Be Still and Know, Jimii No1’s recent album, serves up faith, hope and blessings in generous portions of rock, jazz, a little country, some island and Native American vibe, and, in one case, a hand-clapping spiritual set to a hip hop beat.
The video of the lead single, “Always Good,” a jazzy, rocking song of hope, has just been released.
“I was going for a very spiritual, spirit-minded ethnic,” said Jimii. “I’m Black and American Indian, I’ve got White genes, Latino, I’m very mixed. And I tend to appreciate all music. If you listen to the whole album, you’ll see that there’s a lot of different influences.”
Whatever the style — and, more often, combination of styles — in an individual song, the primary messages are faith, hope and love. The titles of the nine tracks tell the story. For example:
• “Always Good,” a song with the primary message that troubles don’t last forever.
• “Blessing,” R&B in piano and vibe, in which the singer expresses the desire to be a blessing to somebody. Anybody.
• “Use Your Faith,” the hand-clapper with the hip hop beat, which advocates using faith in God to get through hard times.
• “Grateful,” a song of thanks; the piano and bongos have the listener’s mind singing on a moonlit Caribbean beach.
• “I Will Make a Way,” in which God sings out of a thunderstorm that He will make a way through darkness.
• “Warriors”: “We’re all wounded warriors / trying to find our way / looking for a little peace / and love along the way,” sung “countryish,” to a Native American drum beat with beach-vibe bongos.
After a career in various kinds of musical performance — “I’ve been performing since I was a kid” — the Las Vegas strip, show tune venues, musical theater, church — he recently started writing.
“There was a juncture in my life where I started writing and, before you know it, I started writing music. And music started coming to me in my thoughts for ideas and songs. I realized that a lot of the things that I was writing had a theme, and the theme was the goodness of God, the goodness of the universe and the world, and love and peace.”
After a while, he developed a flow to his creative inspirations and output. He thought, “Well, why not see if I can put something out that will benefit the universe.”
“And that’s how this compilation of songs came about.”
Jimii says his personal spirituality, which has an obvious Christian origin, is not the important thing. His lyrics do not preach dogma. They simply express hope, love, compassion, kindness — the thoughts behind the Word of God.
“I think the Word, and the thought behind the Word is the most important thing,” he said.
Jimii’s lyrics do not preach, and his music has no ponderous pomposity or breathy pretension. It is music that is, in all it’s different styles and rhythms, happy, or peaceful, or meditative.
To much of it, if you’ve a mind to, you can dance.
The diversity of style, mood and presentation is not by accident.
“There have been times in my life that I was told I wasn’t Black enough. I was told I wasn’t White enough. I wasn’t Latino enough. I wasn’t educated enough. I wasn’t doing enough. I wasn’t, you know —,” and the thought trailed off, “whatever” left unspoken.
“And the one thing I found in putting together these songs,” he continued, “was that they were all so different that they could be accessible to anybody, especially anybody who may be going through a challenge, or someone who needs some support, or a reminder that they’re loved.”
Another video is in the works, probably for “Warriors,” and he has some other ideas about things to do with Be Still and Know, and he is already at work on another album.
But the mission for now is the current album: “I’d love to be able to have as many people as I can hear it and be blessed by it.”
To find Jimii No1’s blessings, follow him on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
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