“I became awake and started paying attention to life in a different way because I realized how quickly it could change,” says the 25 year-old artist.
Pell was 13 years old when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans relocating his family to Jackson, Mississippi. The introspective lens Pell uses to address the fragility of life can be heard in his effortless flow laced with witty wordplay.
Recently signed with Payday Records, the label that produced the iconic Hip-Hop duo, Gang Starr, and in 1995, released Jay-Z’s first single, “In My Lifetime,” Pell has aligned himself with veterans in the industry. “It feels great to be a part of this history and it feels great to know that I have a vision for potentially a future…they have this working knowledge,” shares Pell, who acknowledges many hip-hop artists from the late ‘90s and early 2000s as his earliest inspiration.
Pell’s motivation for the EP girasoul is rooted in the elements of nature, the very force that displaced his family twelve years ago. He credits the resilience of sunflowers and their marigold color as the vision behind the project. “The way a sunflower looks up to the sun for energy, light and growth is the same way we feel when we keep our heads high…even in our darkest days we should look up just like a sunflower does.”
“Chirpin” and “Golden” are the lead singles for girasoul. Although they represent two different phases in Pell’s life, they serve as an opportunity to engage in an inner discourse, fueling the meaning and authenticity of what he creates for his audience. “That relatability comes from us being intimate with ourselves,” Pell says.
Pell uses self-reflection as a catalyst to spark his creative process, which he credits to his mother, a psychologist whose approach to therapy and healing served as a teaching tool. When discussing the music industry as a whole Pell says, “we pay attention to products and what so-and-so can do for me and that creates a spiral of negligence and I mean that for one’s mental health.”
At a young age Pell was forced to leave the city that raised him, but the soul of New Orleans followed him to Mississippi. Much like how early 20th century jazz music was performed to provoke emotion, Pell’s message to his audience is to stay positive amidst adversity. When referring to life Pell says, “This may kind of be bad, but lets make fun of it because we’re all going through it.”
Listen to the EP girasoul below:
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