Jada Freeman, ‘Vibe With Me’ - Single Review

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Jada Freeman, ‘Vibe With Me’ - Single Review

Last year’s 'Vibe With Me’ is a seductive, inviting and playful single from Jada Freeman. The track has hugely diversified her style and expanded expectations for her work ever since.

Brand new to Jeeni, Jada Freeman is an exhilarating producer, singer and songwriter from East London. Although she thrives in the world of RnB, Jada casts a wide net of styles and approaches to her music that will catch you off-guard in the best possible ways. Jada has contributed all of her singles so far to Jeeni, including her successful track, ‘Illusions’ which has nearly 10,000 listens and is only available on Jeeni and Soundcloud. Check out her Jeeni showcase to listen to all of her music: https://jeeni.com/showcase/adkcmyfeevyu/

The first thing ‘Vibe With Me’ plays you is a creeping, mischievous bass line that darts around the beat and contains a lot of personality for a bass part. Underneath the bass is a warbling synth which acts as a sort of bed of sound and comfort. The flickering low-pass filter on the synth gives the entire track a relaxing, under-water tone which entices the listener in, hence the apt title. The beat is so fitting for this tranquil, yet alluring track. Alternative, new-age percussion is used to provide the beat instead of just kicks, snares and hi-hats. This choice makes the track entirely more interesting and stylistically layered than many other artists in this corner of contemporary music.

The more obviously captivating component of this single is Jada’s vocal talent. Occasionally conversational like her named influence, Lilly Allen and other times soulful and staggering, Jada’s voice is a powerful tool in carrying her creative intentions and in ‘Vibe With Me’, that weapon is in full force. Jada also makes an experimental use of her voice as backing vocals that echo the welcoming title. Pitch-shifted both up and down at the same time and synthesised, Jada makes her voice into an entirely different type of instrument to emphasise the title and sentiment of the track throughout; a genius production device from the upcoming artist.

Check out this brilliant track on Jeeni here: https://jeeni.com/vibe-with-me-jada-freeman/

How can Jeeni support artists like Jada Freeman?

JEENI is a multi-channel platform for original entertainment on demand. We’re a direct service between creatives and the global audience.

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• We give creatives, independent artists and performers a showcase for their talent and services. And they keep 100% of everything they make.
• We empower our audience and reward them every step of the way.
• We promise to treat our members ethically, fairly, honestly and with respect.
• Access to artist liaison and a supportive marketing team.

