Good For Your Health

Jordan Ramesh

Jordan Ramesh is a graduate of The College of New Jersey, utilizing his BA in Interactive Multimedia and Minor in Computer Science in his pursuit of music and film production experience. Versed in all professional-standard Adobe softwares and proficient with DAWs such as Logic and Ableton, Jordan has also garnered supervisory experience as the Gallery Assistant at Alfa Art Gallery.

“Good For Your Health” is now available for streaming across the platforms listed below:

• Bandcamp

• Soundcloud

• Spotify—in contact with distributors in order to get my work approved for promotion.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-ramesh/

Hand-coded online portfolio: https://externalize.media/

Phone/Email: (609) 235-7964 / rameshj1@tcnj.edu

“Good For Your Health”

This project is an incredibly personal one. It represents both my visions for the future and my reflections of the past. In this EP, I wanted to take the opportunity to experiment as much as I could with the music I create and present the world around us through the subjective lens of my own personal experiences—embodying the fervor with which I have contemplated these issues over the years.

This EP has been heavily motivated by the powerful, yet subtle method with which specific artists are able to articulate both socially-cognizant and incredibly personal messages within their respective genres. The initial title I was working with was “2020 Whoopin’ My Ass,” and while the new title is far more marketable, the message and emotions involved within my project remain stagnant. I’m chronicling the experiences I’ve had over the past year, specifically in regards to how my life has changed under the umbrella of COVID-19 and my own mental health spirals.

Last but certainly not least, I set out to create a comprehensive body of music that I can be proud of and happily state that it was created by my own two hands. And with “Good For Your Health,” I believe I’ve done that.

Project Tracklist:

1. Good For Your Health

2. KK’s Love Ballad

3. Ten Toes

4. FACES

5. paper house

My Process (Challenges, Inspirations, and Help from Friends!)

I found myself faced with a growing number of obstacles as I began the production of this EP a semester ago. From anxiety-inducing time constraints to frustrating technical difficulties, I’ve had to overcome quite a few challenges throughout the past months. I found myself rescaling the scope of my EP several times, dropping the initial goal of 6 tracks down to 5 meaningful songs about my life and identity—as well as scrapping the idea of filming music videos entirely. In the last few weeks or so, my Ableton DAW stopped responding to my Zoom H4 microphone and I found myself faced with yet another issue: I could no longer record audio into my tracks in real time, or with the quality I had been over the previous months. This left me with few options, and I flip-flopped between several DAWs before landing in Audition for the final stretch of my progress. This also meant that not only did I have to now record my final song, “FACES,” on my phone rather than my professional microphone, but I also had to essentially throw out all of the previous deadlines I’d set for myself regarding the remainder of my work. That being said, I’m actually very happy with how the song came out, and lyrically, its the most significant track of the whole project!

I wrote, mixed, and produced “Good For Your Health” by myself, with some key (and incredibly appreciated) helping hands by way of features from friends. I’ve chosen to use my given middle name, Jayu, as my artist name across all platforms, as a reminder to myself to keep my work genuine and to speak on matters that are significant to me at all times.

There are several artists who have inspired me throughout the development process of my own EP, be it due to their technical production prowess, their abilities to delineate large-scale, comprehensive social issues, or their capabilities for utilizing music as a catalyst to tell personal narratives with significant thematic nuances:

• A surprising addition to this list of inspirations came in the form of King Krule’s work, as I found his subtle, low almost ambient use of vocals and grimy, lofi production to be really similar, tonally and thematically, to the music I wanted to make. As my thesis project progressed forward, I often found myself gravitating towards Krule’s music—specifically the tracks released under the alias of his legal name, Archy Marshall, and his more recent, exceedingly experimental projects such as “Man Alive!” and “The OOZ.” Not only is the patented King Krule croon in full effect in these pieces, but the projects themselves feel incredibly genuine and raw, largely due to their significantly experimental nature and the sheer emotion that resonates from Archy’s voice.

  • Exemplary works:

    • “Cellular” - Man Alive!

    • “Thames Water” - A New Place 2 Drown

    • “Baby Blue” - 6 Feet Beneath The Moon

• Kendrick Lamar is widely-renowned as one of the greatest lyricists of all time, able to expound upon powerful, divisive issues in an incredibly charismatic and articulate manner. His body of work ranges from intimate, personal accounts of his life and experiences in Compton, to expansive discourses regarding the racially and politically schismatic state of affairs in the U.S. To give a sense of what he is capable of, in regards to how I’ve sang his praises above, I’ll describe a few of the stories told in the following list of exemplary works: a 12-minute narrative that spends its track length detailing the real-life account of a young prostitute who had been raped and slain by a john, Kendrick’s reflection on how Anthony 'Top Dawg' Tiffith had planned a second robbery at a local KFC where 'Ducky,' Kendrick's father, worked in the '90s, and how his death could have resulted in nobody ever learning about the name Kendrick Lamar, and an emotionally-charged tirade on blackness and the perception of blackness in American society. 

