Natural Entrepreneur ♪ Young Business Owner ♪ Established Music Artist
London’s Steadfast is a series focusing on up and coming artists around London, this time the focus is on future star, Jade Moss.
Jade Moss has more than one reason as to why she is one of London’s up and coming artists the UK needs to watch out for. In 2019, after having released her first two tracks, along with two mesmerising music videos, Jade wrapped up the video shoot for her third single, Only You, in early December. For a new artist breaking into the industry, Jade has made unimaginable progress within her first year alone. After having spoken with the inspiring artist, it’s safe to say that Jade certainly has the radiant personality that both her work and social media reflect. However, there is much more to the Yorkshire singer than this. I in no way expected to listen to an inspiring life story that had me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end. Jade’s energy and drive are like wildfire, both unstoppable and spread to the people around her.
Jade’s Story
“I was brought up in Yorkshire, in a small countryside village near Holmfirth. My mum left my dad when I was about four (years old). She was working as a councillor, but she was a single parent of three kids so needless to say we were a little skint. My Dad was a self-made businessman… and in his youth was a little superficial loved to show off his riches and new money. So we were brought up understanding both sides of the coin literally.”
Jade depicts her father as having an entertaining character but also being a man with notable ambition, acknowledging that he built his business from nothing. As for her mother, one of Jade’s most memorable aspects was that of a single parent granting her daughter the opportunity to travel and discover unfamiliar cultures. At the age of 18, the young Jade moved to London and started her own fashion brand. Several years down the line, Jade was an established designer running two London boutiques, and a factory. Various independent designers worked with the brand which was one later, displayed on Topshop shelves around the UK. However, 12 years later Jade decided to take her life on a different course. She closed down her shops and set out to begin a new life in Italy. It was there, that Jade became the mother to a beautiful daughter and ignited the spark to her musical career.
“There’s a lot of people waving that entrepreneurial thing around, but I did that from being eighteen (years old). I just had an idea and I did it then just worked it out as I went along but I knew that I was going to do it. So, I feel like all the stuff that I’ve done, including the travelling, being a fashion designer and learning the cutthroat side of business has been my learning curve to my own identity has brought me to understand myself enough to identify an image, a style with a persona to it.”
By watching, even just one of her videos, you can see that Jade is an established artist. Her sound is unique and gives you a sense of knowing where it stands. Jade reveals that she has relied on her experience working with fashion brands and it is something that has guided her through her creative direction. With a strong background in fashion and art, Jade has been able to implement her creativity in a resourceful and perfected way. During her time in fashion, Jade also had the opportunity to work with a successful film director.
“I learnt a lot about my creative art direction and why I’m creating my personal style, my bold colours, my brightness. It’s something that I’ve always loved and anyone who knows me knows it’s very authentic to me. I understood the production side and the editing side. I feel like that really helped sort of navigate through the videos from doing the work to get the final video out there. I feel quite confident in the videography ideas and execution. Although, it’s quite difficult to see yourself on the other side of the camera.”
With the skills and experience she gained along with her own experience, Jade understands that her focus needs to be 50/50. She stresses that the creative side is just as important as the track in today’s industry.
“It’s not enough anymore to just sit in front of the camera with a guitar and sing. These days, everything needs to be put together, like a production.”
The Pearly Queen…
If you’ve been blown away by the dazzling productions of ‘Pearly Queen,’ and ‘Listen to Your Mama,’ you need to hold on to your socks as Jade is just getting started. The Yorkshire singer reports to have an ample number of tracks currently in the works and judging by the passion in which she talks about them, they are undoubtedly going to marvel just as much, if not more, than the others.
“I’d say that the other tracks that I’ve got, that are coming out next year, are a little bit deep[er] and [more] meaningful to me and bit more personal. The more I’ve gotten into writing, the more I’ve started to open up and sort of allow the vulnerable writing to come out. And so, there’s a lot more, of, a mixed bag really, of like raw emotions and there’s a lot of emotions that are attached to them from my past.”
