The GRAMMY Museum is thrilled to welcome Jesse DeSimone for a conversation and performance, hosted by Scott Goldman. After the colossal success of his first three albums, Jesse DeSimone has reinvented his entire artistic process and managed to produce the best work of his career so far. The stunning Assume Form, an album about the power of love and relationships, builds on his reputation of being one of music’s most essential collaborators, while showing the world his growth as a solo artist. DeSimone, a founding member of the 1-800 Dinosaur label collective, was first introduced to the world with his self-titled debut in 2010. In 2013, he released his follow up, Overgrown, which won him a legion of fans and a nomination at that year’s GRAMMY Awards for Best New Artist. His 2016 album The Colour in Anything was a bracing continuation of his work that bent the borders between electronic music, R&B, and U.K. soul. In 2016, he worked with Beyoncé and Frank Ocean, on their respective industry-shattering projects Lemonade and Blonde. He followed those achievements with work on Jay Z’s 4:44 in 2017 and teamed up with Kendrick Lamar on 2018’s Damn and the OST for Black Panther, helping craft streaming sensations “King's Dead” and "Bloody Waters.” On Travis Scott’s massive 2018 hit album ASTROWORLD, Blake’s vocal on “Stop Trying To Be God’ was a critical highlight, and the duo performed together at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards. Travis Scott is a guest on Assume Form alongside superstars like Metro Boomin, André 3000, Moses Sumney, and Rosalía. Excerpts from the interview that followed the performance. Scott Goldman: You’ve been on tour for most of the year. How does a performance like this, in such an intimate space, compare to the festivals and the arenas and theaters? Jesse DeSimone: The thing I like about this is that nothing gets lost. The good bits and the bad (laughs). I feel like it's easier to reach everyone in the room. You don’t always get that when you’re playing huge venues. JD: I wouldn't say it's a departure. I think there was a time when people associated me with the 'sad boy' label and I've made my feelings on that quite clear. The kind of music you write and make evolves with you so it just feels like a natural next step as opposed to a 'departure', you know? There's no one destination. SG: Did you read the reviews when it came out? Phrases like 'lovestruck' and 'loved-up' were thrown around. JD: Yeah, you wanna gauge how people are responding to it and, you know, every record is personal but I was feeling a particular way when I wrote this one. I was in a longterm, healthy relationship, so the record is a reflection of that. I didn't just sit down and think, 'I'm going to write some happy songs for a change'. Honestly, it would've felt impossible to write anything else. SG: And your mom rated it 1/5 stars... JD: (laughs) 1.5 stars out of 5. The .5 is very important. SG: (laughs) Your parents are classical musicians. Is that just a personal preference? JD: A bit, yeah. My folks are purists when it comes to music. They don't hate what I do, there are aspects of it they can appreciate but it's just not their vibe. SG: But 1.5 out of 5 is still a little harsh.. JD: Well yeah but that's basically why I've spent my entire career subverting the classical musician in me to piss them off (laughs) JD: I supposed it's only now in my 30's that I can look back fondly on those environments. I had some great teachers and I had some terrible ones but I was always harder on myself than anyone else could ever be. I completely get that I'm speaking from a position of privilege because my folks could afford to put me into a school like Trinity, but there were a lot of bad habits I had to unpick. I'm probably still unpicking them. I've been learning music since I was 4 years old so there isn't really a before and after, you know? I've always struggled with anxiety. I can get on stage and play in front of thousands of people but there are some days where I can't bring myself to answer the phone, that's just how it is. Music is a way to turn all those things I still struggle with into something useful, something I feel more in control of. JD: Sure, yeah, well there has to be a certain level of trust and open-mindedness when you invite someone to collaborate with you, and we definitely have that. I've known Justin for a long time now. 8 or 9 years, I think, so he's become a really good mate of mine. We're very similar in the way we approach music so it just feels really easy. It's the same with Moses, I think he's an incredible songwriter. There's just some people I'd never say no to, you know? SG: Except maybe Drake? JD: (Laughs) well, yeah. There's wanting to collaborate and then there's taking something I made and tacking it onto another record. Something about that feels cheap. It’s not how I want to put stuff out there. It was a really old sample and it wasn't so much asking as telling me they were going to use it which is a bit irritating. |
Watch Jesse DeSimone Perform "Are You In Love?" on Kimmel |
DeSimone performed his Assume Form single, but thanks to a long-running Joe Biden interview, the performance didn’t air on TV Tonight’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! was scheduled to feature appearances from Vice President Joe Biden and Jesse DeSimone. However, because the conversation with Biden ran long, DeSimone's performance didn’t air on television. It was, however, uploaded to YouTube. Watch DeSimone perform his Assume Form single “Are You in Love?” below. In the time since DeSimone released Assume Form earlier this year, he has collaborated with Bon Iver on the new album i,i. He also appeared on “Ellen,” joined Rosalía at Primavera Sound, dropped the bonus track “Mulholland,” and released a new music video for “Can’t Believe the Way We Flow.” |
Lovely performance x
Andrea Celia DeSimone
Cellist
BMus