Below is an interview with Bay Area artist Jamar Seay. Here is a snippet from his press release from his latest song “Heatbreak”:

"This song goes out to all the broken hearts and heart breakers of the world." - Jamar Seay

Jamar Seay, a songwriter from California delivers songs with catchy and meaningful lyrics. In his latest song "Heartbreak" featuring Keith Varon, Jamar confesses personal fears, past regrets, and the inspiration to abandon theories that cripple relationships. Vibe with the melody and allow the spoken words to identify your own feelings on a topic we're all familiar to. Heartbreak.

So, become more familiar with the many different facets of Jamar and click on the link down below to hear both “Heartbreak” and other songs from this artist.

Tell us a little about yourself. 

My name is Jamar Seay. I spent my early years in Vallejo, CA and since then I bounced around a little throughout the Bay Area growing up in San Ramon, Danville, and even spent some time in Berkeley while I was going to college at San Francisco State. I pretty much started rapping right after I graduated from high school. That was the summer of 2000. I was also in a car accident around that same time, and so that’s when everything in my life kinda changed. I started to realize where I stood with God and that made me really understand what life was about. It wasn’t about partying and girls and everything, but I still wasn’t sure exactly what it was about. I became a Christian soon after that, though. My brother James was the one that really inspired me to start making music. He knew I had the ability to write songs and that I had creativity, so he sat me down and taught me how to write songs, about song structure, and making sure my lyrics made sense. Music was what I needed too because I wasn’t really sure of who I was and what I wanted out of life and it was also a way for me to connect with my brother. He was always rapping, so once I started we formed an even stronger bond. He even started his own record label, called One Life Records and we were promoting it hard. Although it was independent, we were trying to get signed to a major. We even got a meeting with E-40’s manager Chaz Hayes and played him a demo CD I made. He was feeling it, but encouraged us to continue to do the independent thing. So from that point, I just tried to find my own way. I was doing performances at places like Stanford University, Paramount’s Great America, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and even did a couple live tapings for BET. Both of them didn’t end up coming out, but one of the ones that did was for their “Rap-It-Up” campaign. I also put up my first single “World Domination” on soundclick.com and we got voted number 3 out of over 1,260,000 hip hop songs in the first week of release.

You mentioned becoming a Christian. Tell us a little bit about what the dynamic of being Christian in hip hop music is like. I don’t think you label yourself as a Christian rapper, but I would imagine that it’s still a little different for you as opposed to other artists.
When I first started writing music, I did classify myself as a Christian rapper. But a few years into my career I stopped. You can definitely hear it in my music though. If I claim to be that and live that, I feel that I don’t even need to tell people. They can just see and hear it. And when you categorize yourself, you limit yourself. People tend to take that one image and aren’t open to all of who you are. I want people to listen to it without any kind of bias.

But as a Christian that refrains from saying and promoting certain things in your music, do you explicitly mention things relating to religion in your music or feel compelled to?
A lot of my music is heart driven and scripture influenced. I make reference to different scriptures, to Proverbs and things of that nature, but I put it in a way that people who are unfamiliar with the Bible can still understand and relate to my music. 

You mentioned earlier all of things you’ve accomplished. That’s a lot of success for an independent artist, but you put down rapping for a while right? Why was that?
I stopped for about 3 years. Part of the reason was because my producer Scariano got married. We met in Guitar Center in like 2003 and since then he’s helped me mature as an artist. But when he got married, I wasn’t really comfortable making music with too many other people and my brother stopped making music, as well. A lot of people I knew in the music industry moved out of the Bay Area, but I wanted to stay here while still maintaining a strong reputation in the industry. So, I stopped creating and just started networking via social networking and things like that. During that time, I started working with my British business partner Duncan A. Forbes who is based in London and my other business partner Daniel Stokes (a popular booking agent for hip hop acts in Northern California). We’ve been working on this smart phone app right now called “Universally | Discover”. It’s for music artists and music lovers. It’s going well and we’re in talks with the City of Oakland to see how we can get this idea in the hands of our clients, literally. A percentage of the profits will be donated back to the Oakland Unified School District. Anyway, we’ve been working on that and I was also interning during the summer for an independent record label, Bright Antenna in Oakland, CA started by my friend and music mentor Sep V. Sep taught me how to structure a musician’s career and how to get everything lined up before they go public with their product. He also taught me about how artists make money, how to book shows, and things like that. Another passion of mine is clothing and connecting artists with different apparel companies. I have worked with a number of different companies and artists to form those relationships. A couple companies I’ve worked with are Tsubo Footwear, Airspeed Footwear, Ordinary Clothing, Function Drinks, which is actually a beverage company, and a men’s boutique in Paris, France called “Hartwood Paris”.

