Tone Glow 129: Jlin
An interview with the Indiana-based composer and producer about HBCU drumlines, collaborating with Philip Glass and Björk, and her new album 'Akoma'
Jlin
Jlin (b. 1987), born Jerrilynn Patton, is an Indiana-based composer and producer. She started making footwork tracks under the guidance of RP Boo and DJ Rashad, releasing her first track, “Erotic Heat,” on the 2011 Planet Mu compilation Bang & Works Vol. 2. In the following years, she released numerous albums, including Dark Energy (2015), Black Origami (2017), and Autobiography (2018), the last of which was the soundtrack for a work by choreographer Wayne McGregor. Her 2022 composition Perspective, as performed by Third Coast Percussion, was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Last year, she released a mini-album with the same title, and is now set to bring forth a new full-length on March 22nd: Akoma. This studio album is the next evolution of her sound: more sharply edited, broader in scope, and monumental in its arrangements. She continues to channel her own style of footwork, one that is skeletal, hypnotic, and willing to take the genre’s foundation and merge it with countless other rhythmic musics around the world. For this album, she collaborated with Björk, the Kronos Quartet, and Philip Glass, but there is also at least one track, “Challenge (To Be Continued II),” that points to her love for HBCU drumlines. Joshua Minsoo Kim spoke with Jlin on February 21st, 2024 via Zoom to discuss her homebody lifestyle, her favorite HBCU drumlines, Eartha Kitt, and her grandmother’s cherry cobbler.
Joshua Minsoo Kim: How’ve you been?
Jlin: I just got back from Kenya with my mom on Sunday. We were traveling for 26 hours.
How was it? Do you visit often?
It was a mother-daughter trip and it was beautiful. It was my first time, and it was my mom’s fourth time. She has a farm in Kenya and so I got to see that. And instead of taking the lead, I got to follow behind, which was nice.
Do you often go on trips with your mom?
Not often, but she definitely comes to my events. She’s as busy as I am sometimes, but we hang out when we can; we’re really close.
Do you mind sharing something you love about your mom? What stands out to you about her?
She’s a manifestor, she always wants me to do my best. She always used to say, “If I can imagine it, I can do it.” Figuratively, she could climb a mountain with no bungee cable. She doesn’t even think about it. And she leads by example for me. So even when it looks scary, it’s like when she says, “If I can do it, you can do it too.”
Do you recall a moment when she was an example for you in that way when you were younger?
All the time. When I was a kid, it was like she wasn’t afraid of anything. She just seemed fearless. Now that I’m 36, I realized that she had fears but leaped anyway. She always told me, “If I’m afraid to do it, that’s exactly what I should be doing.” She always believed in going head first.
That’s such a great mantra. Was your mom into music? What was it like in your household in terms of the fostering of creativity and the arts?
My mother and father are very much into music. My father was very into jazz and blues, but my mother was into everything, so I had a good mixture. We used to come home from church and my mom would play her records. On Saturdays, my mom would play her records while we were cleaning the house and doing chores—that kind of thing. It’d go from Rick James to Phoebe Snow to Tito Puente to Bootsy Collins to Elton John, whatever it was it made no difference (laughs).
Did your parents ever talk with you about music, like explain what good music was?
Nah, they just played what they liked and I liked it. They were never like, “This is good, listen to this.” They each had their own tastes and enjoyed the music for what it was, and I did the same. I appreciate that they didn’t do that because if I had children, I wouldn’t say, “This is good, this is bad” either. Everybody’s journey is different—your taste is different from mine and I want it to be like that. As I got older, I learned how to appreciate the music on my own.
Did it ever go in the opposite direction, where you showed music you liked to your parents?
Some of the music I liked growing up… I probably wasn’t allowed to listen to it because it was vulgar. That didn’t stop me from listening to it, but it wasn’t something that I could play in the house. But I had the facets of both worlds, because I would hear something and be like, “Hey, that was sampled from this song!” While I was sneaking to do this one thing, I was able to understand the origin.
