By Jaylyn Gonzalez and Carla Rubio

With a powerful, aggressive, and hard to match sound, Jessie Reyez is an ever-growing R&B-Soul artist who not only reaches her fans with her heart-wrenching lyrics but also through her bold persona. 

This young Colombian-Canadian singer and songwriter has grown roots in her Canadian city, Toronto, where the variety of races and cultures continues to influence a lot of her music. 

“I feel like [Toronto] is a mosaic of cultures, it’s a mosaic of races,” she said in an interview with iHeartRadio.

But, before Reyez even had the opportunity to jump-start her career, trouble came crawling at her doorstep.

The corruption in the music industry has previously been exposed for its attraction towards an artists’ willingness to cooperate and follow orders and not for their talent and expressiveness. Reyez herself became trapped in this whirlpool and was faced with discrimination for being a woman trying to enter the industry and become successful. 

But even with this rocky start, Reyez was able to find an escape, and by 2017 she had already released her first EP “Kiddo” —a seven-track set that involved a family team effort in production— for the world to hear.

To reflect on her journey, she wrote a song named “Gatekeeper” to expose the truth behind trailing the dream of being a successful artist. She stated, “We are the gatekeepers/Spread your legs, open up/You could be famous/You know we’re holding the dreams that you’re chasing,” expressing the real voice of producers in the music industry.

    By 2018, Reyez released her debut album “Being Human In Public,” a fiercely outspoken set-list that confronts political and social stances such as immigration in “Imported” and sexual double standards in “Body Count” and “Dear Yessie,” a multi-suite song.

    However, after the release of her EP and debut-album, Reyez still struggled to get recognized in the industry. 

    She played to her strengths as a songwriter and began to write songs for well-known artists such as Calvin Harris and Sam Smith in “Promises” and Dua Lipa in “One Kiss.” After writing these hit songs, she also collaborated with Eminem on his 2018 surprise album release “Kamikaze” by featuring in his song “Good Guy”—creating a foundation for her rise in the industry.

R&B and Soul artists are ubiquitous across the industry’s arena. But for Jessie, leaving an instant mark as soon as she stepped into the spotlight wasn’t difficult: Reyez stands out with her aggressive yet soulful sound.

She writes about what she feels or is experiencing at the moment—no matter the topic—and channels her anger into her singing to strengthen herself and empower others, which is a common theme throughout her music. 

With lyrics from her past releases, such as “Shutter Island” and “Figures” that include “For a second I forgot I was a bad b***h/ Begging you to stay became a habit” and “You say sorry once and you think it’s enough/ I got a lineup of girls and a lineup of guys,” it helps to show how effortlessly she evokes emotions with her words.

Even with one listen to Reyez’s music, it is evident that she pours her heart out when writing and singing these songs. There tends to be high notes in her music which leads to voice cracks with extraneous force and intensity. 

While most artists see this as imperfect singing, Reyez keeps going until she gets her message across— her voice reverberates towards the soul.

Her unique vocal range has turned into another one of her prized possessions to the listening audience.

    Continuing her success from her previous album and coming off Billie Eilish’s postponed When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go Tour, Reyez recently released her second album “BEFORE LOVE CAME TO KILL US”— a fourteen track album that packs an emotional punch with the lyrical description of toxic relationships—leaving many with chills and tears.

To perfect her heartfelt tracklist, she remade her tracking 10 days before her official album release due to conflicted thoughts and stated on her Instagram “I needed to make sure I was passionate and proud of it—not the label, not my managers—me.”

However, on March 27th, she finally released her debut album that “both killed and birthed relationships,” leaving her fans in awe of her ability to transition smoothly into different emotions through her songs.

Reyez made a bold—but expected—start to her album with the line “I should’ve f****ed your friends.” In this song, named “DO YOU LOVE HER,” it’s clear that she poured her heart and soul through the strains in her voice during the chorus to express exactly what she felt from the aftermath of being betrayed from a former lover with the line “Kiss me I’m the monster that you made, yeah you made me.”

The most notable feature of the album is in “COFFIN” with six-time Grammy winner rap legend Eminem. The song depicts a toxic argument between a couple that ends in death— or more specifically, in a coffin as her lyricism puts it — tying back to the album’s title. 

Eminem’s feature came as a shock to many upon the announcement of the tracklist when Reyez said “Dude, I don’t know how the f**k I managed to get such a legend on my first album…thank you for your influence on me as an artist.” His verse adds the perfect amount of craziness and hurt that comes with a heated argument, as well as adding a refreshing voice after hearing only Reyez for almost ten minutes. 

    When it comes to drawing back to her Colombian roots, Reyez always finds a way to make a connection to her culture—evident in both of her albums and her EP—by including at least one Spanish song or excerpt. In this album specifically, not only did she release “LA MEMORIA,” a Spanish ballad that speaks upon memories of past relationships, but she also ties her origins back to Toronto—her hometown that she continues to draw inspiration from. 

“Colombia in my blood, yea” is the first line that she states in “DEAF (who are you)”— the second song in the album. While in “I DO” and “LA MEMORIA,” Reyez leaves a short interlude in Spanish that includes an English translation, intertwining her Colombian and Canadian cultures.

With arguably the most chill-inducing lyrics on the album, the title track “KILL US” serves to not only show just how

wide the variety of songs are on the album, but how powerful its message truly is. The powerful anthem shapes the album into Reyez’s vision which she describes as “something that made people think about their mortality,” or more ironically, “a theme song as to what’s happening in real life.”

But one should be fooled by the song’s fun beat and catchy hook, Reyez doesn’t fail to hit us where it hurts with the harsh reality of heartbreak, using lyrics like “I know nobody gets outta love alive/ We either breakup when we’re young/ Or we say goodbye when we die.”

Heartfelt lyrics, fantasies of falling in love, and captivating personal depictions are all heard and felt in Reyez’s new album, which encompasses a perfect self-distancing listen. 

With “BEFORE LOVE CAME TO KILL US,” this rising star simply reached deep into her emotions and poured them all out for the whole world to feel.