Exclusive Interview with Artist Tealousy: Unveiling the Meaning behind His Name, Musical Drive, Latest Hit ‘luv2h8’, Future Plans, and Upcoming Release ‘Dependent’
By. Alicia Zamora
Alicia’s Studio Sits Down with Artist Tealousy to Talk about the Challenges He Faces as an Artist, Upcoming Singles, and Future Plans.
A Conversation with Tealousy
Alicia: Welcome back to Alicia’s Studio! We have our 10th special guest!!
Tealousy: What’s up my name is Tealousy also known as the color Teal and that’s it. I guess you could find out more about me on the podcast.
Alicia: Diving into the first question: What made you go with the artist name ‘Tealousy’?
Tealousy: So tealousy is a combination of two words it’s teal and zealous. During the pandemic in 2020; I had a lot of teal color things. So I recently bought a teal color bass guitar and then I had a teal color iPad and a teal color ring so the color teal kind of follows me around everywhere and I just wanted to claim that color as mine. So it was mine but it’s not mine because you can’t trademark a color but yeah I just wanted to use that as an artist name.
Tealousy: The second word zealous means enthusiasm to obtain a goal/ to reach a goal so I wanted to put those two words together. A lot of times people think that it’s teal and jealous but it’s not. Umm, I’m not a jealous person... I wouldn’t say I’m a jealous person so I would like to remove that from anybody thinking that it’s a part of the name.
Alicia: I’m not gonna lie I thought it was jealous too.
Alicia: The color teal that’s like a blue-green right?
Tealousy: Yeah it’s like a blue-green so it’s kind of the color of the ocean like if you see really nice not murky water.
Alicia: Oo okay and can you tell me what made you go with the path of music and where it all began?
Tealousy: Yeah definitely! So I started making music not super long ago to be honest. I started making music seven years ago like I full out wanted to do music seven years ago. But I was in a band in high school. I was in a pop punk band I was the lead singer and we were called Rumble Pact. We were very cool. I think we were very cool but we disbanded for a bunch of reasons like my friends went to college, two of our guitarists had some beef, and things like that.
Alicia: *laughs*
Tealousy:*laughs* but yeah after that I wanted to make my own music and do my own solo thing so I bought an MPK which is like a mini keyboard so I would play chords on it and do little drums on it and then through that I just learned more about production. After that, I started DJing a little bit. Oh but even before all of this I was dancing for a really long time. I’ve been dancing since I was twelve. I was doing street dance, freestyling, doing choreography teams. I was also doing stage production so even out in LA now I’m still doing commercial dance sometimes.
Tealousy: So dance is always going to be part of my life but it’s really music in general that kind of sparked the whole movement for me to want to make music and also write and produce my own songs.
Alicia: Okay so you would say seven years ago is when you started taking it seriously? Like you knew that was going to be something you wanted to do or what made you go “Oh this is my path and what I’m meant to do”?
Tealousy: I think I always knew that I was meant to do it. I don’t think that it’s like an “Oh that’s my path or that’s my goal”. It's more just like it's a calling for me to want to put art out there and to put music out there. So it’s not necessarily like “Yes I am a musician, Yes I am an artist” it's just I want to make music and I want to make art versus that’s my path. Does that make sense?
Alicia: No yeah it does! It’s something you're passionate about. That’s me with writing so I get it.
Alicia: Okay now going into your release ‘Luv2h8’ what is the story behind it?
Tealousy: Oo ‘Luv2h8’.. Yeah so I was in a relationship with someone for three years and the last year was really rough and it got to the point where.. Okay, so this person lives.. Oh my god you’re going to learn so much about me *laughs*
Alicia: *laughs*
Tealousy: Okay so this person lives in Jersey and we were in a long-distance relationship. She was talking to her friends about our relationship just to get some advice and things like that and her friends were like “You know what you have to do” and said, “You just have to drop the relationship”. Then through the great vines, she was telling me about it and I was telling her “Why are you telling your friends about our relationship and how you want to live your life”
Tealousy: That should be between us but yeah so that song came about. I would rather just keep this relationship between us and not have to worry about people hating on our relationship so that's where the song ‘Luv2h8’ came about.
Alicia: Wow okay *laughs* and did you have any difficulties recording or creating the track?