I know that you first heard footwork at a neighbor’s house when you were four. What was music discovery like when you were growing up? Was it a communal thing?
I didn’t really hang with anybody. I was always hanging with my parents, like I am now. Of course I travel and stuff, but I always found joy in hanging with my parents, so I was listening to things with them. Many of the songs I liked, of course they knew, but it became my own because it was like, “Ooh this is my palette.” The first party I had ever been to was like friend’s sleepovers and stuff, but the first concert I ever went to was my own, which I think is very special.
When was that? How old were you?
I was maybe 27. It was my first gig. It was for MoMA PS1. My mom was there—she came to New York with me. It was really special. At the time I was DJing and not playing live yet, and I had to learn how to DJ in like a month. But I did, and I played.
Was there a specific reason you weren’t drawn to concerts before then?
I guess it was just something I never thought I would do or get into. I didn’t really have an urge to see somebody’s show, and if I was gonna go, it’d have to be like a Sade or Rachelle Ferrell. Even now, it would have to be someone like that to move me that much to go. I’m very much a homebody. I’ve never been like, “Oooh, I really wanna go to a concert.” Usually right after I play, I go back to the hotel. I never hang around.
So what do you typically do in your free time?
Going to the grocery store, running errands, going to the bank, going to my parents’ house, hanging with my mom on Fridays, hanging with my dad on Sundays. My parents live in the same house and have been married for almost 40 years, but I’ve got a kind of saying now: “I’m hanging with the kids.” And it’s because I’ve become sort of the parent (laughter). So yeah, I really try to do that. My life is very simple. I like it like this. I work with my team and my label, but that’s pretty much it. I used to do it more often but I used to go to the movies by myself. My space is very comfortable so the only thing that’ll get me out is stuff that I need to get out for, like I gotta put gas in my car or I gotta go to the store. But no, I’m usually in the house.
What do you feel like has changed when you look back at Dark Energy (2015) and then Akoma (2024).
I can hear my growth. My signature is my growth, and that’s important to me. That’s the first thing that comes out, and I can hear the difference between the first album and this album for sure.
What does that growth look like for you? Are there things on the first album you don’t like?
It’s not that I didn’t like it, but I intentionally kept mistakes in the first record. And there are mistakes in the second record I didn’t take out. But this one was… (pauses). I was coming into myself with the previous records but this one was more mature. Not to say the other ones weren’t. Dark Energy was when I was 26, and now I’m 36. I can hear the difference.
What was the reasoning for keeping the mistakes?
Because I like feeling vulnerable, and I like my audience to see me being vulnerable. I try to keep it transparent.
Does that come through when you’re DJing or in a live setting? Are those difficult things for you to do in general because of this vulnerability?
To me that’s the best. I love it because I’m coming in and it’s not a façade of “I’ve got it all together.” My audience is vulnerable because they don’t know what I’m gonna do, and I’m vulnerable because I don’t know how they’re gonna react, and more importantly, I don’t know how I’m gonna play. Sometimes, I don’t even know what I’m going to play. It’s vulnerability all the way around—we’re vulnerable together. I think there’s a beauty in that transparency, as frightening and as fragile as that can be.
Is that something you’ve always been comfortable conveying?
When I was a kid, no, because I got bullied. But that’s even more of a reason why it’s a lot easier now. I’m very comfortable with being transparent because I also know that I’m helping somebody else who is afraid to be vulnerable. I come in and it is what it is. I just am.
Have fans come up to you and talked about that vulnerability piece with you? I’m wondering how much people register that.
If I’m teaching, yeah. But not if I’m playing. Usually if I’m playing, people are very much enjoying themselves. If I’m speaking to a class and I’m speaking to a classroom, that’s usually at the forefront of my talks. The audience is always a lot more engaged because I’m being more authentic with them. I’m not coming in like I got all this shit together—’cause I don’t (laughter). It’s a lot more relatable when you strip yourself down in front of people because they don’t feel intimidated, because there’s nothing to be intimidated about.
