Gregory D Ottley Releases New Gospel Album – Jesus I Love You
From its bright, colorful cover to its song titles, including “Covered With The Blood,” it is obvious that the latest album from California based, Gregory D Ottley, “Jesus I Love You”, which he released December 6, is a serious piece of work that confirms his spirituality. That’s very much the point, the vocalist says.
“It’s obviously music that I am really proud of, and it’s music that I use to identify my deep religious beliefs,” he says. “It’s really self-indulgent and just really straight to the point and in your face, and I kind of wanted the artwork to be like that and the song titles to catch your attention. It’s super gimmicky—I’ll fully admit that—but it’s fun.”
Making the Album required some serious work, of course. While listeners only got their hands on the Artist’s previous studio project, “Covered By The Blood,” in January, The artist reveals that he is already writing songs for the new Album that he felt were more indicative of where he was as an artist.
On The Verge Of Finding His Sound
“I feel like with my last project, I was on the verge of finding my sound,” He says. “Half the album is reflective of that, and the other half of the album reflected my evolution to that point. With this album, I feel like I knew who I was. I knew what I wanted to sound like and the kind of music I played well together.”
To fully realize that, the musicians, on the album, all native Californians, decided to move fast instead of waiting to record, and they also decided to record the ten-track Album themselves. Ottley worked with producer Asani Ali of Asani Ali Music, in Miami Florida on most of the album, but he took the reigns on “Jesus I Love You, “Jump and Dance” and “Stop Running” because he wanted to experiment with a new sound.
The Creative Process
“He kind of hinted at what direction He was pointing and I took the rest and ran with it.,” Ali says. “I mean, we came out of the studio and wrote ‘His Name Is Jesus’ that week. We had really gotten into a groove by the time we went into the studio and recorded, and since then, we’ve almost shed that album from our set list and have really been going into this maybe a little heavier, maybe a little groovier, longer song.”
Heading In The Right Direction
It’s a direction in which the musician was headed since he began feeling out his sound, so once I knew that, the rest was easy,” Ali continued. When Gregory, who is Eljai cousin, first began writing music, he reached out to me and stated his intentions. Eljai and I had been creating music for a long time so it was a natural thing to help his cousin.” Ali Says. “Despite different genres, we work well together. Ali Continued.
Transition
“The transition was basically that instead of R&B, Roots, Rock and Reggae, I now had to think Gospel Music, which by the way is something that I have always liked. I had a few tracks that I had voiced Eljai on which I feel would make a great Gospel Song, so I tried it out on Gregory, who by the way, had a similar voice to Eljai. It’s kind of taken off from there. ” Ali says.
“The space around Ali’s keyboard and his computer is just a graveyard of tracks, – I mean track, after tract, after track. Whatever sound you are looking for, he has it.” Ottley says. “He really pushed me. I had to double down to keep up.”
Ali is a perfectionist and he won’t settle for anything less, he pushes you to the limit and just when you think you can’t go anymore, he pushes you a little bit more.
Gregory D. Ottley
Entertainer
“Jesus I Love You” is the culmination of Ottley’s development as an artist, but it’s also somewhat of a roadmap to where he is going next, now that he has figured out exactly who Gregory D Ottley is,” Ali says.
“I think at every point as an artist Gregory has decided to just sort of indulge himself and sort of ignore what people think, it’s generally worked out for him,” Ali concluded.
“Jesus I Love You” is available for streaming and downloading on all major Digital Platforms.
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