ABC/Lorenzo BevilaquaEmpire star Jussie Smollett‘s debut album, Sum of My Music, is finally out, and the singer-actor tells ABC Radio that having the disc out in the world feels like “freedom.”
“I’m very grateful. It’s been a long time coming. It seems like a long time to everybody else, but trust me, it’s been longer for me, personally,” he explains.
“So, just getting it out there and letting people hear a little piece of my heart is really special to me. It’s a good, good, good time so far. Yeah, it’s fun.”
Jussie is also keen on expressing his precise artistic vision, not just in his music, but also in his music videos. He directed both the clips for his singles “Catch Your Eye” and “Freedom.”
He says, “I feel like, as of now, I just had to be the one to direct all of them, to kind of set the tone for what it was gonna be before kind of entrusting anybody else to touch it because I just feel like I have such a clear idea, a clear focus [and] vision of what I want and what I want people to take from it.”
Jussie also praises Swizz Beatz, who’s featured in the “Catch Your Eye” music video and on the track itself. He also appears on another track on the album, “I Know My Name.”
“Swizz is like my brother now,” he explains.
“I was kind of at a low point at the point that I recorded all that music with Swizz…I just called him and I was like, ‘Yo, I just wanna record. I wanna record my own stuff.'”
“He carved out six days out of his schedule and I flew myself to New York and we just worked.”
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