Yeah and that’s something I’ve noticed myself when teaching. I’m a high school science teacher and something I learned early on is that my kids aren’t gonna be vulnerable with me unless I’m vulnerable with them.
Precisely. It has to be you first. If you go in like you got everything together, you’re gonna lose half your class right there. And honestly, when you goin’ in lying, they should shut down.
What do you teach?
I teach different things, but vulnerability in the creative process is one of them. I did a course about that not too long ago. Vulnerability in the creative process, and understanding that this is more personal than it is professional or creative—you gotta deal with you first before you can get to that creative side. If you audited yourself honestly right now, these are the things you don’t like about yourself, things you try to avoid, things that you absolutely know you hate to look at about yourself, whether it’s an egotistical thing or it’s just something you’ve been apprehensive about… all of that goes into the creative process and into the music.
Do you audit yourself a lot?
I audit myself all the time. And it’s painful (laughter). There are many things about myself I know I need to fix. Mmhmm.
What sort of things were you auditing for yourself with Akoma? The title means “the heart” in Asante, right?
Yes. First of all, trying to get a title for this album was harder than the last two. I knew I had an idea in mind but I never knew it was “Akoma.” I was walking, actually, in a Target. I walked past a T-shirt that said “Akoma” and it had a heart under it and I thought, oh my god, that’s the album title. Mmhmm. I was searching for an album title for months and right when you stop looking, you find what you need.
It’s always like that.
Always. Every time.
So what sort of things did you have to wrestle with for this album?
I wrestle myself all the time. It wasn’t anything specific, but it’s ongoing with every project I’m gonna do. Learning to be more and more honest with myself about the things that I would either try to combat or ignore and pretend like they weren’t there. For example, I have a tendency to… depending on who said it, I can shut a thing out. But I’m learning now that just because I don’t care for the person who said it doesn’t make it not true. It doesn’t make it less true or invalidate the truth. Mmhmm.
Did making songs on this album help you come to this realization, or any other realizations?
I love rhythm, and this album really made me appreciate rhythm. It really did. The piece with Philip [Glass], “The Precision of Infinity,” I did something that I’ve been trying to do in a piece for ten years. There are two sections where I shift directions and it’s so seamless; I didn’t have to bridge into it or transition into it, the section just took its next breath and kept going. It took me 10 years to get to that point. And every time I hear those two parts in the song, it’s very exhilarating for me.
Having to be patient with myself is something that Philip told me. He told me to be patient with my journey. It was a perfect time for him to tell me that because I get really frustrated in my journey, and this being part of the auditing process… it’s about giving myself more grace in that area. Rhythmically and creatively, I felt like I gave myself grace on this album. A lot of grace. And because I did that, it was rewarding in so many ways.
How so?
It was rewarding because it feels like I hear myself. When I was in Kenya, we went and listened to the album for the first time, playing it back and hearing everything. I actually cried because I could really hear me in it. It’s a very fulfilling thing for me. And that’s not to say that my other albums weren’t fulfilling, but this one was very different. There’s a maturity. There’s the sparseness. I can feel the intensity, I can feel the calm and the storm, the apprehension, the joy, the knife—I can feel all of that.
I’ve gotta ask, then: Is there a song on this album that you feel really captures any anger or intense negativity that you had?
I don’t think intensity is negative. Intense moments are not negative moments. Intense moments push you to get to the very place you say you wanna be. That’s “diamond life.” When you put something under pressure, it starts off as a piece of coal, but then you open your hand back up and it’s a diamond. So I don’t consider that a negative.
Was there a song on the album that was particularly painful to make?
That was really rough to make? Yeah. I think “Summon” took two years to make.
Right, and the strings on that are really abrasive. With that track in particular, I was wondering if you approached all instruments in a percussive manner.
