By: Staff Writer
February 2, 2021
An independent Jamaican recording artist wants more diversity played on the airwaves for her genre of music as people like her “need a shine.”
Janine Coombs, also known as Janine Kuhl/JKuhl, told Caribbean Magazine Plus about what she has been up to and what exactly is her unique sound called. She told us: “To put it in a mainstream sense, basically it is Indie. Just normal independent or indie alternative fusion. That’s what you can call my sound.”
Janine said she has been signing from since she was in high school for her school choir where her training in the arts began. Janice is also a musician and songwriter as she plays the guitar and writes her own songs.
She entered a competition through a newspaper to go to a US music camp where she was introduced to the business side of the music industry in 2007 and two years later she finished her last year in highschool. Before she went to college she released her first album called “Stargaze,” inspired by her teen years spent in the music camp.
Janine, now 30, is looking for more opportunities to craft her unique sound and skills. We first noticed her distinctive sound when she performed for a Caribbean party in honour of the newly elected vice president of the US, Kamala Harris. Janice wowed the audience with her stylistic singing and mind-bending choice of lyrics accompanied by top tier guitar strums.
Janine also said, “There are hardly any other artists with the same style as me operating in the same genre, the only other person I would say I can liken myself to is Tessanne Chin,” with Ms Chin being a Jamaican recording artist who won season five of the American talent show called “The Voice,” in 2013.
She also said, “I’m not big out there because I’m not signed to a major record label as yet. But as an independent artist, we definitely have to be doing the groundwork ourselves. I’d say I’m still building. My latest album Sweet Sway has been doing well so far and it has been getting streams every week from Australia to South Africa, various different countries all over the world so I’m getting out there.” Janice said that she has a wide mixture of cultures and races that dig her music from Western Europeans to Africans to people are far as Australia and New Zealand.
Janine still wants more for the Caribbean music industry despite her successes and said, “I think the support I would need is to have more diversity on our local stations in the Caribbean on our television stations. We’re just stuck into this mould that if it isn’t dancehall then don’t’ play it, or if it isn’t soca then don’t play it.”
She reiterated that “if it is not reggae or dancehall it is not being played, and there are other people like me in the Caribbean who need a shine and who need our voice to be heard, who would love to have their genre of music played but because they know it’s not going to be mainstream or marketed or heard or if they’re afraid, they stick within the common genres of reggae or dancehall or calypso. If they do something experimental, it’s just their little happy thing that they pack to the side.”
We saw Janine/JKuhl perform at the Kamala Harris inauguration party held virtually last month and we were impressed enough to reach out to her for this interview. The music industry is changing and even in the mainstream music styles the rhythm and pace of the music is changing. JKuhl is on time for her to capitalise on this change and her distinctive style and voice will be recognized and welcomed in the near future.
Amazing talent