songwriter would be to ignore her ability to cast delicate spells with her songs. Jessica, 23, who also lends her sound to “Love,” a video single from her sister Eternia’s Juno-nominated rap masterpiece, “It’s Called Life,” is currently collaborating with producer Krisblair , to craft her own as-yet-untitled debut album, which breezes her raw sugar R&B vocals through hip-hop and jazz architecture. You didn’t know it, but you’ve been waiting for her. “For a long time I never dared to dream of becoming a singer,” J admits. “But it’s been the secret in my heart since I can remember.”
With every song, something in J.Kaya is trying to tell you a secret.
Part of our planet’s poetry is that the most fertile soil on earth grows beneath cooled volcanic lava. Life after death. Growing up in a broken home, Jessica discovered a passion in her piano and in herself as an instrument as she searched for her place in the chaos: “Singing and writing became my only outlet; the way I could release and give my pain a voice.” While many singers’ lists of musical influences become just another conceit to impress the masses, J’s serve as a found diary page—a genuine glimpse into how she developed that “voice.” Without at all posing as a mimic, J’s songs reveal her appreciation for the sly wisdom of Fiona Apple’s storytelling and Mariah Carey’s uncanny (and undervalued) capacity to structure a hook. Her track, “On Blast,” comes at you in complete and delicious contrast to what the title suggests. That the track is both a seduction and a declaration only begins to hint at J’s effortless sleight of hand with a song. Consistent in avoiding cliché, her composition, “Walk in the Park,” quickly blooms beyond the fairy tale simplicity of its premise into a realistic portrait of a woman learning the how of love. And, while she understands the anatomy of a song, J also reveals poise that would make her vocal idols proud as well. Her vulnerable delivery on “Pinch Me,” is a haunting emblem of her admiration of Nina Simone’s conjurer’s gift for channeling emotion and Anita Baker’s mesmerizing genius for misting herself exquisitely into every melody.
More aligned to truth than image in both her life and her music, it is easier for J to point out that her voice is “not well-trained, not perfect,” than for her to confess that fans have compared her supple artistry to Sade, Amel Larrieux, Goapele, and Lauryn Hill. Although clearly complimentary, such comparisons are merely the broken English of travelers struggling in a land where they are not yet fluent. As soon as you fully inhabit J’s nimble, unflinching musical world, you will name it uniquely hers.
The distinction will have a difference. J.Kaya is not champagne, but the splashed bubble he wipes from her cheek. Not a curse, but the second slow blink before she left the room. J.Kaya’s music is not midnight; it’s the first amber of dawn, too shy to become morning. Nether speech nor lecture nor boast, J’s approach to song is a crack in the door during the most intimate of whispers: “Before music is my venture or possible career, music is my closest confidant, the most sacred thing to me on earth.” Although she makes a more personal appeal in the story of her song, “Pinch Me,” when she begs, “Wake me up/So I can dream,” we should also hear the plea as a hint that J.Kaya is finally ready to let you meet her confidant. Ready to share her sacred thing.
