Jesse Boykins III has released his new ‘P.O.P. (Purpose or People)‘ EP. The project is the eclectic singer/songwriters first release since his 2012 collaborative mixtape, ‘Zulu Guru‘ with rapper/producer Melo-X.
The new EP consists of Boykins’ remakes of songs by Drake (‘Take Care’), the Rapture (‘How Deep Is Your Love’), Coldplay (‘Sparks’) and Lana Del Rey (‘Young and Beautiful’), as well as some remixes and originals.
“I wanted to reintroduce myself. My last album was ‘Zulu Guru,’ which was a collaborative album with MeLo-X,” Jesse explained to RedBull Music. “I’ve been working on an album with Machinedrum for a long time that’s finished now, and should be out soon. But I just wanted to get myself back in the process of recording and working on songs. A lot of these songs were songs I’d been listening to while I was on tour in Europe earlier this year. These were the songs that kept me going. It was a rough tour, so when I got back home, I decided to record them.”
This EP should hold JBIII’s fans over until he releases the ‘Love Apparatus‘ album. Stream after the jump!
The album title ‘P.O.P.’ stands for “purpose or people.” What does that mean?
As an artist, to make pop music, you either make music that is different and that everyone still can’t resist, and they love it, or it’s music that sounds like whatever is the trend at the time. The music people make that doesn’t have anything to do with what is trendy, is timeless. Like Adele, her music has a purpose, but it just happens to be pop. Same with Fun. and Bruno Mars: their music isn’t what is presently the trend, but they make pop music. Other pop artists do whatever they hear on the radio, and their work doesn’t last long.
The best pop artists, like Michael Jackson, find the balance between both. That’s what great music is, and that’s what pop music should be. Sometimes it’s like this. And all the artists I chose to cover are pop artists, but there’s something timeless and deeper about the songs. The songs aren’t these ego-driven things, but they’re very vulnerable. It’s not about being the coolest person or having a gold chain, it’s pop music that feeds the soul. That’s what I think pop should be, and that’s what culture should be. And the music pushes everything else forward.
