Meet Jamal Green

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jamal Green a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Jamal with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

I really feel as though I got my work ethic from my sister Afrika. She’s 8 years older than me and my twin sister Tamika and is a session drummer among many other things so growing up we lived amongst Affy’s drum cases in our council house – they’d all disappear a few times a week as she’d pile them into her tiny car and drive from Suffolk to London to play in function bands. On nights she wasn’t out playing gigs I’d fall asleep to the sound of her practicing paradiddles to a metronome on her drum pad *Click* *Click*

Eventually things really picked up for her and she went on to tour with the Pet Shop Boys, Becky Hill, High Contrast & Fleur East. It became very clear to me that hard work, dedication and perseverance are often the only variables you can control to give yourself the best chance at success!

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 a composer so I’m very fortunate in that my job combines everything I love – films, games & music! I started out writing music for tiny mobile games as well as Minecraft & Call of duty gameplay videos at high school (or upper school as we call it in the UK!). My school only had one Imac, which was already essentially an antique at the time, but it was all I needed to write my first catchy little tunes. I had no real musical training so Ideas would come from humming and tapping and working out my ideas on the keyboard in the practice room with the Imac in it!

Now I write for lots of really amazing projects every year such as BAFTA winning game TOEM, Academy Award shortlisted Short film Room Taken & the brilliant ITVx comedy G’wed.

I’m very excited to launch my new artist project ZIMA GREEN this year. The project is all about collaboration and exploration without rules! My first single Be Someone featuring Georgia Chanel & Hulton will be out in the coming months. I love writing that’s exactly what’s needed for a TV show, film or game but it’s also amazingly fulfilling to explore the music that comes out of me when I write for the fun of it!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Passion: I keep writing music because I’m completely obsessed by it. I think it’s not only important to find what you’re passionate about but evolve yourself, your perspective and your situation to remain passionate about what you do. I think it would be incredibly difficult to become successful in something you’re not passionate about anyway so move with your feelings and always continue to explore things you’re passionate about in your field and others!

Curiosity: Always ask questions and find comfort and enjoyment in the unknown. If you’re in a recording studio and have absolutely no idea how things work or what that persons job is, take it all in, observe, ask the questions you think are silly and be willing to learn. Even if things feel a little overwhelming, try to keep positive and open minded and you’ll find months or years later that you took way more in than you thought!

Collaboration: Nobody does anything great alone and being able to rely on the feedback, guidance, kindness and motivation of friends is invaluable (and at times it can feel like all you have!). Celebrate the wins of friends, mentors, colleagues and your contemporaries – Support them and they’ll support you. If you can exchange stories, information, skills and talent you’ll excel far beyond what you think is possible for yourself.

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

I think it’s so much more important to be well rounded in your skillset. Often as a self-employed creative or business owner of any kind you’re a social media manager, video editor, an artist, a promoter, a finance manager etc. and in music specifically at times you’re a multi-instrumentalist, recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer and more so there’s a lot to cover! It seems daunting and insurmountable but everybody is always learning and nobody is expected to know or be a master of everything. In my experience, knowing a little about a lot of things has proven to be so helpful, if not to handle something myself then to be able to have a conversation and explain to an expert what I’m after!

I’ve quite often designed my own album art, mixed and mastered my own albums and recorded instruments I have no business playing but it’s so much more exciting to live a life of constant learning and exploration and you really never know when a skillset will come in handy or where knowing something can take you.

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Image Credits

Bafta Professional Photos Credit: BAFTA / Sophia Spring

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