Jarrad Anthony Is ‘Ready to Live’
Jarrad Anthony is Virginia based singer-songwriter with well over a decade of dedication to his craft. After spending years as a self-described “carnal, R&B lothario,” he’s evolved into something deeper; a singer unabashed about sharing his soul in his music. Rolling out recently spoke with Anthony to discuss his background and to explore his evolution into a man finally Ready to Live out his purpose. –danielle canada
Who is Jarrad Anthony?
Jarrard Anthony is a singer songwriter from Richmond, Va. I’ve been singing and writing since I was 10 years old but I didn’t think about pursuing it as a career until I was about 13 or 14. I started singing with a quartet like Boyz 2 Men and Jodeci, and just continued on. I still feel young and vibrant. This is my sixth project, I’ve definitely been doing this for a long time.
Being that you’ve been doing music for so long, why then is your album called Ready to Live? Were you not “living” before?
There have been a lot of personal changes and transitions in my life and Ready to Live is based off of who I have become as a man. The reason for the album title is based off of putting out the energy that you wanna give back. I am big fan of hip-hop music, Biggie was one of the best that did it and his album is called Ready to Die. Shortly thereafter within 3 years he was gone. One of my favorite groups of all time was Jodeci, they were a big influence in me in teenage years. … I wanted to put out an album that was a reflective of what I wanted to present and what I wanted to be my legacy. Ready to Live is about taking every opportunity to grow and make yourself better. Ready to Live is an album that is designed to make people happy. It’s a record with no sad songs, it’s about always seeing the glass as half full. Not even that, it’s about it being always full.
Virginia has a history of breeding great artists from Missy Elliot to D’Angelo. Where do you see yourself fitting in the music scene?
Virginia has an incredible musical history not only with D’Angelo, Missy, Pharrell, Timbaland, and Teddy riley, but also David Harris, Jerome Bailey, this is a place where Motown would send their artists to break, where they would say that if you could get the Richmond audience in, then there was a shot. Richmond has a very rich tradition. Interesting that you said D’Angelo especially as it relates to soul music. As far as independent soul music there are great artists coming out of Virginia now. Virginia has so much to offer and I think where I come in is bringing people’s attention to the musical tradition that has been happening here for decades and decades.
“Lucky Day” directed by Olawale Ogbonlowo