Tealousy: Yeah so the girl on the chorus her name is Bri she goes by RNBRII. I originally didn’t have her on the chorus it was originally a chorus sung by me. So on TikTok, I put out a demo with my original voice singing it and was like “This is trash” *laughs*. So I was like I’m going to get a girl to sing this so I reached out to Bri and she was like “HELL YEAH”. So that’s where that collaboration came about and I think the hardest thing for me to do was put myself out there and reach out to somebody to ask for help or collaboration.
Alicia: I get that because I have to reach out to an artist and I’m like “Hey would you be down for an interview” or I’ll bring it up and I’m a VERY anxious person so in my head I’m like “If they say no what am I going to do” because my fear of rejection is SO bad.
Tealousy: Yeah I know it’s so many what-ifs
Alicia: Exactly!
Tealousy: I’m an anxious person too so it’s very hard for me to want to reach out to people even when it comes down to asking for a collaboration. Even with people in my near circle, I’m like “Ooo I don’t know maybe they are busy or something”
Alicia: I felt that. That was literally me when it came to asking you for this interview. But then Thomas was like “Just do it” and I was like “Ahh” because it’s not that easy. It took so much for me to come up to you like I kept telling my friend “I can’t do this” but I ended up doing it so I’m glad it worked out *laughs*
Tealousy: You know what’s so funny when Thomas introduced me to you he was like “She’s a really anxious person” *laughs*
Alicia: *laughs* I am
Tealousy: I was like yeah I could tell *laughs*. I was trying to have small talk with you and said “So you have a podcast” and that was it *laughs*
Alicia: No yeah it was so bad. I came home and texted my friend “Dude I fucked up like fucked up so bad” and she was like “Why?” but I was like no you don’t get it. It was so bad I couldn’t even get a word out like all I said was “Hi I’m Alicia” and that was it the conversation ended right there.
Tealousy: *laughs*
Alicia: But it’s okay I’m working on it!
Tealousy: Aye shoutout to Thomas for the plug though
Alicia: Yes, Thank you, Thomas !!
Alicia: Okay but moving on What genre would you say you're aiming for when creating music?
Tealousy: So I kind of go in between genres so I started producing hip-hop music and Lofi but now I’m doing a lot more R&B and singing a lot more so it’s definitely a mixture of both things. I would say it is Alternative R&B or Alternative Hip-Hop but I would say it leans more towards Alternative R&B.
Alicia: Oo okay and in the future do yourself venturing off with different genres?
Tealousy: Yeah definitely. I think as a vocalist I’m generally someone who puts their voice on different beats also because I produce my own beats I kind of have a taste for what kind of music I like or I would want to hear myself on. So I’ve put my voice on house beats, drum, and bass beats; the sky is the limit because somebody can see your potential in your voice and be like “Yeah I want you on this track” and it could be something that I have never done before.
Tealousy: But yeah I think production is also always evolving. Like R&B is always going to be a thing and there’s always going to be different aspects of stepping into different places but for the most part I would say that I just write songs and I put that on beats that can either be R&B or not.
Alicia: When writing music do you get inspired by personal experiences, books/movies, or are you inspired by other people's stories?
Tealousy: Yeah definitely. I would say it’s a mixture between imagination and personal stories. I will say I do dramatize things quite often when I’m making music. So not everything is well not true. I will say im stretching the truth because I feel like to make a song good it has to kind of be dramatic you know?
Tealousy: Instead of “Oh yeah she didn’t call me back” I would be like “She blocked my number”. It has to give that kind of heart-wrenching, heart-tugging type of feeling.
Alicia: Yeah I get you! Like a punch to the gut type of thing.
Tealousy: Yeah yeah exactly!
Alicia: How long does it usually take you to write a song?
Tealousy: It really depends, to be honest. So for my style of how I make music, it’s a lot easier for me to start with the beat so that beat kind of carries what the feeling is going to be and then I write vocals and write the lyrics after that. Sometimes I will have a feeling and I’m like okay so I’ll go into the studio and then make a beat that caters towards that or I’ll hum something.
Tealousy: I have a lot of notes on my phone of just beats and ideas. A lot of the time it’s just still on my phone and I don’t even look at it or think about them ever but it’s always running you know. Yeah so I just have a bunch of notes on my phone and I journal a lot so I feel like that’s something that I pull from.
Alicia: Can you explain what your creative process looks like?
Tealousy: Yeah so I kind of explained it a little bit but to go more into it I would say it could take maybe like a day or two for me to get the song where I want it to be. I think the first day is just like creating a skeleton. I’ll maybe give myself a couple hours just to stem out a song and to really have a set idea and also have a direction for it because sometimes I’ll make a beat and I’ll write lyrics to it but I don’t know where it’s going to go so I’ll scrap the song if I don’t know where it’s going.
