SAINt JHN explains his sonic melting pot, reflects on his musical tenure to date, and analyses his new album, Festival Season.
A talent whose creativity sprawls across a variety of disciplines—from designer to model, rapper to songwriter—SAINt JHN is defining the art of contemporary polymathy, excelling at every gateway he enters. His new 17-pronged studio album, Festival Season, is a musical breeding ground for genre-defiance and lyrical nuance, a bold and refined journey through his process and persona.
Wonderland spoke to JHN around the new album, discussing its making and meaning, his essence as an artist, and the highs of his career to date.
Listen to Festival Season…
Read the interview…
Talk us through your musical origins—what are your earliest music memories? How did you first begin a career in music?
When I saw my brother rapping in a cipher, I fell in love with music. I used to steal his raps, then, when I went back to Guyana, I had to write my own raps. Then, I fell in love with hearing other artist’s music; I discovered Volume III Jay Z and then I discovered DMX. Some of my earliest musical memories were in Georgetown at my friend Mikey’s crib, he lived 70 feet around the corner from me, and we’d go round to his and watch his cable as he could get some channels that we couldn’t get. So, we’d be sitting there watching the videos on MTV or BET or VH1. Everyone was just transfixed, but I was the only one that had a VISA so I could go to America, and so I had to do it. So I did it. I spend my life doing it.
Talk us through the core of your sonic approach? What is your essence as an artist? What is the JHN melting pot?
I don’t know if I’m a rapper, I don’t know if I’m a singer. I just know that my voice is an instrument, and I use it. I tune my voice according to what I want to say, and how I want it to feel. When I need things to be a little bit more harsh, a little more intimate, you might hear me whisper them or speak them, or subtly sing them or harmonise them. If I knew the essence of what it took to be SAINt JHN, I’d make another me so I could have some more days off. I’m figuring it out as I go along, too. I’m by no means perfect, and I think an enormous part of what I create, I leave the imperfections in them so that you can see my missteps. I think the things that I fail at allow me to have more identity than the things I succeed at. So if you’re paying attention to my music, or you’re listening to it and you’re just noticing the things that you love, you might not notice that things that aren’t incredible or aren’t precise allow you to pay attention to the things that you love. I’m my harshest critic – I think that’s the SAINt JHN melting pot.
How do you reflect on your career and discography to date?
I don’t spend a lot of time going backwards, so I don’t listen to my catalogue – the future is so vast, there’s so much left undone that I want to do. However since I’m so stingy with the music, and I haven’t put out my next collection yet, my fans have had to reflect and listen back. It’s been four years, I’ve been caught up in what I’m presently making, so I’m always listening to the new SAINt JHN music. My audience is listening to my catalogue, but I’m listening to my new designs, whatever I made this morning – I’ve got the ability to make my own playlist daily. If I don’t like what’s going on in the world, I’ll just go make it. Whether I let the people hear it or not, there’s always new SAINt JHN music.
Your singles often come with an accompanying short film-esque video. Why is putting such thought and depth into your visual world so key to your artistry?
It’s another language to give context, depth, or expression. I get to go somewhere visually that I might have left off sonically. It’s an accompaniment; it’s like a plum wine with the right meal. When you pair it together, it just becomes special; my favourite pairing, a Diplomático with a Nicaraguan cigar. When you pair them, they create something that neither one of them can do by themselves. So, it’s another language that I speak visually. Music is my sonic language, and cinema is my visual language, and fashion is my outward language, my extroverted language, and then my most intimate language is conversation. When we speak like this – when there’s no music. The words don’t gotta rhyme, but I have the same responsibility of telling my truth.
Congratulations on your new album Festival Season! How are you feeling about the release?
I’m excited. It’s been far too long. Festival Season the first installation of Collection II. I’ve never been able to deliver music as rapidly and as consistently as I plan to right now, because I’ve never had the type of setup to do it. Moving from the States to Puerto Rico gives me a greater bandwidth to see the world a little bit more clearly – I can see 18 months down the line, and 24 months down the line, and then 36 months down the line. I’m excited for Festival Season, because you get to see the lineage it comes from, and what follows it. I think a lot of the time, artists live like basketball players who only get to get in the game for 30 seconds, and they get one shot and shoot the ball, and it’s either an air ball or it’s a three. I’m living more like I’m going to be on a court every day for 47 minutes a night.
Talk us through the creative process of making the project? What challenges did you face?
One of my key challenges for making Festival Season is that I was already finished with the second part of the project, “Fake Tears From A Pop Star”. I had everybody geared up and ready to go to release “Fake Tears From A Pop Star” first, so we put out the first two tracks “Humble” and “Circles” a week apart. And then I pivoted right after that immediately, which confused my team – they didn’t understand why I was going in this direction. But, an artist’s job is to see the future – so I think the hardest part was getting the fans and the team to understand this is why I’m going next. It’s like Tarantino going from making a romance movie to making an action thriller, then to a horror film. Now if you trust Tarantino, then you just trust his vision, you watch and you see if it’s something you like, but you don’t judge the movie based on the trailer. You judge the movie based on the director. The most difficult part was believing in myself and taking this course of action.
What inspired the work, in its music and lyricism?
I’m always pulling from my real life and whatever I’m going through. I’ve spent the last three years in Puerto Rico, and I’ve been consuming art from there, watching how music makes people move, longing for the need for people to be shoulder to shoulder again, the way that we used to be. The strangers would meet each other in an open field with music playing. I wanted that again, and I spent some time being sad and even running from that sadness. I live on a stage now where I get to communicate my truths and my realities from a stage. I go to that stage to find freedom, and I wanted Festival Season to exist in that location; on stage performing, telling you my truth.
Why did you choose “Poppin”, “Glitchin” and “Body On Me” as the singles for the LP? What do you feel the three tracks portray within the context of the wider album?
I think it’s because they are really extroverted. They’re extremely loud, and this collection is the loudest I’ve been, and has more dissonance and distortion than ever before. I was really playing with distortion on this, I spent a lot of time working on production, becoming a better producer, understanding how I wanted sound to tell my story. In all my previous bodies of work, I used my voice to tell my story. I used a soothing nature to explain my disposition. Now I wanted sound to help cultivate and create the atmosphere. So I chose the loudest places to start, because I know it was the most disruptive thing to do. I didn’t want to ease you into this collection. I didn’t think that’s the way to do it. This is something else; you’re about to watch Fight Club, I wanted to start with the fight scenes and kick through the door or something. That’s why I started there, because I I knew it would have some sort of pushback and some resistance.
What do you hope the album achieves?
I hope people learn to live in a discomfort in a new way, I hope they become more expressive and leave their comfort zone. So when I say, learn to live in your discomfort, I don’t mean to just dwell in it and sitting and sleep in it. I hope you find new ways to find your escapism, because I want you to leave the confines and comforts of your home and the safest places you know to find new safety, safety in a strange environment. This is for a new generation of people who want to feel something that don’t want to feel it alone. This is for the people who want to sing at Mass in large groups who want to shout their pain to the sky with the sun outside. Festival Season is a completely different place, it’s experiential. It’s theatrical in a way that you got to come see it live. I love performing, I love being on the road. I love being able to connect in the real way, in the most vulnerable way – Festival Season means that you must come see it live.
Outside of the album, what else is on the horizon for 2025?
More music. Cinema, fashion, fragrance. I really, really would like to finally get to the place where I’m starting to build on land that I own, because I have ideas for what I want my metaphorical home to look like, and I want to share those homes with other people.
Saint jhn
Saint jhn
