Have you ever met someone who knew what they wanted to accomplish in life and they prepared for it every day?
Meet Julian Randolph—better known to his music following as Jules Born.
His debut album, Memorybilia is a collection of music that he created in-between recording music for his own Voices of Black group and represents some of those same sounds he heard growing up.
Jules Born began his journey in music by taking classical piano lessons at the age of three and recalls falling in with music when he’d listen to oldies like Motown era soul, disco and funk, Eddie Kendricks, Chic, Parliament Funkadelic, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan in his Teaneck, NJ home. “My mother played a lot of music from all over the world,” Jules Born told The Source. “My parents always made music an important part of my life weather it was taking me record shopping or always playing music in the car as a young child.”
Speaking of family, what’s cool about his upbringing is that he had the support of his family to aide him in following his dream of making music.
He had a muse right on his home turf!
His father Terry, is a retired NFL veteran and played for the Green Bay Packers and New York Jets. His uncle, Willie is a baseball legend most notably as a shortstop for the New York Yankees. “Julian has always been a quiet and shy kid but very driven,” Willie Randolph tells The Source.
“I’m proud of him because he has a rhythm about him and has a feel for music and a feel for beats. I love listening to the music and I think good things are going to happen for him because he’s dedicated, motivated and you can tell that he loves the music.”
Memorybilia dropped on August 19th. The album is available for free download and available on iTunes.
Check It Out
Jules Born also caught up with The Source and chatted more about music.
The Source: Tell me more about this new album. Not too many artists produce and write their own music top to bottom. What was that like?
Jules Born: I had been doing a lot of writing and eventually sat down and captured a moment in which I freely created a body of work. I self-produced and mixed the entire album and wanted to give it out for free. I really built every idea from scratch. For two songs I brought in a guitarist, Tim Hoyt and a cellist, Bryan Wilson, for parts I played with synthesizers but knew guitar or real strings should replace them to add more life. But other than that, I limited myself to basically 3 pieces of equipment. As far as writing the material and producing it, it was cool to experiment and form a cohesive body of work. I have done production for other artists and still work/produce for other artists now but I think the biggest difference was releasing this completely independently and promoting it myself as opposed to other projects being released with record labels.
The Source: Why should someone want to listen to your music?
Jules Born: I would hope people would listen to my music for a different sonic experience than the norm. With this album I wanted to challenge the conventional ways of song format. It wasn’t really that conceptual but I think I just went into it doing exactly what I wanted at the time. I hope to inspire people and give them a body of work that isn’t so easily put into one category or genre, or associated so much with one. I think a new movement is brewing of artists, particularly artists of color that are pushing boundaries and making it so that these record labels and critics are having a hard time categorizing and compartmentalizing the music. I think it’s a good time right now to be as free as possible creatively.
The Source: You come from an interesting family with athletes and coaches on both sides. How does your sports background tie into your music background?
Jules Born: I think growing up in a family with athletes and playing sports when I was younger made me want to excel at my craft. I think it has just been more inspirational to remain dedicated and disciplined when it comes to what I do especially when it comes to touring and performance. I think it’s cool because growing up it was almost expected for me to follow in those footsteps to some extent but my friends and family supported me when I decided to do other things and peruse music.
The Source: Who inspires you and why?
Jules Born: Everyone and anyone who stands for positivity and challenges the norm or standard way of doing things. In any field, profession or art form. People who can impact the future generations in a way that makes them want to be as true to them as possible. People like Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, George Clinton, Kanye West even newer, younger artists like I Love Makkonen and FKA Twigs.
For more info on what Jules Born is up to, visit his website at julesborn.com
Photo Credit: Margay Kaplan