Tealousy: Somedays I’ll have an actual direction for the song and then the chorus comes in and I’m like “Okay everything makes sense” so the whole song has a structure. I feel like the first verse and the chorus is so important because it makes the song go where it needs to be.
Alicia: I just wanted to mention this but do you ever get writer's block? If you do how do you get through it?
Tealousy: Dude all the time!
Alicia: It’s so difficult for me to get through it because I’ll just stare at my laptop and tell myself “I got this” but then two hours pass by and I’m like “Yeah I can’t”
Tealousy: It’s like the SpongeBob meme where it’s just going duh
Alicia: No yeah it’s horrible because it takes me a couple of weeks to do one thing that could’ve easily been done in a day or two. But yeah what do you do when you have writer's block? How do you overcome it?
Tealousy: Yeah I mean writer's block is hard. I feel like something that I do well I like to drive a lot. Since LA is so big I’m able to drive from one place to another in like 30-45 minutes. So during that time.. It’s so bad but I’ll be writing notes on my phone while I’m driving because I feel like the ideas just come out better when I’m on the road looking at things you know? Compared to just looking at a screen on your computer and typing things out but yeah I feel like just going out in nature, I go to the gym every other day so that kind of clears my head and resets me so that I could start my day.
Alicia: That would sound so great to me but I don’t drive
Tealousy: You don’t know how to drive?
Alicia: *laughs* no I don’t
Tealousy: WHAT ??
Alicia: It’s scary because what if I get into a car accident or something.
Tealousy: Wait how did you get here?
Alicia: Umm *laughs* it’s so embarrassing but my younger brother drove me here.
Tealousy: Oh I see
Alicia: No yeah and my friend doesn’t know how to drive either so it’s just all bad.
Tealousy: WHATT
Alicia: But it’s okay well get there. I gave myself like two years to learn how to drive.
Tealousy: Oh okay! But you live in LA?
Alicia: I do! But I go to school out around the Bay Area kind of.
Tealousy: Oh interesting what part of the Bay Area?
Alicia: Well it’s not really the Bay Area. I go to UC Merced.
Tealousy: Yeah it’s close to like Sacramento like further down, right?
Alicia: yeah!
Alicia: But yeah I need to learn how to drive.
Tealousy: Dude no yeah definitely
Alicia: No it’s because it’s so scary. Again I’m a super anxious person so when I’m in the car I’m like “What if I crash” so I just don’t get in the driver's seat.
Tealousy: No yeah there's a lot of stimulation happening
Alicia: Exactly so I’m just like nah
Tealousy: No yeah driving is not for everyone
Alicia: It really isn’t because I see how the cars drive out here when I’m coming to Downtown and it’s horrible like I’ll probably die if I get in the car.
Tealousy: Especially as an anxious person you would be pulling the wheel by accident and you don’t want that shit to happen
Alicia: oh my god exactly! No, because the first time I got into the car to drive I crashed into a gate
Tealousy: You said the first time you got into a car??
Alicia: Yeah
Tealousy:*laughs*
Alicia: So after that, I just didn’t get back in so I think that’s my fear.. Crashing into someone or something. But at least it was a gate and not a car
Tealousy: no yeah that’s good. Dude, I’ve crashed three cars like I totaled three cars. In my young twenties
Alicia: *laughs* three is insane
Tealousy: But in the past four to five years I’ve been good I haven’t crashed a car or anything but people have hit me. But yeah I was just a reckless driver
Alicia: No because three is actually so crazy
Tealousy: It is but thank god my parents were able to take care of me and take care of my dumb shit because that shit’s ridiculous.
Alicia: But in the span of how many years?
Tealousy: It was like between the years of eighteen and twenty-four..well twenty-three ish.
Alicia: Okay that’s not that bad
Tealousy: But it’s expensive
Alicia: No yeah totaling three cars is craaaazy *laughs*. I don’t know how you did it but it’s okay *laughs*
Tealousy: *laughs* It is not okay like it’s really not
Alicia: It hasn’t happened anymore so you're good. But going back into it let’s talk about your goals.
Alicia: Regarding goals as an artist, what would you say your goals are for this year and the future?
