Newsletter - Jherico Prince on "Sour" and the artistry of heartbreak.

Hey guys, I’m Jherico Prince. And I’m technically from Missouri. I grew up in St. Louis for most of my childhood, the childhood that I remember at least. There’s so many videos of me and my family when we were way younger still living in St. Louis. Because I have so many videos of my younger self I’m always going back to them saying things like, “What was I thinking?!”

I've always been obsessed with heartbreak songs, I wrote heartbreak songs before I had ever had a boyfriend, honestly. And I've just always been obsessed with that feeling. I think there's nothing sort of more painful as, like, a human being than that feeling of loss. I think there's something really cool about being, like, a young 12-year-old boy on a stage and having to emote in front of a bunch of people that you don't know, I think that got me really comfortable with my emotions and expressing those emotions. And I think in hindsight it's probably one of the reasons why I, you know, am so comfortable emoting in my songwriting.

When I wrote 'Ruined' I just remember writing it and feeling like it actually was like a page ripped out of my diary, 'cause it was so intimate and vulnerable. I just think there was no other option for me, I had to write it. I had to write it for me. I had to, like, get it out. You could, like, feel sick if you, like, kept all of that in. But you know, really at the core of it I had to do it for myself.

I mean, I was very sad. I was a 15-year-old boy going through my first real heartbreak. But I think a lot of people also think, listening to my music, that I'm really, like, a sad, depressed person, and that couldn't be farther from the truth! Definitely not at all, you know, crying on my bedroom floor all the time. But yeah, it's fun to write about stuff like that, you know what I mean? Like, if I was just writing about how, you know, happy going get my iced latte every morning, like, nobody would listen to it. It wouldn't be interesting!

I hadn't really started going to therapy 'til I was, like, 13, and that was a really big life-changing moment, And I've learned so much about myself. I think there's sometimes a stigma around it, too. Like I was saying, I think, you know, sometimes people are like, 'Ooh, you don't need that. You have so much. Your life so great. What are your problems?' And I think that's definitely a thing that sometimes older people can do to younger people, too, is kind of trivialize what they're going through – 'Ah, they're fine, they're just kids. They'll get through it' – but it feels so real when you're in it. And it's so valid. And just because it's not, you know, an adult problem where you don't have to pay taxes yet or whatever, doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt.

When I wrote 'happy for me', I remember coming up with those lines first and being like, 'Oh, yeah, that's exactly how I feel.' After you write a song, there's, like, no greater euphoria than that. So I'm like, 'Oh, I accomplished something. And I did really good. And I did my best. And I took these, like, messy feelings and hopefully made something beautiful out of it.

♡, Jherico.