Jay Loud has some memories of his days growing up in Indianapolis that he still doesn’t like to talk about.
It was “traumatizing” stuff, he said: watching people deal drugs, watching people do drugs in front of him, people getting shot, hit by cars. There was gang violence, school violence. It was a lot to process.
Some of those emotions come through in Loud’s debut album, “Nap Town,” which will be released Oct. 25 on Apple Music, Spotify, SoundCloud and other music streaming services.
“It was a lot of stuff I was dealing with when I was young, and I couldn’t speak on it,” he said in a recent interview.
Loud guessed he got interested in art and music when he was as young as 5 and saw his mom doing poetry. He decided to take that concept of art and make it his own, rapping in school and around the city.
Loud eventually got to the point where he wanted a fresh start somewhere else and moved to Seattle. That was a little over a year ago, and although he’s just coming off the release of his first full-length project, some of the struggles that plagued Loud in Indianapolis followed him to Washington.
After living with a friend’s mom for a couple weeks, he ended up on the streets and was homeless for a few months, staying in a shelter.
That’s when Loud got lucky. A friend overheard him singing and got Loud a free studio session with Taj King, a musical frontrunner in Seattle, and his career took off from there. Loud admits now that any amount of talent doesn’t guarantee a big break.
“It just makes me humble,” he said. “Every time someone’s like, ‘How does this feel, you’re about to be famous,’ I just dead serious humble myself because of all of that. I could’ve still been back home dealing with all that stuff I was dealing with.”
Loud is signed with EMPIRE and released music and videos — including “Ice Cream Man” and “Interlude” — before his album.
If he can get settled in the music industry, Loud said he wants to move back to Indianapolis eventually and maybe start a clothing shop. He also wants to get his GED, since he was expelled his last year of high school in Indianapolis.
“Don’t give up just because of what someone’s telling you,” Loud said of others who want to break into the music business. “… Sometimes you have to leave out of home in order to find that certain type of lifestyle that you need.”
Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853. Follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick.
