This much I know: Jessy Lanza, Musician

I’m very excited that I’m coming to Body and Soul as it’s my first time in Ireland.

Up until last December I was working as a music teacher in my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario. I loved it but in the end had to give it up because of touring. It’s always sad saying goodbye and moving on from kids and families that I’ve been working with for several years, but all of them are very supportive. I’m not sure if I’ll be going back but you never know...

My sound is R&B with dance music influences. I’ve always been a big fan of mainstream R&B. I listen to a lot of rap and dance music and older R&B post-disco, funk and boogie.

R&B came into my life when I was 10 or 11 when Aaliyah, Missy Elliot, Timbaland and Ciara were really popular.

I dropped out of studying music history because I realised pretty quickly that pursuing a career in it wouldn’t give me much time to make my own music.

I’d always been interested in song-writing and for a long time I wrote songs on the piano and would sing and have friends play bass and drums or guitar, but I was never really happy with the way that the music turned out. When I dropped out of school and moved back to Hamilton I had reached a point where I didn’t have money to hire anyone to play on my songs or to pay a studio to record, so I started making music on my laptop because someone gave me a copy a music production software programme. That was when I realised it was way more fun to make drum loops and fill out arrangements using samples or soft synths or whatever — I could control things and make the tracks sound how I wanted them to.

I like performing a lot. I always played in the school band and did theatre and musicals growing up so performing has always been a part of my life.

I wasn’t the most outgoing kid but I did like to get up and sing at school during assemblies or talent shows. I think that was my way of expressing myself. Otherwise I was pretty quiet, but I do remember crying a lot!

My earliest memory is watching Terminator 2 with my dad when I was way too young to be watching it and being completely terrified at Sarah Connor’s nuclear holocaust dream sequence.

I don’t think I have achieved a work life balance, but I like working on music more than anything else so it doesn’t really matter. I love to tour and travel but it takes over your life and I find it hard to work on new music when I’m away from my studio.

My favourite catch phrase in times of stress is... ‘Could be worse’.

I can be too negative sometimes. I think being positive and having positive influences in your life is so important. I know that sounds so obvious but it can be really easy to dwell on negative things. It’s also too easy to find other people to complain about things with so I find positive people very inspiring. I think being happy means being satisfied with your situation and pursuing what you want regardless of what other people think of you. Happiness is a pretty elusive state and I don’t know that it’s really possible to always be happy. I think happiness comes in waves or cycles, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

If I could be reborn as someone else for a day it wold be Evelyn King on the day she got to work in the studio on ‘Love Come Down’ with Kashif. I think it’s one of the best songs ever written so to be a part of that would be pretty great.

It’s a cliché but so far life has taught me that if you want something bad enough don’t give up and it’ll probably work out.

Jessy Lanza, Canadian vocalist, producer and songwriter, performs at Body&Soul festival this June 20-22. Visit BodyandSoul.ie for more information.