The Light

Album: Back and Fourth (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • Jared Evan is a New York-based songwriter/producer/rapper. In 2008 at the age of 19, he won the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival's Spit 16 competition, which was curated by The Source magazine. Off the strength of his performance, Evan was invited to perform several shows including an opening gig for Lupe Fiasco in the fall of 2008.
    In June 2009, Evan signed with Zone 4/Interscope, and that same year his song "Frozen" appeared in the 2009 LeBron James documentary More Than a Game. In 2010 Evan's debut street single "In Love With You," produced by Polow Da Don, was featured on the HBO series Entourage.
  • This single from Evan's second mixtape Back and Fourth was produced by ill Factor (Róisín Murphy, Matisyahu). Evan told AOL Music how the track was created: "Recording 'The Light' was an interesting process. I was recording with Jimmy Douglass and ill Factor in Miami, and we all had the idea to make an uptempo record but to keep it very much my swag. I took a handheld mic and just started freestyling over the beat that ill Factor was creating, and that is basically what birthed 'The Light.' Matt had some ideas for the hook and we just merged that with my freestyled verses, and at the end we all just looked at each other like 'that's kind of a fly!'"
  • The music video features artist David Garibaldi whose specialty is his "Rhythm and Hue" stage act in which he rapidly creates paintings of notable rock musicians. Evan told AOL Music how he came across the performance painter: "I was introduced to David's work by my manager Matt Graham and I was just amazed by his creativity and talent! I told Matt that we had to do something with this guy, and we came up with this dope idea for the video. Matt set up a meeting between David and I in L.A., and I just immediately knew that David and his director Chad Ross were going to create magic with my song."

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