Emprezz Jay seeks to empower
WOMAN empowerment is at the centre of Emprezz Jay’s latest single No One , released on September 24.
“This song is for women who have been through a lot; who have sacrificed everything for their relationships and it didn’t work out. It’s about woman affirmation and self-strength…Don’t allow anyone to make you feel less than who you are,” the emerging neo-roots singer told the Jamaica Observer.
No One is produced by Khali Jah and is being distributed by Ditto. The song has an accompanying music video.
“I want my music to connect with its listeners. Each of my songs is a personal part of me. It’s to make people feel better. My music is healing,” she said.
Emprezz Jay’s given name is Jordain Powell. She was born in the talent-rich Clarendon which has produced several outstanding citizens. They include: deejays Dennis Alcapone and Derrick Morgan; singers Millie Small, Freddie McGregor, Barrington Levy, Cocoa Tea, Levi Roots, Boney M’s Liz Mitchell, and OMI. Davina Bennett, third-place finalist in Miss Universe 2017, poet Linton Kwesi Johnson and writer Claude McKay, also hail from Clarendon.
“It must be something with the water,” she chuckled, adding that she intends for her name to be placed in that elite line-up.
Raised in a strict Christian home, Emprezz Jay said she grew up listening to gospel music and being active in the church.
She did four months in Vere Technical High before migrating to New York in the United States in 2006. Her schooling was completed at Sheepshead Bay High School.
She, however, received her baptism in secular music through her godfather, Junior Baugh of Ruff Kutt Crew, who had a studio at the rear of her family home.
“You’d see Shabba, you’d see Buju going to the studio. Then one day Frankie Paul said: ‘Come in the studio. Let me hear what you got.’ So I began singing. But because my parents were involved in church, it wouldn’t happen. My father said if I wasn’t singing gospel it wouldn’t work, so I gave the music business a break.”
In 2019 she would, however, get her big break. She opened for Sizzla Kalonji who was headliner at Amazura club in New York. After that gig, she recorded Hate Increase.
Her other releases include Secret and I Am.
