Music Artist JT The Human Debuts New Album “Mood Swing”

JT The Human, a music artist born in Germany and raised in Houston, makes music in Chicago and currently calls Delaware home with his wife of nine years. The independent artist feels he’s reached a new milestone with his music (a nod to the mood of cool summer vibes). He describes his latest album as his best work with its melodic and cohesive sound. Read more on what music artists he would most like to collaborate with and which city’s music scene will always be number one.

Your new album, Mood Swing, drops on June 20. Tell us about the musical vibe, including the singles “Universe” and “Seasons.”

I would say it’s Hip-hop R&B. A lot of the production and instrumentation on the album was inspired by City pop, a Japanese take on R&B. Everything has a 70s-esque feel and a retro anime-esque feel, and that is what I set out for with the first couple of songs like Seasons and Universe are examples of that. They both have very melodic, sweet beats mixed in with that nice 808, so the whole album should feel cohesive. I have made albums in the past, and this, in my opinion, “is the most cohesive thing I’ve made”—everything should feel like it belongs together, and it should flow together nicely.

You’re very gifted at music. Was it something you’ve always wanted to follow, even as a young child?

I would say yes. I really didn’t have a lot of belief in myself to make music. I enjoyed singing around the house and stuff. It wasn’t until around high school that I had some friends who made music, and I did it with them. They didn’t pursue it as much as I did, but if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have started recording stuff and starting that journey because it is a journey. You have to record music, put it out, and see what it’s like. Keep looking at yourself to grow and change over the years.

Do you feel like your previous musical works led up to this moment, that it matured into the sound and the album you have now?

Absolutely! I actually think that every time you make a piece of art or anything, the next thing you do always has a little bit of the last thing. For every album I’ve put out, I can trace a song on the previous album, I think, that pointed at what I was going to do. If I go back to “Reboot”— which is the last album I put out, I would think “More Than a Second” and “Saw You” and “Circle” are three songs that shaped what I wanted to do with this album and some of the producers from the last album are on this album to speak to that even more.

Who are some of the producers?

I have one of my good friends, Tra Givens. He was on both projects. On Seasons, you hear the tag Mixtape Seoul; it’s a guy from Korea. He also made two of the songs on Reboot. When I find a person who makes or plays quality stuff, I want to keep working with them.

If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be and why?

That’s tough. There are a lot of artists I like. Collabing is something I want to be very natural and feel good about. From a producer standpoint, I think Pharrell, I would love to get on a Pharrell beat, a Kaytranada beat. Artists, in terms of rappers, I would love to work with Amina and Jed; I think both of those guys— we could complement each other, and I guess singing-wise, I would love to work with Janelle Monáe, H.E.R., and there’s an artist named Orion Sun. Collaborating is one of the most fun things you can do as an artist. I got to collaborate with some friends on this project and every time, it’s great! It almost feels like working out with somebody, and everything gets a little easier when you see someone else putting in that same kind of energy, and you can watch their process, and you learn so much from watching other people, too. It’s really valuable to work with other artists.

Do you have any plans to promote your album this summer? Is there a release party?

There isn’t a release party in the works yet. I’m always trying to look to do more stuff. This is the first time I’ve dabbled with using the promotion on TikTok and Instagram. It’s been a bit successful; I feel like I’ve reached a couple more fans, people who don’t know me who can hear my music. A release party is the next big step, trying to figure out how to take advantage of the market in a way that is good but also feels like something you can build upon. That’s probably the biggest challenge for me because it’s a very predatory thing— like if I put out any music, I would say 10 to 20 scam artists message me with “Hey, let’s do this or that… and all that translates to is if you send me this amount of money, I will get you streams and a lot of that is bots and not actual marketing and it’s kind of treacherous, and I want to be careful. If I were still in Texas, I would probably be having a release party. Delaware is so far away, and I made the music in Chicago, so I feel like my (music) camp is divided and split up. So, no release party yet,

Something virtual?

That could be an idea.

Do you merge the locale of where you’ve been with your music (Texas, Chicago, and Delaware)?

If I claim any place, it’s Houston. I’m proud to be from Houston. I love Houston artists like Megan Thee Stallion and Zero. There are people from Houston that I’ve always wanted to support. That’s what I feel most strongly about. Chicago is a place where I have a lot of great friends who live there, and I would love to move there at some point. That’s up in the air because it’s so cold. If it weren’t cold, I would be there (laugh). The music scene in Chicago is great, and if I were in Chicago right now, I would absolutely have a music-listening party. I don’t want to say there is more opportunity in Chicago, but there are more creatives there. I joked with my friend that I could (literally) scream outside in Chicago and find ten rappers and producers to work with (laugh). I feel very connected to Chicago, but Houston is a place (musically) I would claim the whole time. There is too much great music out of Houston, Beyoncé. It feels like I would never want to give it up.

We don’t know a lot of artists from Delaware; we’re sure there are some, but you can put Delaware on the map.

Yeah, I would love to do that (laugh)

Describe your (music) sound.

There is a joke that in high school, they would say Drake or Childish Gambino, or they would call it “singing-a** rappers,” and that is what I would describe myself as. I really like singing. I almost feel like if I say rapper, that wouldn’t cover what I like to get into. I also like rapping, so yeah, I would say singing-a** rapper or pop-rapper because I’m really interested in working with melodies and trying to find different ways to use my voice, which I tried to do a couple of times on Mood Swing. I’m soulful R&B with a little bit of backpack-style hip-hop; occasionally, it gets aggressive, but not that much.

What’s next?

I’m going to keep promoting this album aggressively on TikTok and everywhere I can. We don’t have a huge budget to do music videos, but some of the trailer for the album is us walking around Chicago, and we’re going to put out some clips of that and maybe some behind-the-scenes footage from when we recorded the album and to keep pushing it. This whole project felt really good, in terms of— this is the first time I recorded it at a studio in Chicago called Friends of Friends Recording and this is the closest I’ve gotten to working in a professional space. Brok Mende is very talented, and I want to work with him again. Knowing that and having those things in place, I would like to get back to writing almost as soon as possible. I took a little bit of a break after my last album (Reboot) because we (my wife and I) had moved across the country (to Delaware from Houston), so now I want to lock in, keep making music, and it would be nice if I could have another project out in another year and a half. I do know that once I get everything written and recorded, I know I’m going right back to Brok in Chicago.

We spoke with JT The Human Juneteenth and asked the music artist how he planned to celebrate the holiday.

It’s been a busy week for me. The album, my wife’s birthday, upcoming anniversary. We’re planning to go to Philadelphia to celebrate everything. Celebrating Juneteenth, I probably just relax, maybe have some reverence, pay attention to what’s happening in the news, and be grateful.

Complete this sentence. Music, to me, does…

It frees me. I feel the freest when I’m making music and performing, which is definitely why I want to perform some of these songs (Mood Swing).

Thank you, JT The Human.

Thank you, this was lovely.