Jasmine Rae’s last album, Heartbeat, was released in 2015. On 24 July she’ll release her new album, Lion Side, and if ever a reason were needed to preorder the album – apart from the fact that Rae has always released passionate, entertaining country music – it’s her new single, ‘Don’t Do it for the Haters’. This is Rae in spine-tingling full flight, aiming true and finding her mark.
Several years ago there was a copyright lawsuit around her song ‘When I Found You’. Rae was not involved in the legal action but she was the one whose name was most publicly associated with the song; consequently she received a barrage of negative emails, phone calls and social media commentary.
‘It was a really confronting and confusing time for me,’ she says. ‘For a while, I didn’t want to co-write with anyone, didn’t want to put myself out there or be vulnerable and I was questioning everything. People around me actually thought that I would give up.’
However, a short tour with US country artist Granger Smith later that year reminded Rae that she loves what she does, and that the love of music brings people together. Consequently, she’s not doing it for the haters – it’s the love that does it for her, and this is made loud and clear in the song.
There is a maxim in storytelling that one should ‘show, don’t tell’. With this song Rae is showing her work: the craft, the talent and the motivation. It’s a powerful song that can apply to people in all walks of life, for all sorts of reasons – an anthem for the social media age.
Listen on:
Preorder Lion Side: abcmusic.lnk.to/JRLionside
One response to “Single release: ‘Don’t Do it for the Haters’ by Jasmine Rae”
[…] new album, Lion Side, was not going to be like her previous albums was her most recent single, ‘Don’t Do it for the Haters’. A response to an episode in Rae’s recent past when she was the target of some online […]