Gemaine | If It Don’t Make You Wanna Sing In The Mirror, Is It Even R&B? (Interview)
Voices carry in a crowded room of friends and supporters celebrating R&B artist Gemaine at Revival at The Complex Studios in West LA. Our eyes (and ears) had just been blessed with a debut screening of the visual for “Giddy Up,” a bounce-worthy track off Gemaine’s latest project New Jack City. Serving us superstar vibes in a silky, gold-embroidered pants set, Gemaine was aglow with gratitude and pride.
A collaborative effort and labor of love with producer DJ Charlie Heat and songwriting partner Ymtk, New Jack City was inspired by the pace and swagger of its namesake, the gangster/thriller film we’re all familiar with from the 90s. The 11-track album boasts a “real R&B signature,” along with “fearless risk-taking” and “tender lyricism.”
Growing up in church as part of a family of musicians, Gemaine not only mastered modern gospel at a young age, but theater as well. As a result, Gemaine’s vocals are wide-ranging and meticulously sound, although he never intended to use his musical gifts professionally.
A native from the legendary city of Compton, Gemaine originally planned to pursue a career in acting and film. But while he was a college freshman, a clip of him singing went viral on Vine – a stroke of online destiny not uncommon to emerging talent these days – and, well, the rest is history.
Today, Gemaine is unapologetically musical, even though it requires him to be a little “corny” at times, as he puts it, diving head and heart first into the soul of what makes R&B, R&B. He’s not only dedicated to the musical integrity of his art practice and capable in every step of the process, but the way he opts for collaboration is noteworthy. “It’s the most beautiful thing,” says artist partner, Jim McCarter III. “He brings other people into the process for the fellowship and the camaraderie of it, and it ends up turning the music into more of a feeling and the culture.”
We sat down with Gemaine to discuss his new album and enjoyed getting to know more about how – and where – he chose to finish up his “college years” post-Vine, what ticks him off about TikTok, and the elements of what makes a proper R&B song (of course, singing in the mirror being one of them!).
You just dropped a new album, New Jack City. How does it feel and what does this album mean to you?
I see it as a stepping stone, like, this is me really entering my CEO stages within my music. I see myself really stepping into being a boss with this. I’m just involved in everything; I am the decision maker. One of the biggest growths that I’ve experienced with this project is really trusting my instinct, my gut, and, you know, being the boss of my life, my music and career.
As a full-fledged artist, have you embraced that this is now your career or is it still surreal?
What I’m coming to the realization of with this is, like, this is my life, but I can’t let this be my whole life. I have a girlfriend, family, I just really try to balance it out. I try not to treat music like a job, and it’s hard ‘cause I’m a hard worker and I wanna work hard and do it, but I realize that, man, if I treat music like a job … the magic and the real good that comes out of music is from the heart, not repetition. As contradicting as it is, I try not to work on music every day. If I do work on it, it’s because I feel something.
That’s one the of the things I’ve been transitioning into is just letting the music come and letting life happen and letting the music interpret my life or my feelings or what I’m going through. I’ve just been treating music differently lately. Once you’re in a groove of what you wanna do and what you doing, you’re working but it doesn’t feel like work. Know what you want, and it’s just a matter of doing it, and, like, doing the thing to make what you hear in your head sound as beautiful as it can.
To try to be on TikTok and be good at it, other people can do it, man, and that’s good for other people, but that’s just not where my head at
What do you think you’d be doing if that Vine video never went viral?
Acting. I really wanted to be an actor, and I still do. I still do, to be honest. I remember that’s where my head was fully and what I was really tryna get into. I did theater all four years in high school, and I wanted to transition into film. The vibe of just learning scripts, practicing and doing research into the characters and all that, and I really wanted to dive into that more, and then music happened.
I never intended to be in music, I didn’t wanna be in music on purpose, because all my family does music, so I just didn’t wanna be another one that’s doing music. I always wanted to separate myself and make my own trail within myself. I’m a natural rebel, I just wanna do my own thing, be my own person. I definitely would’ve been trying to be an actor or probably there already, honestly, if I’ve been putting in as much time as I was in music [laughs].
Speaking of social media, we live in such weird times, especially with the pandemic. It connected all of us, but it also kinda exacerbated our reliance on it. What’s your take on social media and how has it helped or hindered your creative process?
Man. Social media is the one thing I’ve been stubborn about. I try not to let it affect how I make music, you know? I don’t like how much TikTok is starting to influence how people make music. I don’t like how all the businesses try to push TikTok in a way of, “this is the only way to break as an artist.”