  • Exemplary works: 

    • “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst” - Good Kid, M.A.A.D City

    • “DUCKWORTH.” - DAMN.

    • “The Blacker The Berry” - To Pimp A Butterfly

• Kanye West is often regarded as the single greatest producer to ever grace this earth, our ears, and the Billboard charts. And with good reason, too. His compositions are both undeniably unique and extraordinarily intricate. He takes an avante-garde approach to instrumentation in his production and always seems to bring the best out of any featured artist he puts on a song, to the extent that some of the greatest verses in an artists’ discography may be on a song created by Kanye West, rather than themselves. Furthermore, his utilization of sampling in his music is absolutely awe-inspiring and a tremendous inspiration to my own production process. With all that being said, he still manages to tell incredibly intimate and damning stories about his own experiences and mental health struggles--to the point that he is, in my opinion, the most resonant and articulate voice of representation for bipolar disorder in American media. 

  • Exemplary works: 

    • “I Thought About Killing You” - ye

    • “Roses” - Late Registration

    • “Saint Pablo (feat. Sampha)” - The Life of Pablo

• Lil Peep has always been an incredible inspiration and representation of the struggles of addiction and depression that I had battled with for years, to the point that I actually broke down and cried on the night that Gustav Elijah Åhr overdosed. In his work, Gus paints the portrait of a man torn apart by his plethoral addictions and mental health issues. He was a man living with his demons in full view, and while he was overwhelmingly aware of their presence, he couldn’t ever bring himself to fully combat them. And I think this is a story that a lot of people can relate to and recognize themselves within, yet isn’t told nearly as much as it should be. Honestly, Lil Peep has been one of the most stylistically unique and emotionally significant artists to help shape who I am as a person today, and what message I want to convey through the music I create. His work is visceral and poignant. Each song tells a story that is both ostensibly intimate and largely reflective of the traumas and emotional vulnerability of an entire generation of reclusive, depressed teens--effectively normalizing the discussion of and significantly reducing the stigma surrounding mental health issues and toxicity in relationships.

  • Exemplary works:

    • “Star Shopping” - Single

    • “Awful Things” - Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 1

    • “Life is Beautiful” - Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 2

• Tyler, the Creator is an artist who truly embodies artistic evolution, in all facets of his work. From his boisterous, delinquent, rage-imbued albums such as Cherry Bomb and Goblin to far more melodic and empathetic albums in Flower Boy and IGOR, Tyler defines artistic reinvention in the phases that become apparent when looking at his breadth of work in its entirety. Throughout the course of many years of work, Tyler displays, for all to see, a fairly progressive coming-of-age story--where he comes to grips with his own sexual identity and the man that he has metamorphosed into today. This is demonstrated with incredible articulation and a newfound priority placed upon the harmonic consistency within these works, as opposed to his past dalliances with what some would consider to be music defined by its overarching representation of the counterculture within its own genre. 

  • Exemplary works: 

    • “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?” - IGOR

    • “See You Again (feat. Kali Uchis)” - Flower Boy

    • “Radicals” - Goblin

• XXXTentacion was, above all else, an artist defined by controversy. In his lyricism, musicality, and the social perception that surrounded him, his work and personality were as divisive as they were motivating. His music is infused with a tangible energy that is absolutely undeniable, to both detractors and fans alike. What truly inspires me in his work is the transition between an angry, pseudo-revolutionary kid to the socially-cognizant, mental health advocate that he had grown into nearing the shocking and abrupt end to his life. On July 18, 2018, Jahseh Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy, known professionally as XXXTentacion, was ambushed and shot to death at the age of 20. He was, objectively, a vastly significant pioneer in the music industry who made immense strides to confront the stigma surrounding depression. Jah also helped combat mental health issues, and addressed overall emotional vulnerability on a mainstream platform, in a genre in which this subject matter was largely taboo--especially with regards to his target demographic being inner city kids and communities as a whole. While he lived a checkered life, his work inspired many, myself included. 

  • Exemplary works: 

    • “Revenge” - 17

    • “Jocelyn Flores” - 17

    • “I Don’t Wanna Do This Anymore” - Revenge

Good For Your Health (EP) [LIVE DEMO] + Spotify Preview Loops: