Singer, rapper and genre-bender Jaya Leigh is making her streaming debut with a vibrant remix of Host Bodies’ “You Are Not Like Them”, featured on Daily Apparatus’ 10 Year Remixes.
Blending rap, house, funk, drum and bass and everything in between, Jaya is less interested in fitting into a box than following whatever feels right. Fresh off a creative collaboration that gave her the freedom to experiment, she joins LOCK to talk about trusting her instincts, finding her voice and building a sound that feels unapologetically her own.
- Your remix of “You Are Not Like Them” marks your debut on streaming. What did stepping into this project reveal to you about the artist you are becoming?
My first track! It’s exciting. So I knew I wanted to bring in some new sounds when remixing You Are Not Like Them. I told Nick (aka Shred), who helped me produce this track, that I wanted a 4-on-the-floor house get down at some point. I also wanted a funky bassline. Now, I don’t play bass guitar. So what Shred and I did was first find a grungy tone that I liked, and then I essentially sang and beatboxed to express what I wanted him to play, and he literally manifested the bassline on the spot. It was quite hilarious! He’s a really talented guitar + bass player and intuitively knew what I meant.
This project revealed to me to trust my instincts when it comes to orchestrating. I love house music, rap, drum and bass, downtempo, but also rock and roll, funk, and jam-music. This remix is eclectic and doesn’t fit into one category, but I created a song that I genuinely love, rather than something that I think people will like. As long as I continue to create in that way, I will be victorious and happy with the output. I’m obsessed with the track. I am absolutely so proud of it, and have it on repeat, so I trust that it will find its fandom.
- You move between singing and rapping, two forms that are often treated as separate lanes. What draws you to the space between them, and how do you decide which part of your voice a song needs?
I follow many female rapper-singers, so I think that line gets blurred more and more in modern music. Even though I consider myself a singer first, I can recite many of my favorite raps from memory, from Biggie to Ludacris to SZA and Megan Thee Stallion. So when I was coming up with the rap section, I was making analytical conscious choices for the lyrics and pacing, but ultimately moving between singing and rapping was an intuitive process. When recording with Shred, we would put the beat on a loop and do long takes where I was just rapping and singing and playing and making bold choices, just doing what felt right and fun in the moment.
- Your contribution brings a very different energy to the original track. When you first heard “You Are Not Like Them”, what did you hear in it that made you want to make it your own?
I love Swoop’s lyrics in his raps with Host Bodies. His lyrics are what inspired me to choose to remix it. He is an incredible poet, wordsmith, and notably I was swooned by the line ‘Little Indigo Rose, that grows from a wrought-iron fence, You Are Not Like Them.’ I interpreted Swoop’s lyrics as if Indigo Rose was a character, a human, a woman, who has grown victoriously in the most difficult circumstances. In my head I see the image of a flower that somehow grows in between the cracks of the pavement. And in this Indigo Rose character, I see myself. Early on in the process I was going back and forth between deciding to write my own lyrics or rap the lyrics that were already in the song… and I remember I was driving in my car when what felt like ‘divine inspiration’ struck. I was gifted the idea to do a callback to Swoop’s lyrics and introduce my part from the perspective of ‘Her’, Indigo Rose.
- As a woman working across rap, electronic music and other genre boundaries, have you ever felt pressure to define yourself more narrowly than you wanted to? How do you push back against that?
Y’know, this is only the beginning. I’m just on the precipice of nurturing the musician/artist within me. So thankfully, I can say that I haven’t felt the pressure to define myself more narrowly when it comes to genre boundaries. This creative project with Host Bodies has been such an incredible blessing, knowing that this song, my debut on music platforms, feels uniquely, undeniably me.
- The Bay Area has a particularly rich history of artists crossing boundaries between music, technology, nightlife and experimental culture. How has being part of that environment shaped your creative identity?
That is so true, the Bay Area is unbelievably inspiring and an incubator for unique, 1 of 1, type-talent. My bay area music inspirations include: The Grateful Dead, Primus, Tupac, Steve Miller Band, Kehlani, E-40, to name a few. Based on my eclectic music taste… haha, you can imagine why I fit in here so well. I moved to San Francisco in 2022 and I feel so at home and connected to this environment. Even as a kid in high school, growing up in the Chicago suburbs (I had never been farther west than Illinois), I had this curious pull to San Francisco and remember my friends’ parents telling me they thought I would fit in here. Living here, and growing friendships with musicians and artists, has created safety for me to feel confident and emboldened to participate in this dream of mine!
- What can fans expect next from you?
I absolutely found a creative match collaborating with Host Bodies. I can say confidently that this track, this project couldn’t have been made without Shred and Swoop — they trusted my vision. Looking to the future, I want to continue to collaborate with my musician friends and loved ones (so much fun to work together and create magic!), AND I’m going to continue learning and expanding my knowledge on producing to get more familiar with the software so I can keep creating music that is uniquely mine <3