A singer to watch
East Bay’s Rayana Jay rising with music about ‘not so pretty parts’ of love
“You watch all these (television) stories about love and these romantic comedies, and it’s always so cookie-cutter. They never talk about the anxieties of the relationship. That’s what my music is for.” Rayana Jay
get Labor Rayanaa call Day, to Jay Monday, performwent to Sept.at the the first4, annual alongsideHiero OaklandDay manyin hip-hop2012,of her so East festivalfor her, Bay onto peers was nothing short of “amazing.” “It means the world to me, not just because I’m a hip-hop fan and I’m from the Bay Area,” says the 23-year-old Richmond R&B singer-songwriter. “I’m super close with (festival curator) Tim House; I call him my uncle. Just seeing his vision grow and grow as the years go by, I think it’s so tight that all these artists from these different places and genres come through in a posi-
tive way.”
Jay, who grew up singing in her church’s choir, had an early talent for music. She even went on to direct the choir herself. But she didn’t consider performing professionally until last year,when she met her manager, Evangeline Elder, who runs a boutique artist marketing agency and has worked with local acts like singer 1-O.A.K. and rapper Elujay. “I buckled down,” she says. “I decided making music is what I wanted to do.”
Writing about the complexities of relationships and “situationships” — those undefined, fleeting romantic liaisons — Jay makes music about the “not-so-pretty parts” of love.
“You watch all these (television) stories about love and these romantic comedies, and it’s always so cookie-cutter,” she says. “They never talk about the anxieties of the relationship. That’s what my music is for — just honesty. We love love songs, but we need to actually talk about what’s happening.”
People are starting to talk about Rayana Jay, too. Fresh off a trip to New York for a listening party for her new EP, “Morning After,” which drops on Sept. 15, the singer has gotten nods from NPR and the Fader. It’s all moving a bit fast, but “it’s that good type of overwhelming,” says the singer. “It’s wild and I love it.”
One song in particular that’s been earning her new fans is “Everything.” A more upbeat, partially rapped song serves as the foil to the velvety, intimate tones of her debut EP, “Sorry About Last Night,” which was released last fall. Jay notes the song was inspired by her own “situationship” as well as by working with local hip-hop artists and producers like rapper P-Lo, co-founder of the Bay Area hip-hop collective known as the HBK Gang, and producer Mikos da Gawd, who has worked with rising rapper Caleborate.
Jay remembers that she was “instantly drawn” to the faster tempo of the song because it was unlike most of her repertoire. The beat required her to get a bit creative with the speed of her lyrics, but because of her friendships and experience in collaborating with Bay Area artists, Jay was able to embrace the opportunity to singrap — the skills of her peers “kind of rubbed off on me,” she says.
That fun energy Jay talks about shows up in her live set, even if it is beset with a bit of nerves.
“It’s a lot of me singing and making nervous jokes,” she says, laughing. “People tell me all the time, ‘Your show is so tight. It’s music and it’s comedy!’ I’m glad you guys find it funny, but I’m doing a lot of nervous rambling. I try to keep it fun, try to keep it light, and I just let the music do the talking.”
Luckily, the singer will be surrounded by friends when she performs at Hiero Day. The day festival’s lineup “shows a lot of love to local acts” she knows, and she notes that even the vendors — selling food and clothing, or supporting a local organization — tend to be familiar Bay Area figures. “It’s absolutely a community event.
“People come because they love music,” she adds. “With everything going on in the world, everyone so divided, we can all come together this one day because we all love this one thing.”