Oh yeah, definitely. Any instrument can be percussive—piano, harp, whatever. It’s just in how you use it. When I think of string… string is tough, string is emotional, it’s loving. Using it in that way, like if you show emotion people say, “Oh let me pull out the violin.” Well, in this case, strings are very much like the hurricane (laughs).
Going back to “The Precision of Infinity,” your song with Philip Glass, do you mind sharing how you two started collaborating.
My team now is Pomegranate Arts. I was introduced to Pomegranate through David Skidmore who’s in Third Coast Percussion. I was introduced to Philip’s work back in 2004, through the movie The Hours (2004). And I never forgot that soundtrack. You can’t have that movie without that score. My mom was the one who introduced me to that movie. And everybody in there is my favorite actress.
Right. Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman.
And Meryl Streep. It was really one of the top tiers. And this movie was very calming but on the edge at the same time, and in the saddest way. This was one of the most hellish heavenly movies I’d ever seen.
Is that something you want your music to convey?
Nah, I don’t dictate my work. I don’t answer that question; I just create. Anything outside of that is above my pay grade (laughter). So, I never forgot Philip and his sound. Pomegranate commissioned me to write Akoma and I asked Linda Brumbach and Alisa Regas—who are both the creative directors of Pomegranate and who manage me now—if Philip could be on this record. I just put it out there. They asked, “Well, what do you want him to do?” I watched a documentary where he gets up at 5AM and practices in the morning, and I told them, “I would love for him to get up and do his normal routine and play something on the piano. And whatever he plays, I’ll write around that.” And that’s how we did it. He was very willing and I am very grateful for him saying yes and trusting me with something so vulnerable and precious.
How long was the original audio that he sent over?
It was probably around four or five minutes long, maybe six.
Do you feel like it’s markedly different when collaborating with someone versus making something from scratch?
Oh, I love both. I can work around someone or I can take someone’s work and make it unrecognizable. It’ll sound like an original piece. And I do that to people all the time. They’ll be like, “Is this the record I sent you?” “Yeah.” (laughter). Any time I get to create, no matter how big or small, it’s a practice moment. Practicing so much is just a part of me as a creator now. So I can work around, with, or alongside… most people just trust me to be me when I write a piece, and I’m very grateful.
I do wanna ask about “Sodalite,” where you’re working with the Kronos Quartet. How did you approach that song?
I worked with them for 50 for the Future where they commissioned 50 artists to work with them. This was 2017 or 2018, and the piece was called “Little Black Book.” And so when this album came around, it was a long shot but I asked, “Can you guys be in my record?” And David Harrington was like, “yeah.” They didn’t even think about it. Big love to everybody. They could’ve said no (laughter). The worst thing a person can tell me is no. And I’ve never died from anybody telling me no, so I’ll be fine (laughter). And for that track, I worked around them, but in my way. With everybody who I collaborated with on this record, I wanted a harmony between myself and them, with Kronos and Björk and Philip. That’s what I was going for.
Was it the same thing with Björk? You just reached out?
You know, it’s funny (laughs). I was actually supposed to be on her last record. She wanted me to produce one of her pieces and I was touring really heavy at the time. So I got the track done too late, and I still had all the stuff and I thought, you know what, I’m gonna send it to her. And I did. I said, “What do you think about me putting this on my record?” And she said “absolutely.” So I told her that I owe her one now, maybe two (laughter).
Did “Borealis” change from when it was supposed to be for her album versus your album?
For her album I would’ve done it totally differently. I still have the original that was supposed to go on her record. And she’s never even heard the original (laughter). I have to send it one day. I didn’t finish it, though. I had the basis of it but I didn’t finish it in time so that’s why I said I owe her.
Do you approach your materials differently, whether it be strings or piano or Björk’s voice?
Whatever it is, they’re all like my kids, I love them differently. They all need different things, and no song needs the same thing. I love them all evenly but I have to love them differently.
