Jorge Amadeus is the definition of a full-blown, all-around creative, killing it in the fashion world before finding his talents in music. His middle name Amadeus is the same name as Mozart, which translates to “love of God.”
Whether he’s recording music, writing, producing, or designing, the Washington D.C. native puts his heart and soul into anything he touches. His sound can be described as a combination of melodic and street, with lyrics inspired by real-life experiences — whether it’s conscious or not.
Speaking on his content, Jorge Amadeus states, “Since I’m a part of a frat, as an Alpha, I have that responsibility for my community to make sure I’m talking about something at all times. Even if I’m having fun — even if I’m on some getting money, we turning up — I still think that’s a portion of me, but I can’t do that 24/7. Definitely as I continue to grow, I’ma say real s###.”
Most recently, Jorge Amadeus unveiled his B4 SUMMER EP, a project that showcases his growth as a recording artist. His Summers theme aligns directly with the number of summers he’s been doing music, from engineering for Summer Walker to now focusing solely on his own artistry.
AllHipHop spoke with Jorge Amadeus in downtown Los Angeles to discuss his roots, love for fashion, biggest influences, working with Summer Walker, his new project, studio essentials, goals, and more!
AllHipHop: You’re originally from D.C. What was that like growing up?
Jorge Amadeus: I’m originally from D.C., PG. Moved in between the two, and I also have family in Virginia. When people say DMV, it’s street lines that divide D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. At the time I was growing up, it was a little bit more violent. Now, it’s going through gentrification. But when I was a kid, it was pretty violent. That was the era of go-go.
AllHipHop: Go-Go’s poppin’!
Jorge Amadeus: Yeah, Go-Go was the thing when I was in high school, It’s a little different now. We were always sectioned off as our own community. If you go to D.C. today, it’s still its own thing. Trying to create in DMV, wasn’t really a thing–it wasn’t cool to do music. It was an underground group of us who used to rap or do music, then I moved to Atlanta. When I moved there, the music side of me blossomed; because it was way more accepted to do music.
AllHipHop: What made you move to Atlanta?
Jorge Amadeus: School, I went to Georgia State. When I got there, a lot of people who came out — like Pierre Bourne came out of A. He was the class before me in school. 6lack came out of a label in the A, I know his whole camp. Summer Walker. It was this breeding ground for everybody tapping in with music.
AllHipHop: I’m sure that was inspiring to see everyone, to be surrounded by so many dope artists?
Jorge Amadeus: Nah it is dope. I’m very happy that all the people I came out here initially to work with, we all was coming out the A, and everybody’s doing their thing now. Everybody’s achieving their goals in music. I’m very thankful to be part of that culdesac of people, who was bubbling at that time.
AllHipHop: Were you doing fashion first? Or did both come at the same time?
Jorge Amadeus: I’ve always been on my s### when it comes to dressing, I’ve always been into fashion. As I got more of a platform, it made me a little bit more tuned in to how I dress and style different things. I’ve been doing fashion since I was young. When I dropped one of my projects, I started designing my own pieces. Now I do full-blown cut and sew, designing pieces, to try to give people a product every time I release some music.
AllHipHop: How would you describe your style?
Jorge Amadeus: Street designer, high-end designer. Chic and street. I can do both.
AllHipHop: Biggest influences coming up?
Jorge Amadeus: As a kid, 50 Cent. 50 Cent is dope. Jay Z. As I got older, Kanye. And J. Cole, I used to always turn to him. My number one creative is Andre 3000. To me, he was the first artist to do his own thing in a black community. I don’t care what y’all say about my fashion, about my style, I’m just doing me. As I got older, I was drawn to that. Everything Roc-A-Fella. I used to be really really really into Roc-A-Fella coming up, everything they were doing.
AllHipHop: When did you realize you want to do music for a living?
Jorge Amadeus: When I went to school, I was working a job and realized that’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life. I used to be an accountant, a corporate accountant. Funny enough, I was working and I used to be in the city when everybody was making music. I’ve been in sessions with 6lack before he blew up–when he was showcasing his music. I thought, this is what I want to do. I’d be the cool dude in the session because I could dress. I’d be the cool n*gga that‘d be with them; but I never did music. I ended up going back to school to learn music, then I started doing that. I quit my job, and came out here to LA.
AllHipHop: How are you liking Los Angeles?
Jorge Amadeus: It’s cool. One of the things that got me out here is my boy, James Supreme, he was an A&R at Universal. I was sending him mixes of artists I was working with. He ended up putting me in with Summer Walker, when she was working on Last Day of Summer. I worked with her on the project, that was my first exposure to making music within the industry.
AllHipHop: What did you do on that project?
Jorge Amadeus: I engineered for her. I engineered for a lot of people at that time. It was a studio called Hit Doctors. I worked with YG, DRAM, it was a lot of people in and out of the studio. PARTYNEXTDOOR used to record there, it was this incubator of industry people.
AllHipHop: When you record yourself, do you engineer yourself?
Jorge Amadeus: Yeah. I’m at this point now, I do everything. I produce, I engineer. I produce for other artists, I write for other artists. At the time, I was trying to get out of engineering and do more of what I’m doing now. Now, I solely do music. I don’t engineer for nobody else anymore.
AllHipHop: Did you learn anything from working with Summer Walker?
Jorge Amadeus: Yeah. At the time, her process was very, very minimalist. When she was recording, she’d have people come in and play guitar. She had people come in and play violin. She’d get a whole idea out; on a very simplistic landscape. For me as an artist, I like how she’s writing with a blank notepad almost. I take some of that till this day, and I create that way. I create with a melody loop without drums, without all that extra stuff. I’ll make music that way. Being in that environment, I had to make my sound sound better.
AllHipHop: You dropped projects 3 Summers and 4 Summers. Talk about the Summers theme.
