Jake Miller is known as the sensitive rapper. This is after all, a guy whose first song that garnered major radio play (“A Million Lives”) is constructed of lyrics lifted straight from his fan mail, about how his music comforted a fan with cancer and helped another deal with her brother’s death. But the 22-year-old, whose new EP “Rumors” came out yesterday, has recently switched gears putting out a new single, “Dazed and Confused” that’s essentially just an old-fashioned summer party song. “I’ve always been about putting out music with a message behind it, but I also want to make people dance,” Miller tells us. “I just wanted to have a really fun song to put out for the summer.” Drunk in love Bonding on the road “We came up with [the video concept] together and just wanted to do a fun, abstract, weird video,” Miller says. “We had dancing fruits. We had my head floating in a refrigerator.” The video also features fellow teen heartthrob Austin Mahone as well as rapper Travie McCoy, who has a verse in the song. Back to basics If you go:
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The song is about a guy who is either in love or, well, just really drunk. “How do you know if you’re in love? That’s a great question,” Miller says, really thinking about it, perhaps with his own girlfriend in mind. “I think if you look at the person you’re with and you see someone you can spend the rest of your life, you’re best friends with and want to spend every second with, then you’re probably in love. If you’re at a party and you can’t really see straight, that probably means that you drank you much and you’re not in love.”
Miller has spent roughly six years in the spotlight and says his best friends are people he works with, like his drummer, tour manager, DJ and videographers. “I feel like I’ve known them longer than my childhood friends because we travel every single day together [on tour],” he says. One childhood friend that he is still close with is Edgar Esteves, who directed his “Dazed and Confused” music video.
While Miller is all for focusing on fun right now, he has every intention of going back to getting deeper when the tour is over and he heads back in the studio. “You always have to grow as an artist and nothing has stopped with the whole story-telling stuff that I used to do,” he says. “I’m going to write about whatever I’m experiencing at that time in my life. My music is always going to be about me.”
July 9, 7 p.m.
Best Buy Theater
1515 Broadway, 212-930-1950
www.bestbuytheater.com
July 11, 7 p.m.
House of Blues Boston
15 Lansdowne St., 888-693-2583
www.houseofblues.com/boston
July 18, 7 p.m.
Theatre of the Living Arts
334 South St., 215-922-1011
www.lnphilly.com
Jake Miller wipes his heart off his sleeve
Joseph Cultice
