Julius Mtuleni, popularly known as Jeiyo, is one of the trending musicians in the country at the moment with the release of his debut album ‘Life’ being received well by fans.
caught up with him to chat about his journey to stardom and the obstacles he had to overcome to get where he is today.
Born at Oniipa, Jeiyo started taking music seriously when he was just 14 years old. He shared that he comes from a music-loving family and attributes his love for it to his upbringing.
“I always knew that I was going to end up a musician although I started out as a producer,” said Jeiyo.
He recounted teaching himself how to make beats on Frooty Loops when he was 14 and was motivated to continuously hone his beat-making skills because he had a vision to work with superstars in the music industry.
“I was a GMP fan when I was younger and I wanted to work with not only Gazza but artists who were signed to GMP at the time because I was inspired by the music they made and how organised they were,” recounted Jeiyo.
On being signed to Gazza Music Production, Jeiyo shared that it was a dream come true as he grew up looking up to Gazza and his label mates. “People always talk about how dreams come true and it always sounded like a cliche until it happened to me,” he said.
Jeiyo recalled numerous encounters when he used to give Gazza beats but was told to go improve on his skills. “It was a little discouraging but the good thing is he never told me to quit, he always told me to improve so I took that as my motivation. We laugh about those things now,” said Jeiyo.
On releasing his debut album, Jeiyo said it was a big achievement to be able to put out an album as people know him as a producer. The album took him about three years to record and the inspiration behind it was the personal ups and downs he endured in life.
For Jeiyo, releasing an album was something he always wanted to do, because despite producing, he believes he needs to share his singing talent with the world.
He mentioned that it was quite challenging to record in the presence of other creatives and would sneak into the recording booth.
“I guess I was more confident as a producer than a singer back then and I was not sure if my peers were ready for the transition I was about to make so I would only record when no one was around. But that changed with time and I now feel like a fully-fledged artist as I can almost do anything, from producing to singing,” he said.
With his album available at various music stores across the country, Jeiyo’s goals for 2018 are making sure his music reaches all corners of the country.
In his quest to spread his music, Jeiyo told The Weekender that he will be touring the country with his team and he will visually complement the album with music videos. “We want everyone to hear this incredible piece of art. That is why we will shoot a couple of music videos and go on tour,” he said.
From a struggling producer to producing for renowned Namibian musicians to recording and releasing his own album within a space of three years, Jeiyo’s journey has been, without a doubt, an interesting one.
