Today we’d like to introduce you to Jordan Reed.
Jordan, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started producing at age 12 with my older brother on an in-browser workstation called Audiotool. He would make beats for his high school rap group and I would copy off of him. At the time, it was nothing more than something to alleviate after-school boredom, as I was too intelligent for my own good and would never have to study or do homework to pass. When I was 15, I got a copy of FL 12, in a very legal way absolutely, and my summer was dedicated to nothing else. I’d go in my mom’s garage and blast my prototype trap hit out of an IHome Speaker. It was a year later I started digging into the local scene and discovered individuals that proved to me I could take my dreams further. I then started playing keyboards, no matter where they were. With my love of the keyboard, I started to do more harmonic-based music, and there I established that my music would take place in the world of “Boy Jugo”. The name just started as a reference to a certain Chance The Rapper Song called “Juice”, but then I realized it represented how I felt about the world at large: full of color. So I ran with it.
Has it been a smooth road?
Since I force myself to think about the future, my own thoughts would give me a hard time. Working a minimum job, going to school, doing music, are all things that musicians have had to put up with, so I just face it as a rite of passage. I’ve never had to apply myself in school, so music got my full attention, and that may be how I ended up with the skills, I have at my age.
Can you give our readers some background on your music?
I (Boy Jugo) am a Producer, Keyboardist, and Engineer. As of recently, I produce soulful records and compose jazz pieces. In my exposure to Electronic music, I apply facets of such to my sound, such as bending the R&B genre to fit House Music. I take pride in being able to be a person first, and a musician second, because that is how genuine art is created. I used to send off beats to individuals I just met at guitar center, and though music may be an icebreaker, it is rare that it will end in something that both parties like. I just released my Debut Jazz EP “Juiced!” and through sales on Bandcamp raised $450 for Breonna Taylor’s Justice Fund. Almost 80 donations of $5+ in a week. I am foremost glad that I can use whatever platform I gain with music to do what I plan to do in the future; conservation of environment, human rights, etc.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
The Dallas Music scene has at least to my young eyes and ears, started to approach a logarithmic curve (pardon my mention of the worst subject) in terms of placing infrastructure to support and put a spotlight on local artists. That is to say that the folks that have been at it for a long time will have dibs, as they’ve been a part of this growing network. You can attend a local rap show such as a DasGlue event and if you wanted to, you could have a rapper, an engineer, and a graphic designer in a future collaboration just because they are undoubtedly in the mix of such. I’d absolutely recommend that you befriend individuals who’ve got their art popping and learn from them, support them, etc.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://songwhip.com/boy-jugo/juiced
- Email: reedjordanx@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boyjugo/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/boyjugomusic
- Other: https://boyjugo.bandcamp.com/album/juiced
Image Credit:
Hunter Durand, Josimar Vela
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