Explaining the title she’s given her debut album, JessB says it’s about feeling at home with where you’re at, where you’ve come from, and where you’re going – a sense of sanctuary she’s rightly celebrating in her own artistic journey. With ‘Feels Like Home’ she has also delivered a project that will be her calling card to labels, booking agents and festivals in the northern hemisphere, an introduction to her next level international career. Richard Thorne talked with Jess Bourke on the eve of the album’s release. Made with support from NZ On Air Music.

It was August 2020 when JessB last released a song collection, the 6-track EP ‘3 Nights In Amsterdam’. She’s the kind of hip hop artist who has a lot to say, and prolific as a songwriter, so the four-year gap to the July 2024 release of her debut album ‘Feels Like Home’ has indeed been a long time coming.

Clearly long enough to get the album marketing, including merch, thoroughly sorted – she’s wearing a fetching cap emblazoned with the album title when we talk. Long enough that the world’s music landscape has changed considerably, and yes, Covid was a major reason for the delay. Long enough too for Jess Bourke to have herself changed considerably, with the end of her 20s coming into view.

Personal evolution is something that’s been emphasised across the album’s earlier released singles that include Come Find Me, Talk of the Town and Moment (featuring Jamaica-born reggae and dancehall artist Kranium). Dancehall is a frequent feature of her album that blends an entertaining tapestry of styles and sentiment, even a few casually fun tracks like the Beyonce-referencing Ring Ring (‘If you like it better put a ring tone on it…’), clearly evidencing both personal and artistic evolution.

“I would say that my roots were in hip hop, but I’ve kind of landed in this fusion space now where it’s like, you know, dancehall and hip hop, and reggaeton and electronic – and like, all these different kind of intersections of genre,” explains Jess.

“Dancehall tempo and hip hop tempo, the BPMs are very, very similar, so it makes sense. From a creative point coming from hip hop and then moving into those different Afro sounds, that tempo works perfectly. So I was kind of able to have the best of both worlds, I guess.”

The global Covid hiatus stopped the real momentum that followed ‘3 Nights In Amsterdam’, but left her time to draft “hundreds” of tracks and even record some at home. The bulk of this debut album was however recorded over two weeks in the same Amsterdam studio that almost magically delivered the formative EP – literally in just three nights.

“I had never experienced like, I don’t know, just creative chemistry in that way before! It was a really amazing experience, and I think that was reflected in how much music we made in such a short period of time. At that point I was like, ‘I need to come back here to make my album’, but because of Covid I wasn’t able to go back until 2022.”

Based in Haarlem, MoW Music Studios is run by Max Oude Weernink, a well-known Amsterdam DJ now with an extensive background in performing, recording, and production. A bunch of other talented producers also work there, Jess describing the fortnight as being almost like an album camp, with always more than just the two of them busy in the studio.

“It was inspiring to make music there, in a different environment and overseas and all of that. That is a really cool thing about Amsterdam, they have such a melting pot of cultures and it’s like the sound reflects that. And I think that that sound, and even that as a concept, is something that’s very relatable for me.

“As a, you know, Afro Kiwi growing up here, my experience of my blackness, and expressing that in music is reflective of what I listen to and what I relate to – as well as what feels and sounds like me. I think for me it’s been about finding connection and finding shared understanding a lot of my music journey.

“Dancehall is a genre that I’ve found that in to an extent. I don’t claim to be a dancehall artist at all, but having the inspiration in there, and also collaborating with dancehall artists, is something that just feels like it makes sense. And I enjoy it, I like how it sounds, you know?”

For the May 2023 release of Moment (in which her role is the sung counterpart to the rap of Kranium), Jess described the introspective single as looking to expand on the sound explored in ‘3 Nights in Amsterdam’ writing; ‘I have really looked to develop my songwriting, particularly with a melodic lens, and to become more confident with expressing in this way.’

The singing inclusive tracks on ‘Feels Like Home’ are, she says, mostly those completed quite recently, older ones having been discarded as she became better at both their writing and performing.

“It was just something that I really wanted to do. I just wanted to expand creatively and challenge myself. And again, I definitely don’t claim to be a singer, but I think it’s nice to have both, you know, tricks up my sleeve, I guess.”

Waiting Patiently stands out as a track where hip hop is left behind, and her singing voice is used exclusively, the slowed tempo and restrained electronic backing adding to the song’s vulnerability. Jess describes learning how to sing as being similar to learning a new language.

“Yeah, like it was really uncomfortable. It was something I had wanted to do for a really long time but I found it really hard. And that song, Waiting Patiently, was actually really special to me because it’s one of the first times that I actually wrote and recorded a song singing! I wrote it with a friend of mine who’s also an artist called India. And I felt like it was the perfect way to kind of capture that feeling and like share it. It actually started out as just an RnB song, and we kind of changed it to be Afro to fit in the project.”

Personal development aside, the global music industry’s models have also changed dramatically in the intervening four years. Mood from her 2019 ‘New Views’ EP is nearing 3.5M Spotify plays, while Moment has to date enjoyed less than one twentieth of that number. Jess points to the streaming landscape being completely different now, plus that there are more artists putting more music out.

“There’s more competition for things like playlisting, which can be something that makes streams and obviously gives you exposure to people finding songs. And, you know, with platforms like TikTok in the mix it’s a lot less predictable for anyone – label, artists, whatever – to know, kind of, what’s going to go. I’m not really paying attention to the numbers in that way because I just don’t think that things move the same. You kind of just have to keep going, you know?

“I think the landscape now is a lot harder, and it’s a lot harder for people starting out to be seen through all of the noise.

“And you’ve got to be able to move with the time. I do most of my music related stuff on Instagram but to be honest TikTok is where the growth is happening for artists, and I definitely need to be better on TikTok. It’s very hard, but everybody’s experiencing the same hard, so you can’t feel too sorry for yourself, you know!”

Jess describes her 12-track album debut as a sample box of her creative brain, with many different sounds and vibes – a record of her personal growth with a fitting title that points to the changeable physical definition of ‘home’, along with the emotional embodiment of finding herself as a person. The MoW production touch is nowhere more evident than on Longtime Coming, the album closer and lyrical summation track.

“I wanted a track like that on the album where I was speaking to the journey of it all, I guess, and tying it together with ‘Feels Like Home’. It was one of those sessions where it kind of just all fell out of my brain and we didn’t spend a long time making the song. I think I kind of already had all those thoughts there to be said. And it feels like the only track that could have ended the album to be honest. Yeah.”