Meet Jeremy Yeats

We recently connected with Jeremy Yeats and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jeremy, thank you so much for joining us today. There are so many topics we could discuss, but perhaps one of the most relevant is empathy because it’s at the core of great leadership and so we’d love to hear about how you developed your empathy?

Over my lifetime, I have always been fascinated with other cultures, which gave me a great deal of empathy to be sympathetic with other people’s struggles. I started learning Spanish when I was in elementary school, and we would work with several Native Americans in art class, and I ended up visiting them at their pueblos in New Mexico. I spent 9 years of my life in Hawai’i, and connected deeply with the many cultures that are the Hawai’i Culture-Sharing group. I also have spent substantial time in Japan and Thailand, and my kids are half Thai. These experiences have given me a strong passion to challenge the status quo and center my work and personal life with culturally responsive practices. Our current album demonstrates these unique qualities as well. Within our “Education Heals Nations” album we present strong themes to build a better world through education, and a majority of it was recorded in Jamaica. The transformational educational themes in the album center on social justice issues, education, and building family/community. Several songs contribute to different sub-themes, and the social justice theme is broken down into racial inequality, socioeconomic status, gender inequity, LGBTQAI+ inequality, and coulrophobia/clown hatred. The education theme highlights my work on my dissertation as I looked how educational governance and structure is impacting fields of music, art, and physical education. I also highlight the importance of staying active and learning through outdoor education. The final theme, importance of family and community, connects multiple cultures and shows how important family and community is for the human race. It depicts some differences in family and community roles within different cultures.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I have been writing and performing music for 14+ years. Ever since elementary school, I have been in choir, took piano/guitar/saxophone lessons, and took up the ukulele while living in Hawai’i. When we finally released our first two albums in 2021 and 2022 it was a huge relief to be able to share our music with the world and start building our legacy that we would leave for future generations. We were extremely grateful to have such a positive response to our music, and a lot of people provided us encouraging feedback, which led us to continue our work and go on a national tour. Since those times, we have been pretty hyper focused on putting together a 21-song “Education Heals Nations” album. Although we have had a few shows here and there, we are really planning on doing many more live performances starting in 2025 to promote our new album and my related book that shares the Lyrical Messages of the album. The “Education Heals Nations: Lyrical Messages” book can be purchased here: https://educationhealsnations.org/book

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Three important qualities that have impacted my journey are connections with others from diverse backgrounds, using social justic research within my music, and always honoring my major influences of the past. I have had inspiration to follow this path from others, but I also have always wanted to connect deeply with other cultures. Growing up, starting in elementary school, I have always been fascinated with other cultures. I started taking Spanish classes in 3rd grade, and loved to learn about the Latino culture. Also during this time, in art class, we had some Native American potters come in from the Santa Ana pueblo to teach us about their black pottery. We loved it so much, every time we were in New Mexico we would visit those potters at their studio on their pueblo. When I was in 6th grade I moved to Kaua’i, Hawai’i. Here we were immersed in countless other cultures from Polynesia, Oceania, and beyond. This is where I learned to play the ukulele and would jam with my friends and all the uncles and the aunties at the beaches and in their garages. At this point I had studied Spanish, Hawai’ian, and Japanese languages. When I was studying my undergraduate degree, I married a Japanese woman, and was able to travel there 3 times to be immersed in their culture and their amazing geography. When I studied in my Ph.D. program, I did a study abroad program in Porto, Portugal, and absolutely loved taking Portuguese classes and learning the cavaquinho. We also travelled all around Europe, and met so many other amazing people and cultures. By this time, I was remarried, and my new wife was from Thailand. Traveling to Thailand to get to know my family and make new friends there was incredible. Thai is a very difficult tonal language to learn, but the people and the place are amazing. Being so into reggae since I was 12 years old, I was also very interested in Jamaican and African cultures as well. All of these experiences with other cultures really made me understand how many minorities suffer and experience oppression. Loving these cultures and the people from the global community really inspired me to want to help them overcome oppression. So, naturally when I became a teacher I wanted to learn about how to use culturally responsive teaching strategies and critical theory to challenge the status quo. As a professor, I have now had 12+ years’ experience teaching through culturally responsive teaching techniques and researching social justice and cultural competence issues. One of the most transformational projects I worked on during that time was Qualitative Research study. The study examined how songs, lyrics, and poetry expressed emotional reactions to inequity. The full research article can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-Rhoads/publication/337935829_A_Critical_Ethnography_Through_Poetic_Representations_of_Social_Justice_Issues_Biomedical_Science/links/5df55e61a6fdcc2837225be9/A-Critical-Ethnography-Through-Poetic-Representations-of-Social-Justice-Issues-Biomedical-Science.pdf

As far as influences, I have always been inspired by agents of change. Specifically, people like Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Malcom X, Cesar Chavez, Marcus Garvey, Peter Tosh, and Bob Marley. Bob Marley influenced me the most, and the way he united the people, built up family and community, and stood up for equal rights was truly revolutionary, and made me want to expand on his work and learn from his experiences. These are the reasons why I want to be the change I want to see in the world. With my experience and my background, I know I am the man for this job, and know I can be a part of making the world a better place for all of our children.

For those who are early in their journey, I recommend being inclusive, using accurate information within your content, and representing your influences within your work.

What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?

The biggest area of musical growth this past year was for us as a band was for us to work with some incredible musicians. Some of the musicians we have gotten to work with include some of our musical heroes who we have been listening to their music for 20 years or longer. After gaining international recognition for our first two albums, Kevin ‘X’ Saunders, who was a manager for the legendary Fantan Mojah, reached out to us, and we set up an official collaboration. This was a dream come true, as I literally had a lyric in a song stating it was a dream of mine to jam in Kingstson, Jamaica. When I was down there with Fantan, I also met Cedric Myton, Kiddus I, and Lymie Murray. Having them on track on this album still gives me chicken skin. It was a true honor to work with some of the masters of the reggae genre, and do roots reggae music the right way. The album also has features from Baha Royalty, Achieve, Julian Yeats, Pink Baby, Brilli Productions, and Chinna Smith. We also got to work with Wrong Move, Congo Billy and Franklyn ‘Bubbler!’ Waul. Being able to record a big chunk of the album in Kingston, Jamaica at Greetings Studio with Brilli Productions (Rickardo Levy) and his father Silver Diamond gives this music an authenticity that just can be replicated anywhere else. The producers of the album Brilli Productions, Robert ‘Rasta Bob” Lampenfield, Achieve, and Ziz Gorlin all did a phenomenal job and moved the needle from a ‘professional’ sound to a ‘super professional’ sound. Core band members Rasta Bob on bass, Shayne Wilson on drums, and Greg Sinn on guitar also put out performances of a lifetime on this record. We had so many others contribute, and it was great to have the support of CJ Rhen, Eveldora Wheeler, RJ Rohrer, Jake Brisitch, Bongo Asher, and Alex Cruz. Our first two albums were 5-song EPs, but now, we are thrilled to share with you a 21-song full length album. Working with top notch industry professionals has greatly furthered our musical career.

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