Happy is already a state, so if you create something that's happy... OK, wonderful... but when you're in a place of distress or trauma, there are so many more directions that can go in to me. Something that's happy can only truly go in one direction, whereas with something like distress, anger, trauma, there are so many more interesting possibilities that those emotions can create.
JlinI love to be challenged. I like to be in places where I don't have easy ways out; it's either I do it or I don't and, in my mind, I don't really have the option of don't.
JlinEvery artist, to me, should know why they're doing what they're doing. You shouldn't create simply because it sounds good to you. That's not a real response to me.
JlinIt's like, say you're a dancer and you've been studying modern dance your whole life so you're used to a certain aesthetic of music or motivation or influence, if I send you something that you're totally not used to or don't understand, rarely does that work. On the average, you're not gonna feel that and it won't be you. You have to be in there.
JlinIf you create something, it really should mean something more than that to you. I had to grow into all of this though, through a learning process. I didn't wake up one day and just say, 'Yeah, that's Jlin, there it is'. That's why I said it took my entire life to make this album and it comes back to having that comfort zone - if you don't have one, the more progress you make and the more creative you become over time.
JlinI always tell people that my creativity lies in the belly of the beast and that's exactly what it is. A lot of people think that 'dark' is a bad concept, but I think it's a beautiful thing because that's mostly where your best work comes from. You can say it's dark, but you splash so much colour on it from what's inside you. Everybody always puts negative connotations on the idea of darkness.
JlinI like somebody I can consider edgy, because, I also find that when people see me; the first thing they might think about me, musically, is that I rap or make beats, in the sense of trap or hip-hop or whatever, and when they hear what I actually create, they'll often be like, 'Wait a minute, I wasn't expecting this'.
Jlin