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03
Dec

Weekly Round-Up # 5

The latest news on all things Jeeni, music and entertainment. BRITs announce the shortlist for the ‘2022 Rising Star Award’ Last year, the shortlist saw a vibrant and colourful shortlist consisting of Coventry rapper Pa Salieu, experimental electropop sensation, Rina Sawayama and finally the victor, Griff, a master in emotive pop songwriting. This year, a trio of female powerhouses makes up the shortlist, each with a distinct and remarkable display of strengths; Lola Young tends to leave space in her compositions for the raw power and emotional impact of her voice to shine first and foremost, whereas, Bree Runway takes a more bombastic, loud-and-proud approach with her floor-filling hip-hop bangers. Holly Humberstone, perhaps the most known here, seems to combine parts of both Lola’s vocal precedence and Bree’s grandiose and full instrumentals to make well-rounded pop hits. An exciting and promising collection of British artists, one of which are destined to join the ranks of previous prestigious winners including Adele, Florence + The Machine and Sam Smith. 64th Grammy Nominees Announced Speaking of nominees, the Grammy 2022 nominations were announced last week, featuring both safe and some daring inclusions. Jon Batise featured all over this year’s nominations list for his uplifting and soulful RnB sound. From record and album of the year to Best Contemporary Classical Composition, Batiste was in total nominated 11 times. At Jeeni, Keithian features a similar sense of joy and jubilation in his RnB style. Check out Keithian’s page on Jeeni: https://jeeni.com/?s=keithian Billie Eilish and her producer brother, Finneas also featured across many of the categories this year for their album ‘Happier Than Ever’. Other pop album nominees include Justin Bieber, Olivia Rodrigo, Ariana Grande and Brandi Charlie. Finneas also found himself on the ‘Best New Artist’ category along-side Mercury Award winner, Arlo Parks and cousin of Kendrick Lamar, Baby Keem. If Jeeni were included on the decision-making process, Ariana May, Marley Blandford and Olivia King would certainly be up for some of the year’s best pop performances and releases. Check out Jeeni’s pop channel: https://jeeni.com/channel/all-channels/pop/ Jazz legend, Tony Bennett features several times for his and Lady Gaga’s moving and nostalgic swing album, ‘Love For Sale’ as a respectable nod from The Recording Academy. Record, album and music video of the year are just a few of Bennett and Lady Gaga’s acknowledgments in the 64th Grammys. Check out Jeeni’s jazz channel: https://jeeni.com/channel/all-channels/jazz/ Licensing Leaders PPl and PRS Make Promising Action to Improve Progress on Diversity and Recruitment in The Music Industry Tomi Oyewumi has been enlisted as PPL’s equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) partner as a step in the right direction to influence the industry towards a more diverse and inclusive future. Tomi explains the meaning of true diversity and the impact PPL could potentially make. “That’s not just for race and gender, but looking at other areas such as social mobility. It’s about how that has an impact on what we do at PPL, but also how we can then use that to influence the wider music industry as well.” PRS hired Colin Campbell-Austin as head of inclusion and employee experience in October. This position is responsible for recruitment, engagement and talent development in PRS. On the PRS website they had this to say about Campbell-Austin, “Throughout his career, Colin has ensured recruitment of diverse talent from all social backgrounds, created first-class inclusive recruitment processes, talent development strategies and leadership and development programmes, with a focus on people, diversity, and inclusion.” More diversity means more representation and experiences expressed in the industry from all corners, resulting in a more colourful and expressive world of music. An exciting development for the industry indeed. Splendour in the Grass, Truck and Download; Just a Few of the Recently Announced Summer Festival Lineups Although governments worldwide are currently assessing the risks of COVID-19 making a much un-welcomed potential come-back, it’s hard not to get excited for the potential wave of epic festivals that we could enjoy in the coming Summer of 2022. Australian festival giant, ‘Splendour in the Grass’ cautiously released their lineup after many reschedules and cancellations due to COVID. ‘Splendour in the Park’ typically showcases homegrown Aussie talent with UK and USA headliners. For 2022, the UK corner, features the previously mentioned Holly Humberstone, Liam Gallagher, Tom Misch and headlining the first evening of the weekend is the all-genre virtual sensation, Gorillaz. The American talent includes SITP veterans, ‘Yeah Yeah Yeahs’, New York rock icons, The Strokes and Tyler, The Creator. Australia’s representatives include the new and promising Genesis Owusu, Tim Minchin and Alice Ivy. Oxfordshire’s ‘Truck Festival’ also announced a star-studded (albeit slightly less varied) lineup for their big weekend in July 2022. Typically featuring an exhibit of the biggest current indie acts with varying levels of something a little harder for those that want it and next year will be no different. The festival promises the likes of Bombay Bicycle Club, Blossoms and Sam Fender alongside the heavier Kasabian, Shame and Dinosaur Pile Up not to mention indie legends, The Kooks. Continuing the increase in heaviness, another massive festival lineup announcement comes from the legendary Donington Park ‘Download Festival’. Headliners, Kiss, Iron Maiden and Biffy Clyro are joined by heavy rock and metal peers such as Korn, Deftones, Megadeth and Black Label Society in a collaboration to deafen the entirety of Leicestershire next June 10th weekend. Jeeni News: Kissing The Flint’s New ‘100 Or Less’ Music Video Success On the weekend, folk-rock act, Kissing The Flint released a dynamic and spirited music video for their equally feisty and powerful new single, ‘100 Or Less’. The video matches the emotional and hopeful message the single holds regarding covid and the arts not getting enough funding. Check out the video now, on Jeeni: https://jeeni.com/100-or-less-kissing-the-flint-official-music-video/ And check out the review of ‘100 Or Less’ here: https://jeeni.com/blog/kissing-the-flint-single-review/ Brand New DarkStarGraver Single Out today, ‘Gohan’ is the newest single from rising Portsmouth rapper, singer and poet, DarkStarGraver. Catchy and bouncy, DSG's newest track is textbook melodic hip-hop. Check it out now. Find out more about DarkStarGraver with our Artist Focus here: https://jeeni.com/blog/darkstargraver-rapper-singer-poet/ Jeeni PCs Still Available after Black Friday Sale! Jeeni has partnered with Chillblast to bring customers exclusive branded PCs designed for musicians and creatives. Chillblast is the UK’s Most Awarded PC Manufacturer. Find out more about Chillblast here, and discover why Jeeni has partnered with Chillblast to bring Special Edition music PCs with exclusive Jeeni branding. As well as a year’s subscription to the Jeeni Platform with each order worth £85. Chillblast Jeeni PCs are perfect for all musicians and creatives, whether you’re an independent bedroom pop artist or a music producer working on the next number 1 one single. Get the best deal on music PCs with our black Friday 2021 offer. Buy your Jeeni Music PC built and warrantied by the UK’s most awarded PC manufacturer here: https://www.chillblast.com/celebrity-pcs/jeeni-pcs. Jeeni Is Looking for You to Join Our Team! We are currently offering the roles of Sales Executive and Senior Developer as a part of the governmental Kickstart scheme and these roles are for ages 16-24 and on Universal Credit. We are also offering a sales internship for university students trying to get experience during their education. For more information, visit: https://uk.indeed.com/jobs?q=jeeni&l&vjk=a9b44f31a3321877 We look forward to hearing from you!

