We recently connected with Jaki Nelson and have shared our conversation below.
Jaki, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
Hi, my name is Jaki Nelson, and I am a Certified Platinum singer, songwriter, and music producer.
I was born into a music family. My dad did rock n roll in the 70’s and early 80’s, my sister was in girl groups and fronted bands, and my mom had a music school. I, however, was more focused on athletics – that is, until it almost killed me freshman year of high school. I ended up with an injury that didn’t even allow me to walk up stairs for four months, so I started focusing more on things I was still capable of doing.
I had been taking voice and piano lessons from a very early age, but at this point, I began writing songs, studying classical and music theory, trying (and failing) to play guitar, etc. Midway through my senior year, I started dating a music producer. Don’t worry, we were the same age! He introduced me to the world of music production, and the trajectory of my life took shape. All the sudden, I realized that I could write the songs, sing the songs, and produce the songs – all on my laptop.
I was obsessed. I suppose I still am.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’m pretty heavily into the dance music scene. I work with other singers, songwriters, and producers around the world to fill in their artistic gaps. Maybe they can write and produce, but they can’t sing. Maybe they can sing, but they can’t write. That’s where I come in! And I’ve been very lucky in my career – my top song right now just crossed 50,000,000 streams on Spotify, I signed a publishing deal this year, and I’m getting to work with some of the biggest artists and labels on the planet.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Step 1 is curiosity. Curiosity is in my opinion the single greatest indicator for success. You don’t need to know everything from the start, but in order to get good or even great at anything, you have to want to know everything about it. I am a proud attendee of youtube university. The information you need is out there, you just have to go find it.
Step 2 is consistency. In my field, they say that you need to produce for 1000 hours before you’re any good. The same applies for everything else. When I first started out, making a song felt like this mountain I had to climb. I would spend months on one track at a time producing and tweaking and recording and rerecording. More recently, I wrote and recorded an entire song in 45 minutes. You have to just keep going.
Step 3 is community. Once you know what it is you want to be doing, it’s important to find like minded individuals with similar goals. Being around your passion all the time can be enough to keep you going and being able to reach out when you hit road blocks is important. They may have already figured out that problem you’re having or maybe they know someone who does. Facebook groups are fantastic for this. A complete stranger absolutely saved my butt the other day figuring out a problem I had already spent a month trying to solve myself. Find your people.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I am always on the lookout for new people to work with! You can email me at [email protected]. Please be aware that I typically have a wait list that fluctuates between 2 weeks and 2 months for project availability.
Contact Info:
- Website: jakinelson.com
- Instagram: @JakiNelson
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JakiNelsonEnt
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/JakiNelsonEnt
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JakiNelson
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/jaki-nelson
Image Credits
Leo Madrid took most of them.
