Photography: Amalia Osborne
For years, netball was Kiwi music sensation JessB’s north star. Talented and driven, she was determined to become a Silver Fern one day. But that dream was ripped away when she was dropped from her team.
Now, the Power hitmaker is using her voice to help others as a champion for the Mental Health Foundation’s annual awareness week.
“I remember feeling like my life was over,” she recalls.
“When you have your sights set on a goal that you’ve been working towards for a really long time, it becomes your identity and your community. To have the
rug pulled out from under you is quite destabilising.”
From the moment Jess stepped on a netball court at just seven years old, her life was defined by a single-minded drive to become a Silver Fern.
The turning point
So when the Northern Mystics development programme selected her in high school, and then the Central Pulse signed her for her first professional season in 2015, it seemed her dream was within reach.
But it all came to a crashing halt when the team dropped her at the end of her first year, after finishing bottom of the table. Because the other teams in the league were already full, she had no choice but to move home to Auckland.
“It was earth-shattering,” Jess admits.
“I didn’t have a pathway leading in any other direction.”
But as she navigated one of the darkest periods of her life, she discovered her destiny. Jess had always dabbled in writing music, but it had taken a backseat due to the all-consuming demands of netball
Though she kept playing in the regional netball league in the hopes of being selected the following year, she turned to music in her free time.
Finding her sound
She recorded a couple of songs she had written and uploaded them to the music streaming platform SoundCloud. There, they quickly caught the attention of Kiwi hip-hop legend P-Money, who became her mentor. Suddenly, she was recording more music and playing gigs around Auckland.
“I felt I was receiving tangible results for what I was putting in with music and really enjoying it,” she enthuses.
As a queer Kenyan-Kiwi kid growing up in Auckland, Jess says few people looked like her. Hip-hop was where she first saw herself.
“I was drawn to music from a young age because I could see the representation of myself that I wasn’t getting in my day-to-day life,” she says.
While her star quickly rose – in the first two years of her career she was named Best New Zealand Act at the MTV European Music Awards and Best Hip Hop Artist at the New Zealand Music Awards – Jess says the most important thing she has gained is a community of people who have helped her feel comfortable being the truest version of herself.
“I’ve found a place to settle into my most authentic self,” she smiles.
“The people that I’ve met along the way have been integral to my journey of getting closer to myself. “It’s one of the reasons why I feel it’s important to be unapologetically who I am because it took me so long to arrive here.”
The importance of belonging
It is why she connected so much with this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week theme of Belonging Matters. Knowing how finding her place in the world changed her, she feels honoured to show young children the world of possibilities that awaits them.
“I’ve had a couple of mums bring their daughters to things I’ve done,” she smiles.
“It’s quite special because I completely understand how important my representation is to that kid because I didn’t have that myself.”
As she looks back on the highs and the heartbreaks that brought her to this moment, Jess says she “wouldn’t change it”
For every devastating detour, she learned that something even more magical was waiting around the corner.
Jess says, “It’s given me this outlook on life that if the thing you’re doing doesn’t work out the way you want, and you have no idea what’s next, chances are something better is coming.”
Mental Health Awareness Week runs October 12-18. For events, visit mhaw.nz
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