Tealousy: I would say the goal for this year is definitely to collaborate with more people. I feel like as an artist, as an introverted person, as an anxious person I’m generally someone who doesn’t reach out to collab a lot. But I really want to make it a mission this year to not necessarily collaborate with as many people as I can but collaborate with people who I actually enjoy because I know a lot of people who are like “Oh man I want to collaborate with this certain artist” but if the vibe is right then it’ll happen you know. I’m not trying to force anything but I just know that collaborations are going to be in my future and the right people will come into my life to be able to be like “Hey do you want to work on this with me” and I’ll be like “Hell yeah”
Tealousy: If I have an idea that I see somebody on then I’ll be like “Hey do you want to be on this” and will just collaborate that way. But yeah I’m not trying to make it a point to do that well not to force it. It’s more that I want to attract you know?
Alicia: Yeah I get it. Since we are on the topic of collaborations for future work, is there any artist you would like to collaborate with or have on one of your next projects?
Tealousy: Yeah definitely. I mean Thomas for sure!
Alicia: Yes Thomas !! Wooo
Tealousy: I just met him actually at two rooms so I never met him before
Alicia: Oh that was your first time?
Tealousy: Yeah that was my first time meeting him.
Alicia: Oo that was my third time because I first met him when I interviewed Echo.
Tealousy: Oh nice nice. So you interviewed him first?
Alicia: No I interviewed Echo first. So two months after the interview, I saw them at the Steep LA block party that I got invited to and I met them there again. He had just come out with his song “Too Close featuring Oceanfromtheblue” and I wanted to ask him for an interview but I didn’t know how to approach him but I ended up asking him like two weeks later. After that, I interviewed Thomas, David, and Donny on the same day and then got invited to the two-room event.
Tealousy: Cool! No yeah, it’s a small world.
Alicia: It really is
Tealousy: You meet someone in one place and then you see them again and you're like “Wait a second”.The universe is telling us something here.
Alicia: It honestly is because it’s so funny. I got invited to go shoot for Hohyun and I saw him there too.
Tealousy: It’s a very small world for sure. But yeah in terms of who I want to collaborate with would be him and people who have been in the two-room circle for sure like Donny and Ken my pianist. But he’s hard to work with just because right now he’s asking for payments to do collabs and I’m like “I wish we could just work on things for fun” but it is what it is. But once I get the money. Once I run this shit up I’m doing collabs for sure and I’m paying people out because all I want to do is help lift other people and to let people know that being an artist can be a corporate job.
Tealousy: So if I’m able to pay people out and let it be known to people that there valuable in that way. Going into bigger artists I really look up to Brent Faiyaz I would say that’s one of the main people I want to collaborate with at some point. Pharrell for sure and maybe The Weekend at some point if he stops being weird *laughs*
Alicia: *laughs*
Tealousy: I like the music but stop being fucking weird *laughs*. Hmm, Frank Ocean if he stops being fucking weird.
Alicia: I love Frank Ocean
Tealousy: Me too! I feel like that’s everybody’s dream collab, especially in the realm that I’m in. Hmm, let’ see who else. Oo Chase Shakur he does kind of like Brent Fiyaz; it’s a very sonder-sounding vibe. Oh, and Destin Conrad does like R&B music and it’s super cool. I met him in the parking lot at a shoot that I was doing and yeah he’s a cool guy. He makes beautiful music but also I want to collab with all my friends.
Alicia: Okay and As an artist, what would you say has been your greatest accomplishment so far?
Tealousy: My greatest accomplishment so far. To be honest I think I haven’t had it yet. I’m still going for it. But I think one of the big accomplishments that I’ve had was back in 2019 when I threw a showcase with my friends. We got a bunch of artists from the Bay Area to perform at an event called “Worlds Collide” so that was really cool. It’s called “Worlds Collide” because we merged a bunch of artists together and put them all in one room. I came from dance so I got a lot of dancers to do showcases. I got a lot of photographers. I got clothing lines to showcase things and there was a tattoo artist doing tattoos.
Tealousy: I had one of my friends body paint someone. It was crazy. She was walking around topless and she just had her shit out. But yeah the person who actually painted her was my next-door neighbor literally my next-door neighbor. I invited her out and was like “Hey do you want to paint somebody” and she said okay. But yeah that’s probably one of my big accomplishments. Just bringing a bunch of different worlds that I came from and putting them all in one room was great.
Alicia: What accomplishments do you see yourself achieving in the next five to ten years?
Tealousy: In the next five years I definitely want to have a production company at some point and also some kind of label so I can fund other artists and be able to make music videos with people, be able to release songs with bigger budgets, to do productions like this for people, and to be able to build a collective of artist so they can stand on there own and don’t have to work towards a fucking label.
