When you throw your support behind a talented local musician, it’s always gratifying to see them level up and spread their wings, geographically speaking. The only thing that might be better is when the same artist shows love to where they came from after taking that big career step.
Felix Ames is one of those musicians making moves after getting his start in Milwaukee. A recent signee to Def Jam, he quickly went to work putting together his first collection of songs for the legendary label. This Friday, he’ll share it with the world when JENA rolls out to the masses who may be hearing Ames for the first time.
But, before that happened, he decided to go out of his way to present some of those songs live and in person to a crowd who knows him well — more specifically, a very special session that went down Wednesday night at our Walker’s Point home. It was a reunion as much of a celebration, with college friends and city artists like Klassik and Immortal Girlfriend showing up to support one of their own.
HYFIN music director Element Everest-Blanks, who interviewed Ames a few weeks before, emceed this joyful event that flipped the session formula on its head. Things got underway with a mini-interview of sorts, and throughout you can just hear the smile in Ames’ voice. He gave a lot of love to his family on hand and talked about how he reached this monumental point in his career, just a couple years separated from delivering packages for Amazon.
Then he got into what everyone came to hear: a few choice cuts from JENA, plus some extra goodness for good measure.
You can use the player at the top of the page to hear the full session — Ames’ only scheduled performance in the Midwest before he takes off on a mini-tour that’ll take him from D.C. to Dallas to Paris and a few points in between. Then, starting Friday, you can find new album JENA in all the usual places, including Ames’ website.
