For Audacy Launch artist, Jelly Roll, all are welcome. As a former felon who turned his life around, the Nashville-native knows the power of music first-hand and strives to meet people right where they’re at with his.
LISTEN NOW: Jelly Roll strives to ‘comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted’ with his music
“I think the things that inspire me the most to make music is knowing that music has the ability to heal people and meet people exactly where they’re at in their life,” Jelly said of his biggest driving force.
“I think that art was meant to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted.”
That’s exactly what the 38-year-old has done with the release of his most-recent album, Whitsitt Chapel. Appropriately named after his childhood church, the project is filled with honesty, vulnerability and stories of his personal testimony.
The project is home to one of Jelly’s most impactful songs to date, “Save Me,” originally released in 2020, and upgraded for the album by adding the vocals of Country music star, Lainey Wilson.
“To see the impact it’s had… and then Lainey coming in… Even the people the song had already touched heard it differently from the perspective of a woman,” he told Audacy’s Katie Neal.
“I think Lainey has the ability to put this in households it hasn’t been to yet,” he continued. “My thing was, if this song has already helped this many people, I wonder how many more it could help if it had the right person help spread the message and awareness with me.”
The impact is not only felt by Jelly, but also seen at his live shows as fans bring their most vulnerable selves to heal from their own versions of life’s biggest battles.
“It just feels like I’m living a purpose, it’s a constant reminder,” he said before sharing some of the most inspirational moments he carries with him from the current tour. “I think of that woman that just told me that story backstage, or I think of the sign at the Valparaiso [Indiana] Porter County Fair 3 nights ago, 4 nights ago, a woman held up a picture of her daughter who died of a fentanyl overdose, an accidental fentanyl overdose, and the sign that the one next to her held said, ‘We had tickets to your show, she couldn’t make it, we came,'” he said, before tearing up.
LISTEN NOW: Jelly Roll joins Katie Neal for the Superstar Power Hour
Stories like the above continue to motivate Jelly to reach new audiences who may need to hear his deeply personal messages, including kids who he wants to encourage to dream big.
“I would have never been confident to dream this big,” he said of his younger days as a kid mixed up in crime. “That’s why now, my preach pitch to kids is, ‘Whatever you’re dreamin’ right now is too small, man. You have no clue.’ Things I thought were mountains, God made look like speed bumps… I couldn’t have even dreamed the success that’s happened in my life right now.”
Get to know more about Jelly Roll by tuning into Audacy stations nationwide and checking out his music on Launch: New Pop Radio above.
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