OUTER VOICE: THE GENESIS

[JAM] We like to say it was a combination of a lifelong passion and a unique opportunity. I think you often see that combination, right? You can want to do something but not have the means or the door to walk through But for us, it starts with us being artists ourselves We started in classical piano, then picked up guitar, vocals, and started writing music. I think maybe when I was around 14. Philly was around eleven, and we just started to get good at it.

He would produce, I'd write the lyrics, and we'd do the melodies together. It was something we really, really loved and I don't think we were thinking about it professionally. Fast forward to that unique opportunity. In the fall of 2019, I was part of this viral video that landed in front of the chief marketing officer of Converse. He saw something in me, then in us. Eighteen months later, in June of 2021, they were helping us launch a South Asian American record label to the world. I think that validation from a mainstream player like that, from people outside of our community hearing our mission around representation and wanting to build more of an infrastructure in music for the artists of today, meant so much.

[Philly] Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago was a great upbringing, but it was a very Caucasian suburb, so we often felt like outsiders in our own community; we wouldn't have too much of a home. Then we'd come back home after school, and we'd turn on the TV. We didn't even see anyone that looked like us, so it felt like everywhere, every outlet we had, everywhere we looked, there wasn't really anyone that looked like us. I think back to my high school days, middle school, my favorite thing in the world was playing music, writing songs, singing, and just being at the piano. But honestly, I never gave it thought that this was something that I could actually do. I think a big reason for that is not seeing any example in front of us. So, it truly meant so much when we went to Converse and had the meeting that we point to as kind of the ignition, the start of what became Outer Voice Records. The main piece of advice that they gave us was, “Your culture is unique. Lean into it,” when we spent a lot of our lives shying away from it, trying to blend in with American culture.

[JAM] It must have been our genuine first creative identity as music artists. When we thought about these underrepresented areas for our community, that's where our mind went first. I think it was also because we felt there was such a gap in support for our community, in music specifically. I think even today, you see some strides really being made in film and TV and other creative areas. But I think music still is kind of holding out a little bit. We believe that the more infrastructure of support there can be for our artists, the better the shot at making it and really creating some proper success.

[Philly] We like to say the line, “We firmly believe our community doesn't lack the talent; it just lacks the platform.” So that was the ignition of where we came in to support artists. We had seen so many successful brown artists on TikTok, whether it was singing covers or singing original pieces, and we knew that everyone was out there. There just wasn't a central hub really gathering all that talent and growing it. That, combined with us being artists ourselves, was the start.

WHAT POINTED YOU TO CREATING A RECORD LABEL?

[Philly] My personal journey with mental health has been very interesting I think first figuring out recognizing what mental health is; we're not often encouraged in our community to put importance on it. I point to one moment specifically where my mental health, I think, deteriorated quite a bit. Junior year of high school was an already stressful time. Specifically, growing up right in that suburb of Chicago, it was small. We were in the same house our entire life. We went from elementary public school to the middle school to the high school - it was the same group of people. I had a friend group that started from first grade, second grade. We moved through every grade, and every school together until the one-day junior year the group kind of just disappeared overnight. I was left just feeling very confused. Then it just came a time when I needed to reconcile and kind of move forward

But it’s one of those situations where it was there wasn't any falling out. There wasn't a fight that I could point to and be like, "Oh, that's why we're no longer friends." It was just something to this day, I still don't know what happened.

I had no closure at all, and so that was a huge switch. Going from going out every Friday, every Saturday, going to restaurants, to just being at home. Eating on the couch and watching TV every weekend. That was my idea of free time. So, I think that's when it really started to take a turn. I just felt extreme loneliness It wasn't like I wasn't surrounded by people I was nice with everyone, very friendly with everyone at school. But then I'd go home, and even though I was surrounded by so many people, I didn't feel like I actually had anyone. I was still very lonely at the core.

There were a lot of times when I had a lot of self-esteem issues. I became very self-conscious about certain things and what kind of picked it all up. For me, I’m very religious, so I truly believe that everything comes in God's timing and that everything happens for a reason. So, I guess one of the few good things that happened at that moment was that I first learned how to produce music. It was that loneliness where I wasn't occupying my time with friends or doing anything else outside of school I just taught myself how to be a producer Honestly, that was my therapy for a while, learning how to produce, writing more songs, being at the piano 24/7; that's what really got me out of the rut that was feeling, moved me into senior year, where I started making more friends and was much happier. As we point to our artist & business journey, I think that maybe without that moment, even though it seemed totally depressing at the time, we wouldn't have been artists as JAM and Philly. Maybe we wouldn’t have launched Outer Voice Records.