Jorge Amadeus: Shout out to Trinidad James, that’s my guy. That’s the homie. At the time, I was trying to get into the artist production space. Trinidad James would run sessions all the time, and he’d introduce me to everybody. He introduced me to Honorable C-Note, Chopsquad DJ, Supah Mario. I’m like, bro, I’m trying to get my beats off. So he’d do records to my beats, he’d call them in, then I’d collaborate with them working with him.
3 Summers, I had made all these relationships with all these big ass producers. They’re like “Hey, you’re dope. We gon’ work!” When I was ready to work on my s###: I didn’t realize at the time that people say “we gon’ work,” that’s not real. That’s not a real thing.
AllHipHop: Yeah, welcome to LA.
Jorge Amadeus: Right. [laughs] I was coming here from the A so I thought “we gon’ work” meant bet, they gon’ be there to work. When it was time to record my stuff, nobody was answering the phone, and I get it. I get it now, where I am now. At the time, I knew they were gon’ work on my project. Damn, this was my third year doing music, and I’m still fighting to push my vision up. That’s why I named it 3 Summers, that project was my third year doing music. The whole summer theme is I started making music in the summertime.
AllHipHop: So 4 Summers is for the fourth summer. Do you change it each time?
Jorge Amadeus: Yeah. Think of it like The Blueprint, there’s 1, 2, 3. It’s the evolution between stages. B4 Summers is me essentially saying this is what my vibe was before the summertime came. This is what I was feeling, this is what I was going through. It’s not the whole 3 Summers, 4 Summers thing, but it’s the in-between. It’s B4 Summer.
AllHipHop: What do you want fans to get from B4 Summer?
Jorge Amadeus: My biggest thing right now is showcasing growth. I’m about to release another project, about to release a visual. I’m going on a small tour coming up in the next two months. This project was the top of the year, because I hadn’t released music in a while, and was showcasing the growth of my sonics. If you listen to this project and the previous project, the sonics are different. I’m still growing, so my next project is gon’ be different. My whole goal is to always sound better, make the content better, make the product better. That’s what this is. This was me waving to the people: hey y’all, I got some new s###. It sounds better, the vibes better.
Shout out to one of my homies that helped me get to this point, his name is Philippe. He’s a music supervisor, he used to pull me into these camps. I used to go to all these writing camps with all these big ass artists. When you in the camp, it’s like a dating show. Where you got all these contestants, and somebody’s trying to get a record. It’d be 7 artists, 5 producers in one room trying to get records on the show. It helped me catapult my sound, because you had to be dope. You couldn’t be trash.
AllHipHop: I was listening to the intro track, “Easy.” Who were you talking to?
Jorge Amadeus: That quote in the beginning is Talib Kweli. Talib made this video talking about Kanye, saying people get jealous because he’s so passionate. I’m at a place in my life where I’ve had successes; I think a lot of people think my successes were easy and they’re not. This is like anything that someone is passionate about, right?
What you do and anything that anybody does, if you’re doing it and people are admiring you, they think it’s easy. But it’s not easy. You put a lot of work into it, and a lot of effort. That was the intro to how I was feeling, that was a quick little tidbit. I battle as an artist with being conscious, and then trying to be fun. I don’t want to beat people over the head too much with the conscious s###, so I give them my one, then I’ll go into some other stuff.
AllHipHop: 3 things you need in the studio at all times.
Jorge Amadeus: Bri [creative director], I need vibes, and my phone. Definitely food, at some point depending on the session. Food, Bri, vibes.
AllHipHop: What kind of food?
Jorge Amadeus: We actually have a food show that we’re gonna work on at some point. We’re talking about food in the studio, real talk. Because I know a lot of artists would be in the studio, sometimes you’d be in random places and you gotta order what’s around you. We’re like damn, is this gonna be good? When we get it, we try to dissect if it’s good or not.
AllHipHop: Most of the time, is it good?
Jorge Amadeus: Ehhh, not in LA. No hate to LA, but the food do not be hitting out here. I would say two out of six times, it’s good. [laughs]
AllHipHop: Where’s your favorite food back home in D.C.?
Jorge Amadeus: Howard China (HoChi) off of Georgia Ave. That’s the best; it’s an Asian spot. We call it carryouts. Fire, the best carryout ever. If I go to the A, I gotta do wings. Can’t nobody top Atlanta wings. LA if I’m going healthy, I guess y’all pasta cool. California, they got cool pasta spots.
AllHipHop: What do you like to do when you’re not working?
Jorge Amadeus: I’m always working on something. LA expensive! I snowboard. I’ll probably go out, I like going to other artists’ stuff. For example, my homie, Al, designed these pants, òL New York . I’ll go pull up to him, see what he got going on fashion-wise. Getting ideas, inspiration. If I’m not working, I’m getting inspiration. That’s what I try to do; snowboarding inspires me. It’s a lot of fashion.
AllHipHop: What can we expect next? What are you most excited for?
Jorge Amadeus: I got a visual coming out this month. I got another project I’m dropping next month, working on that right now as we speak. I got some shows lined up. I got a show in Atlanta, D.C., LA.
I’m working on New York, so a little mini-tour.
AllHipHop: Any goals for yourself?
Jorge Amadeus: By Q3, the goal is to have a Billboard record. That’s what we aiming for. If anybody wants to tap in, every drop I got merch. Right now, I have merch out with this project. I give a product every time I release music. Every time.
AllHipHop: Anything else you want to let us know?
Jorge Amadeus: The biggest thing where I am in my journey, that I learned, is to really value the people close to you, that are gonna be there whether the money is or not. That’s the biggest thing I’ve learned as a creative; because those people enrich you with things money can’t bring you. Those are the people that help keep me going.