Source: iOne Digital Creative Services
Erika Denae J’s art is an intersection between music and healing. The Pittsburgh native, whose musical roots range from Charlie Parker’s bebop to Erykah Badu’s neo soul, is imbued with a sense of freedom in her songs that she finds through introspection. By writing the songs she needs, Denae J has found a way to connect with audiences seeking those same restorative sounds.
Their upcoming second album, in the mood forpromises to build on her acclaimed 2022 debut, Rx Melodiesdraws on Denae J’s diverse influences to offer a sonic journey that spans genres and moods, united by her rich vocals and understated, moody production. Denae J herself, meanwhile, is about to begin studying music therapy – deepening, literally, the connection she has always felt between art and wellbeing.
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Erika Denae J. | Source: Dymond Jewell
Her new project is called In the mood for. This sentence usually ends with the word “Love.” It’s a movie title, a jazz standard that everyone from Nat King Cole to Heavy D has covered. What does this title mean to you?
I didn’t follow the jazz standard at all, but that’s ironic because jazz is my first love in music. People always ask, “Have you had any singing lessons? Formal musical training?” And I always tell them, “No, I grew up listening to Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Charlie Parker and I just fell in love with the fluidity of that music.”
So this project combines all the things that have shaped me as an artist. No matter what mood I’m in or what genre I’m listening to — whether it’s gospel, R&B, neo soul, blues, or even acoustic soft rock from the 1970s and early 1980s — no matter what mood I’m in, when I hear these songs, it’s always filtered through my jazz lens. But when I’m in the mood for jazz, I’m in the mood to relax and hang out. When I’m in the mood for neo soul, I want to bob my head a little bit more. I need something to keep me going. (Music) always satisfies a certain need that I have. And so with this project, it’s just like, “These are all things that define (me) as an artist.” So I can feel 100 percent comfortable releasing music and not worry about the genre. But jazz is always at the top. For me, jazz is like home.
Erika Denae J performs at the Rubber City Jazz and Blues Festival in Akron, Ohio in September 2023. | Source: L Squared Photos
What is your earliest musical memory?
Oh, my goodness. When I was a young girl, my mom would always crank up BeBe and CeCe Winans. So gospel was embedded in my life early on. And as for my dad, I remember a lot of Michael Jackson, a little bit of George Benson, a little bit of Earth Wind & Fire and Boyz II Men. We would go to family reunions in Montezuma, Georgia, and my grandfather would play Ray Charles nonstop. By the time the Ray Charles movie came out, I knew it all. And on my dad’s side, we would bake cookies around Christmas time and my aunts would play Sade.
The hard jazz came from my cross country coach, Coach Flynn. One time he was driving us home from practice and “So What” by Miles Davis was playing in the van and it just captivated me. I went home that night and found the song and played it over and over. Then I started learning about his other songs. And then I learned about John Coltrane and Charlie Parker and Dave Brubeck. I would imitate the horns – I was scatting the horns before I knew what scatting was. It really helped me develop as a singer because I was playing all these different scales before I even knew what they were.
Source: Dymond Jewell
What was the process of writing and composing this album like? Did you know from the beginning what scope and type of writing you would need to create this arc, or did you find that the individual songs showed you what the album was? In other words, is this album more of a novel or a collection of short stories?
It’s definitely a novel. I’m trying to do the concept, the arc of the concept. So I intentionally said, “I want to have a distinctly gospel track.” And I wanted to have something that was in the standard jazz area, where you have the brushes on the drums and you really listen to the trumpets, and there’s a lot of space and movement. And then I also have a neo-soul song where the bass is thumping, like D’Angelo.
I drew from genres that I really love. And I tried to shape the songs, their outlines. I would say, “This is exactly what’s going to go into these songs production-wise. I want this sound, I want this type of musician, this type of instrument.” But then as I started developing the songs, some of them took on their own shape. So if the song starts one way and goes into something else, that’s fine too. I just want it to feel like me.
There will be a book accompanying the album. How does that fit in with the music?
The book will delve deeply into where the songs come from. It will have some poetry, some prose, some lyrics and line sketches to tie things together. It will most likely be an autobiography, as it draws on stories.
Erika Denae J performs at the “Soon As I Get Home” concert at Thunderbird Cafe in Pittsburgh in January 2024. | Source: Nana Effah Raymond
An important part of the book is that I want to encourage people. I plan to study music therapy in the fall, and I try to connect health spaces and holistic socioemotional health through my music, songwriting, writing, and poetry. The book will give the reader space to connect with their experiences – so they can process them too. It’s really cathartic to have a space to reflect. That’s important during this time.
It is interesting to think about music and therapy and music as therapy. This has been a theme in your work before; your last album is called Rx Melodies.
When I came back from Spain, I discovered that music was a cure for me. I was struggling with severe depression and hadn’t studied medicine, even though I wanted to help people. And so I learned there how beautiful it is to sit down, spend time with yourself and just let go of how you feel. It was like letting go of what was on my heart and in my head.
Erika Denae J promotes her 2022 debut EP Rx Melodies. | Source: Dymond Jewell
A lot of the songs on this album were songs that I sang to myself when I needed encouragement, when I needed to pick myself up or get myself up. And then eight or nine months after I came back from Spain, I found out that I was going to train to be a music therapist. I think I should put this project out there first to understand that this really does exist and then start practicing it and studying it and researching it – and then integrating it more deeply into my own music and saying, “These songs can actually help you with depression or anxiety or whatever you’re going through.”
Adam Mansbach is a novelist, filmmaker (Barry), and author whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. The Golem of Brooklyn is his latest book.
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