JIMETTA ROSE AND THE VOICES OF CREATION INTERVIEW

The Voices of Creation choir - photo by Trisha Angeles

The Voices of Creation are a community-based choir led by vocalist, songwriter, arranger, producer and mainstay of the Los Angeles scene Jimetta Rose. Made up of a multigenerational group of mainly non-professional singers backed by some of the city’s finest musicians, their music marries hip strains of gospel with layers of jazz, soul and funk. While aspects of their music might recall Kamasi Washington, The Staple Singers or Sly Stone, Jimetta’s unique vision has resulted in new spiritually-charged forms of music whose whole-hearted embrace of love, joy and peace act as sonic healing balms for the soul.

Their new album How Good It Is is available now from Day Dreamer.

Interview by Interlocutor Magazine

What was your initial inspiration for creating your community-based choir, The Voices of Creation? Were you influenced by other choirs that took a similarly unconventional “open-call” approach to finding members?

My initial inspiration was writing these songs that felt spiritual and knowing these songs weren’t made for just me to sing. I thought about starting a choir, but the idea seemed whimsical at best, at first. I reached a point in my solo career that I thought seriously about giving up and that was enough to push me to really begin to take the idea more to heart.

By the time I met Jack Maeby in 2018 there was still nothing like this on the music scene. In January of the following year, we began to meet to record demos of the songs and by April we began to rehearse with members. I remember hearing about Kanye’s Sunday Service choir in March of that year and really being worried that people would think this was an offshoot of that idea. We’d been working so hard to get things together and boom Kanye opened that door for us. I now see the similarities between the groups as a strength; Kanye made the masses willing once again to contemplate spirit.

The open call to find members wasn’t really by design at all. It was more so about me daring to step out and take a risk and see who would meet me there in mid-air. I had plenty of singer friends who said they’d be down, ultimately the right people answered the call.

You've said, “I recruited people based on their interest in healing themselves and others, not necessarily on their musical experience or being seasoned performers.” What were both some unique challenges and pleasant surprises you encountered throughout this unusual process?

I think the most unique challenge is helping someone share their voice with joy and without doubt. We are all masters at self-critique and getting someone free enough to just try to sing is one of the joys of this ministry; whether it be someone with no singing experience or someone who has the talent but has maybe lost the joy of it. It takes a whole lot of inner child energy to move the hesitancy and often self-imposed restriction people have around their voice. Music is healing so it's been a blessing to watch the choir and myself grow individually and collectively due to the intentionally high frequency of what we’re singing.

How long was the rehearsal process for the album? Did you feel that it was essential to work to build a strong communal spirit with this group to get the energy just right before recording?

The recording was never the goal, the strong communal bond was. We initially rehearsed twice a week, one mandatory Saturday rehearsal and a weekday makeup rehearsal. Through the pandemic to maintain our progress I broke the choir into three groups, and we’d rehearse separately but equally once a week, Jack and I were on triple duty at that time. We currently rehearse every Saturday at Sole Folks Art Lab in Leimert Park, California.

How do you think your Pentecostal church upbringing and background as a youth choir director helped you take an intuitive approach to instructing songs and arrangements to musically inexperienced members? In what ways did the group's organ player/co-musical director Jack Maeby also distinctly help with the training?

My roots in church are the mainstays of my musical knowledge, also attending Hollywood High school and participating in their music and theater departments gave me a love for drama and expression. As far as teaching the song, each time it was an experiment as to how.

The process required a lot of intuition and trust from myself and anyone who were a part of that initial stage. Jack’s musical skill and his humble heart made him the most ideal partner to birth this project with, he gave me space to fully express an idea and he’d play chord suggestions and I'd sing what I heard in my mind and we’d craft a composition that maintained the integrity of the initial idea but was anchored soundly in theory just as much as in my imagination. I absolutely could not have done this with anyone else. Jack Maeby was definitely heaven sent to me for this project.

The Sons and Daughters of Lite is a big influence on the sound for The Voices of Creation, and the album includes a reworking of their classic “Let The Sunshine In” and a cover of their song “Operation Feed Yourself.” Could you talk about how you reworked these songs and added fresh perspectives and arrangements to help inspire the performers and listeners in new ways that speak to these times?

Finding The Sons and Daughters of Lite to me was like a kid finding the perfect candy that they didn't even know existed. The lush chords and the haunting beauty of the vocals would linger with me. Initially I’d just listen to “Let The Sunshine In” and I'd hear four-part harmony instead of two. So, when we recorded the demos, I wanted to hear those extra voices.

With “Operation Feed Yourself” I felt the song was just as timeless as the aforementioned tune, so I went about trying to personalize the message more. If the theme is going to be “operation feed yourself” perhaps we could give some recipe suggestions in our rendition. I wanted to make sure that the audience and the choir, and myself that we all remember we consume with our mouths, our minds, and our ears. Our thoughts fuel our ambition and our drive but if we are not paying attention to the words we’re speaking and thinking or the thoughts we’re believing and acting upon we are truly a danger to ourselves and others. The mind is a terrible thing to waste, and an even more terrible thing to lose.

What are the plans for live performances to support the album - are there any upcoming Los Angeles performances or plans for a tour?

We’ll be planning a big LA album release in the next month or so in celebration of our debut album How Good It Is. We have a few other shows in town planned as well. As far as touring 2023 is looking ripe with opportunities for us to take this message of love and healing on the road.

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