I have to ask about “Challenge (To Be Continued II),” which to me is sick because it’s got the drumline percussion. What’s your history with drumlines?
My mother went to an HBCU—a Historically Black College and University. She graduated from Spelman. She used to tell me about all the stories about when she was in school. There was Battle of the Bands and at the time, no one was touching Morris Brown. At that time it was Morris Brown, FAMU, and then Grambling, maybe. HBCU bands is not like typical marching bands, because most bands when you look at them, they’re tight, they’re stiff. Not Historically Black Colleges… it’s full-out performance in every way.
I have a mantra that I go by: CPU—Clean, Precise, Unpredictable. That’s my mantra for when I’m describing my work, but HBCUs are exactly that. You never know what bag they’re gon’ pop out of. Having worked with an HBCU band now, University of Arkansas Pine Bluff—shout out to them and Professor Graham—I saw how much work went into those performances, and it really is a thing where “half time is game time.” That’s a real thing. And I always wanted to write… (pauses). Well, I write drum cadences all the time, I just don’t tell people. I love college bands, and don’t get me wrong, but there are marching bands and then there are HBCU marching bands, and nothing stands against them. It’s unmatched (laughter).
Is there a specific performance you’ve seen that stands out, that you really love?
I will say that one specifically that really did it for me, and this was just one day on YouTube when I was just watching Bethune. They were doing a drum cadence, and then I watched FAMU do a drum cadence, and it was the way that they did it. The way they use the bass drums. When I did “Challenge,” I had this idea of Morehouse College. The thing about the Morehouse College band is that it’s very pristine, it’s very clean. When I think of FAMU, they got this edgy, dirty-type way they come in. And when they had the band, of them all it was Morris Brown for me. I wanted to take all of that energy, I wanted to harness the energy of all the HBCU bands I’ve ever encountered and create the piece.
What I love about “Challenge” is that none of those are loops. I wrote every section, I wrote every snare, I wrote every quad. I wrote everything you heard, and none of that record is loops at all. Everything I do is single notation. I don’t even use loops of my own. I would never take something from another song and put it in—no. Every time I write, it’s blank and it goes from nothing to something. What I loved about that piece is that I wrote every section, and I do that with everything, but it’s very layered and I love the way it came out. From the Middle Eastern drumming and the seamless merge between the two. Mmhmm.
Is there a reason you’re against loops?
No, no, no. I’m not against it at all. I just know that with the way I work, it doesn’t work for me—I write very layered so I like everything being single notation. You know, do whatever you want. I don’t tell anyone what to do—that’s above my pay grade (laughter).
On a track like “Open Canvas,” for example, you’ve got more African percussion there. Were you researching specific African recordings or artists to make a track like that?
Nah, I’m Black (laughter). It’s in me already. I’m melanated and it’s there. And for me, the original drum is the heartbeat. When I get asked that question, either I can hear all of the silence—I can feel the air get sucked out of the room—or everybody laughs. It’s one of the two (laughter). But yeah, I’m Black. It’s part of my genetic code.
How much of your writing process is trial and error? I’m thinking of a track like “Open Canvas” or something like “Eye Am,” which has a deeper-sounding drum. Are you, for example, just starting with a specific timbre and going from there?
I don’t have any blueprint, so when I sit down in this chair to write, I have no idea what’s gon’ come out, and I love that I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m gonna write! So with every piece that I wrote, I had no idea what it was gonna be like. That piece, “Eye Am,” was very inspired by the beautiful choreography of Kitty Phetla. I’ve been trying to get her for months. She’s based in Johannesburg, but I would really love for her to listen to this song because it was written specifically with her in mind. Choreography in itself is an intricate part of my world, and Kitty had done this rain dance and it just overtook me. I had to write something that exuded her choreography. The last person who has ever touched me like that with choreography in that way, and to that extent—and don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked with the best of the best with Wayne [McGregor] and Kyle [Abraham] and they have touched me in different ways—was Eartha Kitt. Nobody has touched her, but Kitty came pretty close. I wrote a song called “Eartha God,” and then when I saw Kitty do the rain dance, I was like… I have to write. Not write her a letter, but write her in song.
