Jordan Ward left south St. Louis for Los Angeles 3 years ago when he was just 18 to propel his dance career. And it worked — he’s since shared the stage with Janet Jackson and Beyonce and toured with Justin Bieber. But the past few years he’s also been exploring another passion: making music.
Ward debuted his first EP, “A Peak at the Summit,” in 2017 and released his first full-length album, “Valley Hopefuls,” two years later. Earlier this month, he dropped his latest EP, “Remain Calm.”
Ward, who aspires for his music to be a mix somewhere between a The Game and Chris Brown — says that every day he was “waking up thinking about being a professional dancer on tour.” By age 20, he made his dream into a reality, traveling across the globe on Justin Bieber’s 2016 world tour.
during his two-year stint rehearsing and performing on Bieber’s Purpose tour that Ward says he rediscovered his own purpose. In his free time between shows, the genre-mixing artist began making music for fun with a producer who also doubled as a dancer.
In a recent interview, Jordan made the following comments… “I wasn’t really worried about music. I just wanted to move to L.A. and be a dancer. [When] I was dancing on tour with Bieber, and had a lot of free time, I was with my friend Rudy. He’s a producer, but he was performing on the tour as well. And just being around him, I started [making music] for fun again. Then, when I realized how much I actually cared about what I was doing, it was like: “I only can do this. I don’t want to half-ass it.”
How did growing up in St. Louis shape your mindset?
Coming from a place like St. Louis, we get first-world privileges — but [it] is one of those places where if you’re a young Black kid, you most likely are born on the side where your opportunities and your experiences are limited. The constraints of society make it harder for you to expand your horizons. I started realizing that the world you wake up in is by design and is designed to protect the interests of a few people. I like to think of the future as a world that’s designed for everyone to thrive from the resources that are unlimited.”