Jade finished shooting the music video for her latest track, ‘Only You,’ back in November 2019, right before the track’s release on the 3rd December. This song is a portrayal of Jade’s journey and illustrates a message of how we all carry emotional baggage. We are likely to witness visual metaphors throughout the music video, catered by Jade’s creative genius.
On the 13th May 2019, Jade released her debut single, ‘Pearly Queens.’ This might have caught your eye like a bright pearl for some of you, but for those of you who have never walked past the intricately sewn patterns, heavily decorated carts or the shiny pearls, Jade’s track is a direct reference to our glorious ‘Pearly Kings and Queens’. A prominent fragment of British Working-Class tradition, the ‘The Pearlies’ are a charitable organisation whose members have passed down their dazzling dresses and suits, from generation to generation, since the 1870s. A young street sweeper named Henry Croft created a distinct suit using pearl buttons from the fashionable trousers of the time. His aim was to draw attention to himself and most importantly, the cause he supported.
“So, I was literally on a tube to meet my music producer and we were about to work on a song that we had already been working on in the studio. I wrote Pearly Queen or at least three-quarters of it on the tube. I had an idea in my mind about creating something about Britain.”
This has resulted in the creation of something more patriotic than political. Through this creation, the artist has not only manifested her pride in being British but has also honoured one of Britain’s most iconic charitable organisations, highlighting the importance of unity at this time.
Positive Message
In recent years, there seem to be increasingly more artists in the charts incorporating a positive message in their tracks. Artists such as Sia, Alessia Cara and quite recently Lizzo have encouraged inner-strength, self-love and body positivity.
“In regards to a positive image, I feel like if you don’t work with what’s true to you and what comes to the heart really, and the stomach, and the soul, and the spirit… then you really will end up not enjoying what you’re doing or just not having that authenticity that you need these days for people to buy into you as a public figure or as a person or brand.”
Jade fully endorsed it and encouraged it to be done more so. She feels that a lot of singers, despite the large audience and huge platform at their disposition, don’t incorporate a positive image in their music. Jade sees this as wasted chances for positivity to have gone out there. Jade has had many fall downs in her life, but she has always got herself up again, never faltering in the pursuit of her ambitions.
Grit & Graft
These are Jade’s two key ingredients to achieving success. Her advice to anyone reading this and a message expressed through her journey is to never let anyone tell you not to do things. This is a motto that Jade has carried with her whole life, forging a successful business and thriving fashion brand. The artist experienced a tragic loss in Italy, something that she describes as having given her a “kick in the arse” and making her realise that life is too short.
Up and Coming Artists
Despite having the entrepreneurial experience and considerable drive, Jade admits that this is the toughest industry that she has ever been in. For the artists looking to break into the industry, Jade’s advice is: “You need to know what you want and how you wish to be seen. You really need to put it together. There are a lot of talented artists out there but because they mess about, they quickly fall out of the competition.”
To showcase her point, Jade explained that everything she has done so far has been on a ‘Zero-budget.’ The work that has come out of this budget has been stunning and ensured that all parties involved in the creative process were benefitted by each project. Looking back to when she first started, one of the first things that Jade did as an artist was to find her style. She explains that this sort of thing takes time. Around that time, she’d had two meetings with reputable labels. During both meetings, Jade found that they wanted substantial control over her career path, thus, restricting her from doing the things that she wanted to do. Jade decided to turn down both very good offers as she felt that they weren’t for her. Instead, the resourceful singer set out on her own course, creating her art and producing her own vision.
“Don’t care about what others think about you. Do whatever you need to do and make sure you’re enjoying it. I would also say; life’s too short to care what people think, or to be too serious because none of us get out alive anyway.”
Check out her song, Only You, here on Apple Music.
By Sam Dawson
Images provided by Jade Moss/Instagram
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