Can you speak to what you appreciate about Eartha Kitt?
Anything she touched… acting, dancing, she spoke like eight languages and no one sounded like her… she exuded confidence, but at the back of that was a lot of pain. She was everything you saw. Her authenticity is such an inspiration to me. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that clip where she’s talking about compromising.
Yeah, when she’s asked about love and she laughs? [Editor’s Note: in the video, Eartha Kitt is asked if she would compromise for love and she responds with, “Compromising for what? Compromising for what reason?” And then when asked if she would compromise for a man, she laughs and exclaims, “Stupid!”]
And she laughs! And I totally understand, and that’s how I feel in my life. Compromise for what reason? For what? I felt that in my soul. I’m not compromising for anybody. I understand adapting, but compromising? We have missed the best in so many people because they were either forced or decided to compromise. I’m doing everything I can not to compromise. I want to master myself in this lifetime.
What would it take for you to feel like you have mastered it? Do you feel like you have mastered anything in certain areas of your life?
God, no (laughter). No, no, no. I don’t think you’re supposed to know when you do. I don’t think it’s a thing where it’s like, “I’ve mastered myself.” That’s egotistical. That’s just your ego. It’s not for me to decide.
I did want to ask, you have a song on the album called “Grannie’s Cherry Pie.” That song even sounds nostalgic with how blippy the synths are. Did your grandma make an actual cherry pie or was this just a title you came up with?
My grandmother died when I was four, and my mother told me this story. It was actually a cherry cobbler—I later found out it wasn’t a pie. And my grandmother had been trying for years for her to try this cobbler. And it was every single year, just years upon years. “Taste this you gonna like it,” and my mother would tell her, “It’s okay, I’ll pass on it.” And finally, on her last year before she died, she came all the way over to my parents’ house and said, “You gon’ taste this pie.” And when my mother tried this cobbler, she said she could’ve killed herself (laughter). My grandmother died of pancreatic cancer, and on that last year my mother said, “All those years I said no….” So that’s why I named it that. Sometimes you say no to something and absolutely don’t try, and when you finally do, you realize, my god, I’ve missed so much.
Has there been anything like that in your life where you rejected something and then did it?
Yeah. Hoooo. My mother told me a while ago that I was a composer and I told her I wasn’t. I was like, “I’m trying to be a footwork artist,” and she was like, “I hear you, but you’re a composer.” I didn’t wanna hear her at that time. It’s funny. So fast forward to 2017 when I do Wayne McGregor’s piece, sure enough when I walk up to my dressing room, on the outside of the door it says “Composer Jerrilynn Patton.” I remember before I walked in I said, “Mom is always right.” (laughter).
We’re talking a lot about these women. We talked about your grandmother, about Kitty, about Eartha. And now I’m thinking about a track like “Auset” and how the title is referring to the African goddess. What was the story there?
That one really wasn’t a story, that was more of an honor thing, just like when I had the track after Queen Hatshepsut or Mansa Musa.
Was there anything you wanted to talk about that we didn’t talk about today?
No, I think you did a great job.
There’s a question I always end all my interviews with and I wanted to ask it to you. Do you mind sharing one thing you love about yourself?
Oh, that’s a loaded question (laughter). One thing I love about myself is that I don’t have ill intent. Having been bullied, you don’t do things out of spite. Or at least I don’t.
Jlin’s Akoma is out on March 22nd, 2024. The album is available to purchase at the Planet Mu website and at Bandcamp. More information about Jlin, including her upcoming tour dates, can be found at her website.
Thank you for reading the 129th issue of Tone Glow. Definitely get on that cobbler while you still can.
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