14
Feb

Pat Spencer & JoeSach - ‘Alive & Surviving’ EP Review

This collaboration between a heart-felt lyricist and a versatile songwriter results in a sweet and layered three-track project. Although songwriter and producer, JoeSach has already uploaded various electronic tracks on the global streaming platform, Pat Spencer is a new addition to Jeeni and has already broadened Jeeni’s indie channel. Be sure to check out the showcases of these two invaluable jeeni artists: JoeSach - https://jeeni.com/showcase/joesach/ and Pat Spencer - https://jeeni.com/showcase/patspencer/. Pat Spencer’s sweet lyrics and vocal talent provide the heart to this project, while producer, JoeSach forms the body with day-dreamy and mellow instrumentals. The creative and stylistic change of pace lends itself well to Pat’s voice; with thrashing live drums and angsty bass-centered tracks, Pat’s last year singles were much rowdier and faster paced. His casual, yet sincere vocals contain a lot of character and have been fully realised with these calmer instrumentals. The opening track, ‘I Like You’ is an excellent introduction to this short project. It swells open with a filter-swept beat and warm electric piano chord as though this EP is warming up. With the softer, jazz inspired instrumentals, Pat’s conversational lyrics and sweet melodies are much more obviously reminiscent of Rex Orange County and the British take on bedroom pop. This light-hearted introduction helps set the initially brighter tone which helps contrast the darker tracks to come. ‘Time’, the second track, is a retrospective and peaceful cut. Layered, imperfect vocals make the song feel warm, comforting and real. While there’s a certain sadness in Pat’s voice here, there’s also acceptance and optimism as he sings ‘Keep your head down, you’ll be fine’. The particular easiness and comfort in Pat’s vocals on ‘Time’ makes the track a clear highlight. The final track, poetically named ‘The Persistence of Memory’ is an emotional and longing closer. The final piece of this trilogy feels the bleakest, making the project feel like a gradual decrease in hope and enthusiasm, which is an incredibly effective narrative considering it’s told in just three tracks. Minor keys, moody timbres and morose mixing helps to tell the story of this increasingly blue EP. How can Jeeni support artists like Pat Spencer? JEENI is a multi-channel platform for original entertainment on demand. We’re a direct service between creatives and the global audience. • We give creatives, independent artists and performers a showcase for their talent and services. And they keep 100% of everything they make. • We empower our audience and reward them every step of the way. • We promise to treat our members ethically, fairly, honestly and with respect. • Access to artist liaison and a supportive marketing team. album review album review album review

