Reyez (right) and
Eilish backstage at
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
in Los Angeles
last November.
28 BILLBOARD • MARCH 14, 2020
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.J
ESSIE REYEZ STARTED
feeling anxious in January, as
soon as her debut album was
announced. “There’s so much
pressure for a first album,”
says the singer-songwriter.
“And I never felt that before I started
doing interviews and people started
bringing it up, asking, ‘Do you feel
pressure for your first album?’ and I’m
like, ‘Well, fuck, I didn’t till now.’ ”
Reyez, 28, started releasing music
online in 2014, and her debut album,
Before Love Came to Kill Us, finally
comes out March 27 on FMLY/Island
Records, but “I could keep working on
it today,” says Reyez. “Like, someone
is going to have to put me in handcuffs
real soon if they don’t want me to
keep switching shit up.” She has been
feeling so impatient that she even con-
sidered a surprise release at one point,
saying her team “humbled me real
quickly, because they’re like, ‘Beyoncé
can do that, and Kendrick [Lamar] can
do that, but you’re not that yet,’ and it’s
true. I’m still in the beginning stages
of this legacy blueprint that I’ve been
working on for years.”
Now, Reyez is opening arenas for
her pal Billie Eilish (they first bonded
on Instagram two years ago and have
stayed close, even hopping in the
studio together). And come April,
Reyez will kick off a headlining tour of
her own. “However,” says co-manager
Mauricio Ruiz, “I’d be lying if I said
this is what we planned to the T. You
obviously work toward those things,
but you never know what will land.
You just try and prepare yourself as
much as possible when the opportuni-
ties present themselves.”
Reyez had her breakout hit in 2016
with the acoustic ballad “Figures”
that has since garnered 163.5 million
on-demand U.S. streams, according
to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. In 2017,
she opened for PartyNextDoor on his
European tour and independently
released her debut EP, Kiddo, on her
imprint, FMLY. (She signed to Island
later that year.) With it, she shared a
short film titled Gatekeeper that ad-
dressed her experiences with sexism
and double standards in the indus-
try. It won Video With a Message at
the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards
and established Reyez as a sharp,
outspoken voice — both in and out
of the studio, which is likely why the
pressure of a looming debut album
weighs even heavier. Says Darcus
Beese, Island Records president:
“She captures raw emotion and
brutal honesty like no other.”
Her second EP, 2018’s Being Human
in Public, included the sex-positive
“Body Count” remix, which featured
Normani and Kehlani singing, “We
don’t need no one tryna take our
freedom,” and earned Reyez her first
Grammy nomination, for urban con-
temporary album. “I remember being
hella little and not having cable at my
house, but seeing Grammy commer-
cials and seeing people doing what I
love to do [with] their life, thinking,
‘Fuck, that’s so sick.’ [It was] a dream
that was so far away, that society told
me I couldn’t get — and I still have a
lot of work to do, but [my nomination
was] a glimmer of, ‘Hey, you’re doing
it,’ ” she says now. The nod “mat-
ters to me because I’m a woman, and
I’m brown-skinned and Latina, and
because I come from an immigrant
family. So I just felt proud to have
been there, being who I am.”
Reyez, who now lives in Los Ange-
les, was born in Colombia, raised in
Toronto — and, as she says, with some-
thing to prove. “I’ve always said being
born a woman is like being born walk-
ing uphill, because you’re at a fucking
disadvantage. We’re at a disadvantage,”
she says. “We have to fight for so many
rights that are just given to men, which
is bullshit. But if I can make it any
easier, then I want to. The fact that
people connect with [my music] helps
give me a vocation.”
She believes her upbringing has
directly influenced her musical style,
which she best describes as “a mutt,”
though it often falls under R&B on
streaming services. But no matter
what she’s categorized as, or what
playlists her singles may appear on,
Reyez feels strongly about the album
as a format. On the current iteration
of the Before Love Came to Kill Us
tracklist — which, true to her word,
Reyez has switched up a handful of
times — there are ballads like the lush
“Love in the Dark,” trap-influenced
tracks like the flex “Ankles” and
the stripped-down “La Memoria,”
which she sings in Spanish. The
hourlong project comes to a close
with “Figures,” a choice, says Reyez,
she made later in the process as “a
nod to Kiddo, because that [EP] is
what gave me momentum.”
Now, Reyez compares both Kiddo
and Being Human in Public to “little
appetizers,” that hopefully helped
create a craving large enough that
fans want to digest a full album in one
sitting. As Island Records senior direc-
tor, A&R Jermi Thomas assures: “The
appetite is there.”
“Someone is going to have to put me
in handcuffs real soon if they don’t want
me to keep switching shit up.”
—REYEZ
BYRON WILSON
Manager
“One of the first times we actually
hung out, I had some people over at
my house in L.A. and [co-manager
Mauricio] Ruiz and her pulled up to
hang. Someone decided to pull out
the guitar and play a song; Jes-
sie listened and politely grabbed
the guitar after and played a song
herself. She bodied the guy, and I
think he left right after. Her energy
and raw tone have always been
something that draws people in and
punches them in the gut.”
MAURICIO RUIZ
Manager
“There are a lot of incredible sing-
ers with beautiful voices, but there
are very few who can command
an entire room. Once you hear her
sing, you think to yourself, ‘This girl
is raw, she’s different,’ and you can’t
quite pinpoint it, but you just get the
feeling that this person is special. I’ve
only gotten that feeling a handful of
times. I was just fortunate to meet
her at a time when we both were
trying to get our foot in the door. We
quickly realized our work ethics were
equally matched and from that point
on, it was ‘go’ time.”
JERMI THOMAS
Senior director, A&R
Island Records
“I met Jessie almost five years
ago when I was a music publisher.
My close friend Byron Wilson was
managing this Canadian artist named
SonReal that I had just signed, and
he introduced me to Jessie. We met
up in L.A. and immediately clicked.
We talked for hours about every-
thing: music, the music business, life,
spirituality, what was most important
to her as an artist-songwriter and
what she wanted her legacy to be.
In that moment, I knew I was sitting
in front of a superstar. Jessie’s fierce
ambition and desire to always be
authentic and stand firm in her truth
is what I remember being the most
striking about her.”
The Team In
Jessie’s Corner
From left: Wilson,
Thomas and Ruiz.