Manny King John
Meet the 17-year-old powerhouse, Major Myjah who is a force to be reckoned with. Not only does Major Myjah sing, he also writes his own music and plays the guitar. You might have heard Myjah featured on Asher Roth’s track, Last of the Flohicans, he was also featured in Calvin Harris’ music video for Feel So Close. The list goes on for the many accomplishments reached by Myjah.
This special one-on-one interview with Major Myjah explores the musician’s creative input into the music industry and his overall life. To be so young and alert, is what stands out the most to me about Major Myjah. If you listen to the song, “I Can’t Breathe” he sings about the on-going wrongful deaths of people like Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and more. In the interview, we also discuss his newest music video entitled “Cry” and the releasing of his debut album, which will be dropping Spring 2015 via Warner Brothers Records.
Major Myjah has so much on his plate, but at the same time he is fulfilling his goals and reaching elevated places. This is most definitely the year to look out for Major Myjah. This is his time. This is his season.
Since you’re so young in the music industry, how do you balance your professional life and your social life?
The thing about being in the music industry is that all of my friends come from music, young and old. All of my friends have something to do with music, so really they all kind of intertwine together.
How old are most of your friends? Are they your age or older?
I have a core group of friends that are around my age that all create music, they write and work. I have a lot of older friends, based on working with different people in the industry.
Are you currently in school or did you graduate already?
I’m finishing school now. I am in my senior year.
Are you in the California Virtual School System?
I was up until about two months ago. I switched to a different program that worked better for my schedule.
But it’s still online right?
No, actually it’s just packaged now rather than online. I go into school like twice a week.
Knowing that you write your own material, would you say that you feel empowered or more creative than some musicians who don’t write their own music?
I never want to put anyone down, but I definitely do feel like I am more empowered creatively because I can control more of my creative and control more like the way my music goes and what’s true to my sound and who I am.
Have you always written your music?
Yes, from the beginning.
Even Sunshine? I think it was called Sunshine. The video you came out with in 2009?
Yep. A long, long time ago.
I’ve seen that video, it was cute.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, I definitely wrote that. I’ve been writing since I was 4, so this was something that’s been natural and it’s followed my music up until now.
With your debut album coming out in Spring 2015, what direction are you going for in your songs?
I want to leave that a bit of a secret, my sound is very open and it’s not genre specific, so I want to leave it open for interpretation.
I listened to “I Can’t Breathe” on your Soundcloud, tell me why you made the song? I know it was a tribute.
I feel like there’s a lot of stuff going on in America with the Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Trayvon, The Ferguson riots and no one was talking about it in music or in the creative space and I feel like something needed to be said. It can’t just be about all random stuff that is playing now. I really felt emotional about it, so I wanted to put it out there.
Will there be a video for that?
There could be, there’s not really talks about it right now.
I feel like there should be a video for it, it should be continuously talked about in my opinion.
I definitely want to do something, it’s just about making it happen.
Sounds good. How did you get linked with Asher Roth?
That actually happened because I was working with these producers called Blended Babies who did a lot of stuff for Asher’s project, and I did a bunch of courses on their tracks. I found out that Asher hopped on it, and then I met him a couple of months later and we put out the records and it was a beautiful thing. I did some touring with him and it was a dope experience.
So you did vocals and guitar for the Last of The Flohicans?
I only did the vocals. I wish I did the guitar.
In your debut video “Cry”, what was the direction and the creative process like?
I actually wrote that record two years ago. When I started writing it, I thought it would be a dope concept to write a song with no words in the chorus, just a melody. Melody is the number one singing language forever. Where there’s language, there’s melody. So I thought it was a pretty dope idea and so we just moved forward with it, and that’s how it came about.
I hear that you’re going to The GRAMMYs this weekend. How exciting is that for you? Will you be performing?
Just networking for now. Hopefully, I’ll be nominated next year and performing. That would be a beautiful thing.
So you know the name of our magazine is called GrungeCake, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of it?
Sounds like an odd textured tape that might have some music coming from it, like old grunge music. Sounds cool though, I like the name.
Thank you for the interview.
Thank you for the support. If you guys need anything else, I will definitely be here.
Myeka Peters (Transcriptionist)
Tavia Hartley (Transcriptionist)
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