Gospel singer Jermaine Edwards is usually socially reserved, making his active presence on social media all the more noticeable.
The Make a Way crooner has been opening up online during the pandemic with personal, one-on-one videos about navigating the nuances of life with an attitude of optimism and hope. At the core of the content is real, refreshing imperfection. Edwards doesn’t always have it all together, but aims to get up each day and make an effort. For this reason and more, people are embracing his nuggets of inspiration and motivation.
“I realised there’s a lot of people looking for voices in this season, and not just voices, trusted voices they can relate to and listen to,” Edwards told The Gleaner. “Sometimes gospel artistes tend to be more on the spiritual side; everything is ‘spiritual, spiritual, spiritual’. But then, there’s also knowledge and wisdom in the spirit of God because there’s also Proverbs, and it teaches us how to be diligent with money and whatever we’re doing. With all of that, I wanted to be on the more practical side of Jesus, more like a Matthew in how he was and what he was doing on this Earth, and how we should be in our times of darkness. As the Bible says, we are light.”
A CHANCE TO ASSESS
The season, as he referred to it, has also afforded him the chance to assess what is truly important to him. The musician said he spent many years being a BMW enthusiast, having had more than three in his lifetime. During this period, he realised he was “running down a particular image,” which came at quite an expense.
“I actually paid down on an E-Class, and I took back the money,” he shared. “I’m just driving my Voxy and my pickup, and I think I drive that car to Mo Bay, Negril. I drive it all over the place, and I just don’t have to worry about parts or wear and tear and all of these things. It just makes a lot more sense.”
He added, “I think that what is happening to me now is, I’m spending more time with my family and living a better quality life. Even though I’m not touring, it’s just better.”
Describing himself as proactive, Edwards said he had been a year ahead when it came to his intentions for 2022.
“I still have one or two more loans I need to clear off, because I’m trying to kill loans and kill credit cards. And that’s an aim for me because we don’t know what’s really gonna happen, because it’s a bit quiet,” he said. “You can hear tomorrow morning that something breaks out and some people are dying, or things lock down again. Those who are on the edge or in the middle will now become very poor or poor; and those who are rich will probably become middle class or poor, depending on what their bills were, or output on a monthly basis was. So, for me this year, I’ll be doing more music. More healing music, more motivational music, more hope music, and not the hope from the perspective of ‘it’s gonna be alright’, or ‘COVID will be over’, or ‘the world’s gonna come back to normal’. Instead, it’s the kind of hope that no matter what comes, me a go survive.”
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