Alicia: Yes that’s so dope!
Tealousy: So I think in the near future that’s probably what I want to do. Also in terms of creative work in the production company, I would want to make commercials, clothing lines, and all those things. Basically anything in that creative realm I just want to spread creativity.
Alicia: That’s so cool! After your performance on June 8th do you see yourself possibly doing more showcases anytime soon?
Tealousy: I mean yes I do but not in the near future. Okay, so to be honest I don’t really plan out my live showcases or performances that I do. They’ll just come to me and ask if I want to do it and I’m like sure! I’m not planning these things people just approach me to do them and I think the thing is I’m generally not somebody that wants to perform I want to stay in the background. But I generally want to do music videos or I want to be in the studio. I love performances and I love performing but I rather just make showcases for other people which is why I liked throwing showcases back in the Bay Area.
Alicia: That’s a lot more work right? Like more stress
Tealousy: It was a lot of work because you're curating your team, you have a budget, you have a bunch of people who are trying to put together something so it’s definitely a lot of effort but if you plan it right it will be right! You just feel good after. It’s like FUCK I fucking accomplished this shit. So yeah that’s what always pushes me to make those things.
Tealousy: But in terms of performing I’d love to perform at some point *laughs*
Alicia: Do you have any upcoming projects coming out that you would like to speak about (if you can)
Tealousy: Yeah so I do have a song coming out with T3MO. He’s one of my close producers/friends and we're making a song. It’s coming out July 5th. So yeah that's a new song coming out so look out for that. Throughout the summer I’m also just dropping a bunch of songs. I want to start releasing more songs more frequently because I have a lot of songs saved up.
Tealousy: Even though they're not like the best best songs I still want to release them because someone going to listen to them and be like “Yeah I like this song and I want to hear more”. Then they’ll go through my discography and see that I have a lot of stuff so yeah that’s one of my goals for this year.
Alicia: okay! Do you see yourself dropping an album or an EP? Or do you see yourself just releasing singles for now?
Tealousy: For now singles because I feel like with the fanbase I have and I think just with the nature of small musicians right now people don’t care as much for albums. Like if you promote an album and you don’t have the fans to listen to them then all the songs are going to get lost and they won’t be listened to. From my experience personally which is why I want to do singles now. I want to do this thing called the waterfall method which is basically I drop a single and then after you drop a song that you’ve dropped before.
Tealousy: I don’t know if you’ve seen that on Spotify sometimes.
Alicia: I don’t think I have
Tealousy: Okay so It’ll be like somebody dropped a single but then within that single there are two songs so that kind of makes it so people are familiar with the second song.
Alicia: Oh wait I have seen that. I just didn’t know it was called the Waterfall Method.
Tealousy: Yeah so that’s what I’ll be doing.
Alicia: Do you have any hobbies or interests outside of music?
Tealousy: Yeah so like I said I’ve been dancing for like half my life basically. I do photos and videos.. That’s about it. So my whole life is basically just making music, dancing, taking photos and videos.
Alicia: That's cool though
Tealousy: I wish I had more hobbies. I want to get into watching movies and tv shows because I feel like I don’t have time to just pay attention to anything anymore. Do you know what I mean?
Alicia: I have a low attention span but I get you
Tealousy: Yeah but people are like “Have you seen this” and I’m like no
Alicia: Oh my god. SAME!
Tealousy: I want to get into a couple of different things. But yeah movies and tv shows and also acting. If I could find an agent that’d be fun.
Alicia: As an artist, what would you say has been your biggest challenge?
Tealousy: My biggest challenge as an artist… I’m broke as shit.
Alicia: OH REAL
Tealousy: You know what I’m saying. Somebody fund me. Somebody put some money in my pockets so I can fund myself and make music for the rest of my life.
Alicia: That’s so real because everything is expensive.
Tealousy: Yeah so being an artist is really expensive and on top of that living in LA, promoting your own shit that's money. You put $100 into Facebook Ads and Instagram ads.
Alicia: You have to pay for that???
Tealousy: Yeah bruhh. So many people pay for fucking Facebook ads.
Alicia: Wait really? Oh… I didn’t know that.
Tealousy: The thing is people will blow up online organically. Just imagine your scrolling on Instagram and you see a video that you like. How many times do you actually go on Spotify?
Alicia: I won’t lie... I never do