10
Jun

The Death of Letitia

Jeeni has returned to Crowdcube to raise more funds for helping new talent. Jeeni founding director Mel Croucher says, “We’re ahead of our original schedule, but there’s still so much more to do. We need to scale our online platform globally now and build our mass artist showcases. Jeeni raised £100K in 6 days and we're working hard to get more investors on board. Then we can hit all our targets, and give our new artists the recognition they deserve.” If you want to see our pitch click HERE. Mel has been writing the best-loved column in top-selling tech magazines for over 30 years. Now he’s agreed to share his work with all our members. He’s a video games pioneer and musician, and to to find out more about Mel check out his Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Croucher. Here’s one of Mel’s latest! Black lives matter. Unless black lives feature in a videogame, in which case they don't matter a toss. I still remember the feeling of hope and despair when I played Daley Thompson's Decathlon for the first time. That was way back in the Olympic year of 1984, and it was a primitive sports simulation from Ocean software for a little home computer called the 48k Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Daley Thompson was an Olympic gold medal winner from Notting Hill. He had a fine body, and a great moustache, and according to his skin he was the son of his assassinated Nigerian dad. Anyway, I fired up the game and there on my glowing colour monitor was the pixilated figure of Daley, the great black athlete, running along a red cinder track. The thing was, the programmers had made him white. No, I couldn't believe it either. A huge crowd of spectators also appeared in the gameplay, and every one of them was as white as a Ku Klux Klan convention in a chalk pit. It's not as if no black characters ever appeared in videogames. Almost all the assassins, hoodlums, terrorists, monsters and mobsters were black, and their purpose was to be killed off willy nilly. Apart from Michael Jackson. He was the hero in a Sega videogame called Moonwalker and his role was to rescue kidnapped children and take them home. So there was nothing creepy about that, was there. Mind you, wee Michael was mostly as white in the game as he was in real life. For a real black and white issue from the early twenty-first century, I have revisited Ethnic Cleansing, developed by Resistance Records for PC desktop machines. That's the one where the white player gets sent off on a quest to murder blacks. It is equal opportunity racism, because you also score points for killing Latinos and Jews. And speaking of equal opportunities let's hear it for the computer character Letitia who appears in an update of Deus Ex, which is set in a cyberpunk future. Letitia lives on a rubbish dump, she is as horny as she is simple, and she speaks minstrel drivel in the sort of deep-South accent last heard in a Mel Brooks parody. You couldn't make it up. Except that's exactly what they did. And shame on you Mary DeMarle for writing it, Amanda Strawn for acting it, and Square Enix for publishing it. In the USA, over 70% of all African Americans play video games, but they make up less than 3% of game developers, which tells me quite a lot about the state of the play over there. This side of the pond, things are much better, where we have over 10% of people working in game development of a BAME demographic. That's a higher percentage than their number in the national working population, and way higher than in UK publishing, tv and music. This is good news, but it's where the good news ends. Last time I visited a major gaming studio in pre-lockdown, I did see several black faces. One was on security at street level, one was behind the reception desk, two were behind the counter in the canteen, and one was swilling out the bogs. The number of black and minority ethnic decision-makers in the UK computer gaming industry is shockingly low. As a result, race has lagged way behind gender and sexuality when it comes to stereotypes in gaming. Mainstream game designers tend not to question a norm, and they rarely rock the boat by refusing to carry out a questionable storyboard handed down to them by predominantly white hands from above. Most game designers I come across have less creative imagination than Rufus my Irish Setter, not to mention a much poorer sense of loyalty and the inability to lick their own genitalia. Video games have always followed movies in characterisation, and they are painfully stiff with stereotypes. Historically, lazy, myopic creatives have allocated blacks four roles - the violent black, the servile black, the sidekick black and the comedy black. I am removing sports games and music games from my list, since they exhibit no imagination whatsoever, but simply copy real people from the real world, unless you happen to be Daley Thompson or Michael Jackson, of course. The blame for all this lies squarely with the course leaders who purport to teach video game creation in universities and colleges. I have never met a creative course leader who is darker skinned than me, and I'm a sort of mottled puce. They may well instruct their students to bung in a character of the negro persuasion as if to fill some sort of racial minority quota, a bit like when those tv adverts suddenly started to feature blacks doing non-traditional things. Like working in building societies, and driving new cars. The change is coming through the independent video game creators, the so-called home-brew developers, and the change had begun in the UK way before the Black Lives Matter movement gathered such momentum. Creative change always comes from the mavericks and rarely from the corporates. As for the people who play the games, next time you come across a racial stereotype you know what to do. Take a knee. To the groin of the writer, programmer and publisher. The Death of Letitia, from Deus Ex: Human Revolution Click HERE to visit or return to jeeni.com

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