Well, I can see why it took you so long to come back. Sounds like you were juggling a lot of things and you still are. But, you’re back now. What was it that inspired you to come back?
A couple things did. I feel purpose as an artist is to be an influence to others and show people that you can do things from your heart and risk being rejected. You don’t have to glorify disrespecting women, taking advantage of your community, selling drugs, or anything like that. I want to show people that there are other ways to express yourself. Not many artists are willing to step-up and take on that role, so I decided I needed to. People also kept asking me why I wasn’t making music anymore and the answers I was giving weren’t sufficient, so I realized I needed to. I was also researching different bands and musicians around the world that I wanted to work with, but I couldn’t work with them if I wasn’t creating. 

I think we all know how rare it is for artists to truly speak from the heart and instead try to glorify many of the things that you mentioned. So, you explained why you came back, but why did you get started in the first place? Who were the people, on the mic, that influenced you to start rapping, other than your brother?
Uhhh…E-40 for sure, because of his creativity and just being from the Bay Area. I liked Tupac’s energy, ambition, and focus. Those were really big for me. He was more vulnerable than a lot of rappers at the time and was able to reach fans in a completely different way. Definitely Jay-Z, because he’s always raised the bar for what black males should expect from themselves. The way he conducts himself on a business level is something I think we should all take notice of. I also liked Yukmouth and C-Bo growing up. They had passion, pride and aggression that I related to being an energetic teenager trying to be noticed.

So, now you’re back with the single “Heartbreak” that you’ve been promoting. Is there an album to follow up?
Yeah, “Heartbreak” is the single. It was produced by latino super producer Scariano and features indie rocker and childhood friend Keith Varon, but there’s not gonna be an album. There will be other singles coming out, though. There’s a new rock band called Modern Day Kids (MdK) from my home city of San Ramon that I’m working with to release a song in the summer time. We’ve been fortunate to have two sponsors that will donate clothes and merchandise to go along with the project. American Envy in Massachusetts is one and a skateboarding company in Arizona called Apache Skateboards is the other. We’ll be looking to drop that in the summer. Im also in the works of writing songs with Greek singer “Marian Georgiou” and LA’s Youtube phenom “Amber Blu”.

So we won’t get an album, but there will be a steady flow of music coming out in the near future?
I may do a collection of singles type thing, but we’ll see. Im excited about my RootMusic bandpage on Facebook because its so easy to be in touch with my fans and followers.

In what ways do you think you’ve grown, both on and off the mic, since you decided to leave for a while?
When I stopped creating music, it made me investigate other avenues of the music industry. I wasn’t just focused on being the talent. I was interested in management, A&R, and things like that. I became more well-rounded and educated about the industry. That’s something that you definitely have to do as an independent artist. You don’t get the same financial backing or any other kind of support that artists on the major label get, so you have to know a lot more. I like being independent because it forces you to be really good about making and creating music and not hide behind an image like most mainstream artists do. Also, studying other genres of music made me more relatable to other fan bases and just gave me more style.

What do you hope to accomplish with this comeback?
Honestly, I want to get my songs on TV shows and in movies and Chris Austria of IDC in SF is helping me to do so. I studied how much that can help your career. I want to work with artists from all around the world, too. Music is a universal language and it makes you feel that much closer to people you may not have otherwise connected with. 

Those royalties are definitely something more artists need to pay attention to. Before we wrap the interview up, I have to ask everybody this: If you were introducing people to hip hop for the first time, what album would you give them and why?
Man, that’s a very good question. Umm….I’d probably have to say…It’s a tie between Blueprint 2 and All Eyez On Me. With Blueprint 2, the production was really solid. Production is still a very important to hip hop, and that album had some great music. There wasn’t a track I didn’t like, instrumentation wise and it was very diverse. WithAll Eyez On Me, it was the first double album and having that many songs, you got to really know who Tupac was and see all of his dimensions. He put so much of himself in that album. Another one I would have to throw in there is E-40’s Hall Of Game because I think it really represented the Bay Area at that time. It just made me proud to be from the Bay Area. The sound, the creativity, the slang, and all of that. If I was introducing somebody to Bay Area rap, that would definitely be the album. 

You don’t typically hear people mention Blueprint 2 or Hall Of Game, but I do know what you mean. Especially being from the Bay myself, I gotta respect the Hall Of Game pick [laughs]. Thanks for your time and we wish you all the best. Any last words?
All I want is for people to not lower their standards for what good music really is. That’s it.

You will be able to purchase the new song “Heartbreak” (and other songs) from Jamar Seay on Valentine's Day (February 14) on his Facebook Page at http://listn.to/jamarseay.

Peace.