Maya J Interview by Carol Wright Photographer: Ryan West
Maya Jenkins (aka Maya J), is a dedicated actress, singer, and songwriter. In addition to writing the music and lyrics to all of her own music, she has written full songs for networks such as Freeform. More recently, she has been releasing a steady stream of singles. She chatted with Nyota about her songwriting process and being an actress and singer.
Were you a performative child? Oddly enough, not really. As a young child, I was always reciting scenes from movies, much to the delight of my family — but I wasn’t in any organized performances. Mainly, my performances were in violin recitals and orchestra. I was actually pretty scared to sing or talk in front of crowds until my teen years hit. What a major switch. I still get stage fright sometimes, and of course I’m still nervous in some performance settings now, but I’m much more content with what I do and how I do it. You sing and act. Do you have a preference between the two? No. These crafts; songwriting, acting, and singing are equally important in my life. I really mean it — that’s like a parent choosing between children, impossible! Do you have a different process for when you’re writing songs for an album versus writing songs for a network like Freeform? In songwriting as a whole, the overall process is the same for me. Emotion, chords, melody, and lyrics — in whatever order I’m feeling at the time. The specifics of the process are different however. If I’m writing a song for a single or album release, I write about things I’ve seen, things I’ve felt, or things that have happened. Life around me is where I draw my inspiration, like many other songwriters. If I’m writing a song for a network show or a film, I think about the content of the project as well as the character descriptions, storyline, subtext, and emotional tone of the show before I construct how the song will sound. In either setting, I always like to leave a little bit of ambiguity in the lyric content so more people can relate to it, with whatever they are going through on a personal level.
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