Businesses that wanna do something with you, that is what’s happening, you have to be on TikTok, you have to compete. To try to be on TikTok and be good at it, other people can do it, man, and that’s good for other people, but that’s just not where my head at, man.
I really wanna be an artist, and I wanna do it the way I wanna do it. I don’t wanna be a social media presence type artist, I don’t wanna be a sensation. To try to keep up, like, it’s a value game. I am not a value kind of poster, like, that just takes a lot of energy and effort. I wanna make the best music, I wanna be one of the best artists, and that is just where my intention is.
I feel like the R&B that’s being put out now is, it’s making it cool not to love, it’s making it cool not to wanna be in love, it’s making it cool to be a cold-hearted person
Tell us what you think about R&B today compared to, like, the 90s? From what I can tell, it’s like you’re channeling that era a bit and bringing that sound back.
I feel like R&B is getting lost and misinterpreted. There’s a lot of different things that’s being labeled R&B these days, it’s kinda throwing me off, honestly. I’m just tryna make it my goal to just really be true to R&B and not be afraid to look corny and just do it in a way that’s true to me and the type of R&B that I love and grew up on.
I’m just always trying to make sure that’s a core of what I do and how I approach it. I’d like to be one of the trailblazers. There’s definitely some people who’s doing it the right way, or the way people before us respect as well. I just have so much respect for the game, for R&B, I mean, and for the people that came before us. People just start calling any and everything Hip Hop, the lines are just getting too blurry.
What do you think happened that R&B got lost?
I feel like a lot of people doing R&B, in quotation marks, ain’t really, like, listen or know what came before them, like the people they look up to or they like or who’s been really influential in their career have been, like, Hip Hop guys, not R&B guys. So they, like, doing new hybrid R&B, which is cool, but I don’t see it as R&B.
There’s a certain swagger and approach. Like, R&B guys were ladies’ men. I don’t know what people are these days, but it’s just not the same. I don’t wanna be a hater about it, but it’s just not. I don’t look at it as R&B, I don’t know what it is, but it ain’t R&B to me.
I definitely wouldn’t call you a hater, if anything you just wanna be true to your art. What would you say are the top tenets of R&B that are essential to stay true to?
One is actually singing. [Two is] actually being love songs or about love-making or being related to love, something for the soul. R&B should make you wanna sing the song out loud in a mirror. R&B should make you wanna be in a relationship. It made you want the guy that was singing those songs, it made guys wanna be the guy that was singing those songs!
It just don’t have that type of influence anymore, you know? The influence just isn’t the same. I feel like the R&B that’s being put out now is, it’s making it cool not to love, it’s making it cool not to wanna be in love, it’s making it cool to be a cold-hearted person. R&B was never based on that. It was okay to be vulnerable, like, R&B was the one place where it was ok to be vulnerable, and like, it’s not vulnerable anymore.
You grew up in Compton, but chose to live in NYC for a few years. How did that help shape your identity?
Definitely gave me the work ethic, and it cured the ego. I remember going to NY and the first day I got there, it was like a huge outside block party kind of thing, and there was this DJ, he was DJ-ing for the block party, and then three or four hours later, he was working on the [subway] rails in, like, a construction worker outfit, and that just blew my mind! Like, man, NY is just really different, and they work out here and they’re not ashamed about it.
That is the culture, the facade isn’t as important as it is out here. That’s what it taught me, and that’s what I carried on with me when I got back to LA, about the work, doing what I gotta do and not worrying about how I look, like, oh I’m an artist, but I gotta work a 9-5, like, I don’t care, you know what I’m saying?
It don’t matter how I look like right now, when I get there it won’t even matter, if anything it’ll be inspirational. That is the one thing I took from NY, it inspired a work ethic in me. I consider that my college years, like, it’s a lot of things I learned as a young man: learned how to live on my own, do things on my own, getting a bank on my own, getting an apartment under my name for the first time, learning how to, like, wash clothes across the street at the laundromat, you know!
Lastly, any hot takes on K-pop?!
I f*ck with K-pop! They do their homework and they do the proper due diligence. You ask all them K-pop artists, they know who came before them, and they know where R&B come from and they doin’ it the right way, even though I don’t understand their language, I feel it! I feel the music. I respect the way they approach R&B and just everything with music.
Thanks, Gemaine! See you at the next album release party! – Hype
